A lot of water from steam wand?

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Futahaguro
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A lot of water from steam wand?

Post by Futahaguro »

Does anyone else think that I am getting a lot of water from the steam wand? This was after purging it a few times. I do have it pretty wide open, it doesn't seem to sputter with water as much if I do not have it wide open. Since I just cleaned up the water level sensor I do not think it would be too much water in the boiler. I also checked to make sure the sensor was not pulled up out of the boiler.

Thanks. Sorry for the sideways video.

https://vimeo.com/167656337
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Re: A lot of water from steam wand?

Post by Futahaguro »

Just following up on my own post for future reference. I watched the vacuum breaker as the boiler heated up, and as soon as it was hot enough to make it bounce up and down, quite a bit of water spewed out. Enough to make a small puddle on the bottom of the machine and trigger my GFI. It definitely seems like my boiler is too full. I read a bunch of posts about the refill probe so I pulled it out and it was quite clean, but I cleaned it anyway and tried again. It still spewed hot water out of the breaker so I'm not sure what is going on. I pulled the probe again and used it as a dipstick and it seemed like the boiler was filled to the correct level, i.e. the bottom of the probe. I am going to pull the breaker so I can get a good view of the water level and see if the probe is working. I already have the probe pushed all of the way down.
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chas
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Re: A lot of water from steam wand?

Post by chas »

The water level probe is just a metal rod used to measure the point at which electricity is conducted to the grounded sides of the steam boiler through the water. Normally when you buy a replacement probe you get a really long rod that you then cut to the desired length for your required fill point. It is always possible that the previous owner replaced the probe and cut it too short.

For reference I can remove the probe from my machine later and send you a photo and length measurements.

You can see the fitting on the side of the boiler where the steam exits for the steam wand. The water level definitely needs to be at least a little lower than that but obviously always above where the hot water exits. Since those two fittings are only an inch or so apart, the setting is fairly critical for optimum operation.
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Futahaguro
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Re: A lot of water from steam wand?

Post by Futahaguro »

Ah, good to know. I will measure from the exterior and see the theoretical point where my probe is at the moment. I was thinking that I could cut off a small amount of the plastic that is protruding from the top of the probe if it does not seem to be going low enough.

If you are bored enough to remove your probe any measurements would be helpful but your point of the hot water exit and steam exit should be good enough.

As a side note I am also thinking of replacing the vacuum breaker with the style that has a barbed fitting on the top so that I can route the water to the drip tray. I know that you should not get that much water out of it so I will hold off until I get this figured out. I have spent way too much on shipping random parts from various sources:) Yes, I know that there are some places that ship parts for free but not all of the stuff I seem to be ordering are "parts".

Thanks.
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Re: A lot of water from steam wand?

Post by Futahaguro »

Hmm, I just read an old post on here about water from the vacuum breaker and how they checked the solenoids as well as the gicleur restrictor. In my other posts I talked about my boiler not refilling fast enough from empty so I pulled the gicleur restrictor out to check for scale. When i pulled it out it was already almost as loose (wide open) as possible. That lead me to these posts, http://josumacoffee.tumblr.com/post/103 ... 58/gicleur , http://josumacoffee.tumblr.com/post/101 ... ater-debit , which got me thinking about how much water I pulled when testing the flowmeter. I think it flowed pretty quick but I didn't time it.

-I wonder if the gicleur valve being wide open is causing the water to flow in too fast for the refill probe to respond? I would think that as soon as water hit the probe it would instantly stop the flow, however if it is coming in so fast maybe it is filling it too much.

-I also wonder if my bench testing, which does not have a pressure regulator in the line, is supplying more water than what it is designed for so it is filling up too much.

I will check my city line pressure and crank the gicleur restrictor down and see what happens. I will also test the amount of water over 10 seconds to see what I get. According to the users manual flow diagram the gicleur restrictor should have no bearing on the flow of water from the group head but I will test it just to make sure.
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Re: A lot of water from steam wand?

Post by Futahaguro »

So I did a few things and now it is not spraying so much water from the wand, and is not spewing so much water from the vacuum breaker either. I'm not sure which one of these things did it though, but my guess would be the water level probe tweak.

-I put in a water pressure regulator and dropped it down to 50psi. The pump was making more noise than it was at my city pressure, which is at 85psi, however since it is the flow that matters I am thinking that it may not have been the pressure drop that was the issue. I have my test bench set up with two diverters, and two valves, and the regulator so it might be the crazy flow the water is following. I will get that straightened out and then see how it works. Also, the Watts pressure regulator I got seems to suck. I have a pressure gauge after the regulator and it has wavered from 50-75psi, it is supposed to be a 25-75psi regulator. I cannot imagine that it should fluctuate more than 5psi. I know the solenoids can drip with excess pressure but I may go back to city pressure just for the good flow. I read that the pump could actually last longer, but solenoids aren't cheap either so I'll decide after I test it more.

-I already had the water level probe all of the way down so I trimmed about 1/8" of the plastic off of the top so I could drop it down that much more. I just used a utility knife and cut it down, very easy to do.

-I tightened the gicleur valve all of the way down and then backed it off 1/2 turn. I haven't done any boiler fill time comparisons though.
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Re: A lot of water from steam wand?

Post by Futahaguro »

Long story short, I am finally using the machine now, drawing water from a container, and the steam is fine. I'm not sure if it was the lowering of the water level probe, or not being hooked up to an 85 PSI line, but it is nice and dry once it is purged. I also do not have a bunch of water squirting from the vacuum breaker.
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