Water spout solenoid doesn't stop

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wgaggl

Water spout solenoid doesn't stop

Post by wgaggl »

I thought I post my observation in this brand new forum thread, eventhough I'm 9 months down the road with my S1 (so it's not really early) and it's not a failure, just a "glitch" (hope it's not getting worse):

Once in a while after turning on the ot water it starts flowing, but pressing the button again to stop it, works with quite some delay (one time 6 seconds later!), if I press it again during that time, it turns it off and on again after some delay, so I believe it's registering the button press, but doesn't execute the command immediately for any reason.
A couple of days ago it happend, that it didn't turn off at all, just kept emptying the steam boiler. After refilling it and building up some pressure it just kept going, so it never turn the valve off. Even turning the machine off (to standby) didn't help. After pressing some of the brewing buttons it suddenly reset itself and continued normal operation. I've no clue what happened or if it will repeat itself. The "few-seconds delay thing" has happened several times over the time I have my S1.

Anyone else have some similar experiences?

Wolfgang
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chas
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Post by chas »

Sounds like you're going to find out how much fun it is to replace the control board. Let us know what Chris' the tech has to say about this.

Three months left on the warranty - good time to get a new board!
Chas
LM GS/3 & LaSpaziale Dream v 1.25 (US 120V)
Mazzer Kony E, Customized Rocky
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RK

water valve not shutting off

Post by RK »

I had this same thing happen today Sat. 0ct. 3rd I've had the S1 for 3 days.
It worked flawlessly untill today. I pulled some water from the water tap and when I pressed the button it did not stop. I had to turn the boiler off so it would not keep refilling. I tried it again later and this time when I pushed the button to stop it, I heard it click but it still did not stop. I tried it again a third time and it did stop but kept leaking water. Sounds like a two fold problem
Mabe a control board or faulty switch and also a particle caught in the solonoid valve?
any thoughts.
RK
hlsheppard

Post by hlsheppard »

Hi Ron -

You probably don't remember me, but I was an "early adopter" of one of your roasting drums (never quite "got the hang of it," though :oops: )

I'm not sure if you got the machine new from Chris - but even if you didn't; I would be talking to him about a fix. Definitely sounds to me like something stuck in the solenoid.

YIKES!
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chas
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Re: water valve not shutting off

Post by chas »

RK wrote:I had this same thing happen today Sat. 0ct. 3rd I've had the S1 for 3 days.
It worked flawlessly untill today. I pulled some water from the water tap and when I pressed the button it did not stop. I had to turn the boiler off so it would not keep refilling. I tried it again later and this time when I pushed the button to stop it, I heard it click but it still did not stop. I tried it again a third time and it did stop but kept leaking water. Sounds like a two fold problem
Mabe a control board or faulty switch and also a particle caught in the solonoid valve?
any thoughts.
RK
I asked Chris about this a while back after several people had this happen. LaSpaz claims it is metal shavings in the valve causing by poor qualilty control at one of their vendors. Since LaSpaz is aware of this issue you'd think they'd be doing some testing and flushing of these units before and after assembly so that this problem does not reach the end user.

When described in previous postings it sounded to me like there might be more going on, possibly a control board issue as well. However, I think everyone has resolved this issue just by getting the metal shavings out of the valve.
Chas
LM GS/3 & LaSpaziale Dream v 1.25 (US 120V)
Mazzer Kony E, Customized Rocky
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wgaggl

Post by wgaggl »

I'm sure in my case it's not related to metal shavings, because the solenoid is not turning off (means it stays powered on). This didn't happen for a while on my machine and I can't reproduce it consistently.
What I noticed: Turning the machine to standby doesn't help, only unlugging it. But in the few instances this happend, pressing one of the brew buttons helped to 'reset' the machine.
In my case (and from the few occurences I can't really say for sure) I observed that happened when the machine was busy with several other tasks (turning on heating elements, turning the pump on, and boiler inlet valve, ...).
I never had that wen I just drained a small amout of hot water (so it didn't immediately engage the heating element or turn on the pump to refill). Seems like a bug in the contoller firmware to me.

Wolfgang
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chas
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Post by chas »

The only thing this reminds me of on my machne has been far more innocuous so far. I have only seen this maybe 3-4 times in almost two years but the trigger is the same everytime.

If I pull a fair amount of hot water. Perhaps if I am fixing two Americanos and I fill the two cups with hot water back to back, the pump runs for quite a while to refill the boiler as if water can be drained from the boiler much faster than it can be refilled. If I walk away and come back later the S1 will be in Standby and I have to unplug the S1 and plug it back it to get it to come on again.
Chas
LM GS/3 & LaSpaziale Dream v 1.25 (US 120V)
Mazzer Kony E, Customized Rocky
Hottop P/B
wgaggl

Post by wgaggl »

Chas,
I'm pretty sure that you can drain water from the steamboiler much faster than refill it.

That behavior you describe is different but indeed the trigger seems similar, I also had to pull a fair amount of water (like for a large cup of tea).

Wolfgang
RK

water spout not shuttinlg off

Post by RK »

I took my solonoid apart and found a piece of brass shaving that was left in during the maching operation. I remove it and reassembled the slolonoid valve and all has been well since then.
RK
really late response to Howard Sheppards reply. I do remember you Howard, As I recall you were trying to roast on a balcolny in windy Chicago. got flustrated and gave it up.
Sorry, we could have resoved the issue I'm sure.
Cheers
RK
new issue for me but as I see not for others, Pressure will not shut off and kicks in the releive valve with pops and steam. I have resolve it from time to time by unplugging it and let it sit overnight and plugged back in but it is only a bandaid as I beleive it is in the wiring to the probe, or heater. I also had a problem with the boiler not refilling after removing the probe and putting it back in it is now working.
Connections I beleive
RK.
eelriverrose

More Metal shavings found

Post by eelriverrose »

My S1 had the same problem a few weeks after I purchased it. Chris at Chris Coffee gamely answered my anguished email late Saturday night and on Sunday morning talked my husband through the process of pulling apart the solenoid and locating the offending little ring of metal. We've had no such problem since. I pity the folks who haven't bought their S1s from Chris!

Susan
RK

metal in solenoid valve

Post by RK »

Yes I had the same problem but remembered reading about on this forum. I took mine apart and found a sliver of brass from the machining process.
Not hard to do and it did fix the problem.
RK
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Re: metal in solenoid valve

Post by admin »

Yes I had the same problem but remembered reading about on this forum. I took mine apart and found a sliver of brass from the machining process.
Not hard to do and it did fix the problem.
RK
I haven't heard new reports of this for a while. Perhaps LaSpaziale fixed it.

BTW: Did anyone that performed this procedure on their S1 take any photos? This is about the only procedure that a number of folks have had to do that is not pictorially documented on the S1 website.
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wgaggl

Post by wgaggl »

Eventhough my (original) S1 is out of warranty by now (so technically I'm in the wrong forum category) I continue posting to tis thread:

I thought the problem I described originally in this thread was under control now using a workaround: By pushing one of the brewing buttons the hot water stopped running.

Note: There's a lot of talk about metal shavings, that's a completely different problem. It just doesn't turn off at all (just like I described in the original posting).

Today I could not stop it. After pressing the hot water button it just emptied the complete steam boiler (I'm glad the tray is big enough), and after it refilled and started building up pressure it continued! Usually if you don't turn it off it stops on its own once the boiler is empty, but today nothing helped, not even putting it in standby. Only after physically disconnecting the power and turning it back on it reset.

Please, anyone living with that problem can you comment on it?

Thanks,

Wolfgang
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