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BES860 solenoid always energised

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  • BES860 solenoid always energised

    My Breville BES860 suddenly began diverting all water to the hot water/steamer, and never anything to the group head, so I figured a solenoid had given out. Indeed it had. I replaced the entire assembly, only to discover the reason the original solenoid (the 3 way diverter) gave out was because it obviously overheated due to the machine energising the solenoid all the time. Even with the machine turned off (i.e. as soon as I plug in the machine, power button on the machine not having been pressed) the solenoid will engage and rapidly heat up. All water is now, of course, being diverted into the group head no matter what function is selected.

    My thoughts are that the solenoid may have shorted out and destroyed something on the main PCB. Has anyone else experienced this before? As a hack I'm thinking of just installing a switch so that I can manually engage the 3-way diverter before pressing the 1 or 2 cup button, and then switching it off once a cup is poured. I don't really want to spend another $200 on a replacement PCB (which may of may not fix the problem), and similarly don't want to throw out an otherwise perfectly good machine.

    Any thoughts?

    Thanks,
    David

  • #2
    That's pretty much what's happened, there's a triac on the mainboard which handles powering the solenoid. The triac usually fails due to a problem with the solenoid, then when you replace the solenoid it'll be energised all the time due to the failed triac.

    It's fairly easy to spot the offending part, just follow the wire from the solenoid to the board, the triac will be directly feeding the wire. I can't remember what triac it uses, I think it's a somewhat unusual type. I've always just used salvaged triacs from other boards on the occasions I've had to change them.

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    • #3
      Fantastic - thanks so much! I had a quick look on the PCB earlier, expecting to find a relay which controlled the solenoids. Of course I should have been expecting a triac, given the heat-sink mounted triac beneath the water tank, which I assume is for the boiler.

      I'll see what I find and report back in due course. Thank again!

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      • #4
        I've pulled it out and the markings are "131-6 BJ 118", so I believe it's a BT131-600. I have one (20) on order from RS Components, so will see how it goes. The missus will definitely be happy to have it back in operation. We've had to fall back to our Delonghi Magnifica, which requires about 3 shots to get anything that tastes remotely like coffee

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        • #5
          The replacement triac arrived today, and 30 minutes later the machine is as good as new. Happy wife, happy life!

          Thanks again noidle22, if not for your assistance I'd probably be up for a new machine.

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          • #6
            I love these component board repairs. Good on you for fixing this.

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            • #7
              I've got he same problem with my Barista Express and replaced the BT131-600 triac as above. Unfortunately, no improvement... I've measured the voltage, the solenoid is 30V in idle, 60V when it doesn't work anymore for the next shot. (Is 30V even normal for being in idle? Seems like a lot...)

              Any idea what's going wrong on the PCB? It's hard so measure anything on the board since it covered in a protective lacquer...

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