Expobar office control magic smoke no longer working any advice?

[Micko179]

Nice job Hoggy! Lucky it was only that solenoid, I have the older model Office control with the same control panel you showed(touchpad not buttons) & the plastic shattered whilst re-assembling it. Mine has several issues, & have mostly been advised to shoot the "parts cannon" at it(which like yourself, I simply can't afford)

[dischucker]

Nice work. Agree it's satisfying to do yourself. I recently plumbed in my Expobar to my filtered water line that runs from sink to fridge. That was fun and now I never have to fill the water tank. Total cost $35.

[Hoggy42]

This was an interesting process and bought about due to not being able to afford a new one I'll start putting a little fund aside as I've no idea how much more life is in this old machine built in 2008. It has to be said it's incredibly satisfying to repair anything yourself and have it bought back into service. All up I've invested $182 and while I probably didn't need the pump the machine seems to have more pressure which is of no real surprise seeing as the pump had a build date of 2007 it's fair to say it's made it's fair share of coffee in the last 11 years.

[Dimal]

Pretty darn good though mate...

Mal.

[Hoggy42]

Let me just say that 3D printing is a massive learning curve everytime I've setup to print anything it's been a process of try fail learn repeat. Here are the prototypes and fails for this control panel (Pic1) Then finally the finished part while this is fully functional it doesn't have the best finish so I'm still working on a front skin which will be bonded to the front once complete, The last picture is my present attempt.

[Jackster]

Plastic printers are awesome. Looking forward to seeing the results on this

[Hoggy42]

Here are a few other steps and photos of the job. I'll try to keep it short.

The old 3 way Valve and the new Solenoid and valve fitted. Then the wasted time trying to print new parts for the front panel due to the brittle plastic. .

I'm in the process of printing a new front panel now I'll put up some photos once done.

[Hoggy42]

Glad you are persisting, that’s the great thing about this style of machine most things can be easily traced and repaired at a reasonable price.

Thanks I'm glad it has turned out to be not so bad it's a big learning curve when you know very little about these things but there are very few parts and quite simple ones at that. I remeber looing at my old Sunbeam EM6910 when it broke down and not having any idea what to look at.

[Jackster]

164 is a fairly good effort but you have a long way to go to catch Joyce at 3,687. Need more yeses.

I didn't know how to say that politely.

[Hoggy42]

164 is a fairly good effort but you have a long way to go to catch Joyce at 3,687. Need more yeses.

I've no intention of writing a novel.

[Lyrebird]

Next up trying to find the part it was no problem to find online so long as you were happy to sit back and wait for it. However it's been a week so I'm trying to find it local visiting a few Espresso repair places on the Gold Coast with no joy then I called the place in

Woolloongabba that Yelta had mentioned I would have driven up to see them if they had the part but they didn't (Turned out they did) anyway they put me onto another Gold Coast business Coffee Roasters Australia, Not too far from me so I drove down there with the parts in hand and got a bit of an education from the guys there turns out the old YB09 Solenoid was very old and not used anymore as it didn't have an earth lead and that's not the done thing on 240volt components so they hooked me up with the new ZB09 a replacement 3 way valve.

164 is a fairly good effort but you have a long way to go to catch Joyce at 3,687. Need more yeses.

[Fuelledbycoffee]

Glad you are persisting, that’s the great thing about this style of machine most things can be easily traced and repaired at a reasonable price.

[Hoggy42]

Well I'm pleased to say there is a happy ending to this story after a lot of frustration.

I arrived at a point where I couldn't afford to buy a new or even used machine with my present budget at home having recently changed job's. So looking at the machine I figured I had nothing to lose and everything to gain and having already sunk $85 into a pump I probably didn't need and couldn't return. I tore into the machine looking for a sign of the problem when I found a wire connector that looked a bit burnt leading to the group head solenoid.


By this stage the machine looked like this.


Next up trying to find the part it was no problem to find online so long as you were happy to sit back and wait for it. However it's been a week so I'm trying to find it local visiting a few Espresso repair places on the Gold Coast with no joy then I called the place in

Woolloongabba that Yelta had mentioned I would have driven up to see them if they had the part but they didn't (Turned out they did) anyway they put me onto another Gold Coast business Coffee Roasters Australia, Not too far from me so I drove down there with the parts in hand and got a bit of an education from the guys there turns out the old YB09 Solenoid was very old and not used anymore as it didn't have an earth lead and that's not the done thing on 240volt components so they hooked me up with the new ZB09 a replacement 3 way valve. Anyway up till 1 am last night getting it back together.

While I had it apart I had a couple of other things to take care of. Some time back the plastic which holds the control panel had busted now I was gifted a new front part by a fellow Coffeesnob and hadn't done anything with it. Still needed the back part which I decided to make using my 3D printer. Now I also went to a lot of effort to use the new front panel given to me which was a little different to my original I had made new extensions to get the buttons working which were perfect sadly the fascia panel was so brittle the screws going in shattered it.

More to come.

[Hoggy42]

So long as your machine doesn't resemble a pile of neglected rubbish, it would definitely be worth having your machine checked out, at the very least, then a quote for repair provided. Once you have that, you will be in the best position to make the right decision for you...

Mal.

I guess that's the point it doesn't resemble a pile of neglected rubbish but it does have some age on it built in 2008 so it has some wear and tear I know it's about $1800ish for the same machine new. With that said it's possible to get something new from around $800-1200 that will do the same job. It's at that point where spending $400-500 on it is questionable.

Thanks

[Dimal]

I know all jobs are going to be different but I'm unsure if it's worth putting anymore into it.

So long as your machine doesn't resemble a pile of neglected rubbish, it would definitely be worth having your machine checked out, at the very least, then a quote for repair provided. Once you have that, you will be in the best position to make the right decision for you...

Mal.