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Kempy's e61 of yuck.


kempy

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Here's my attempt at MS Paint. *cough*

 

The water you drink that's used to make an espresso isnt actually from the boiler, it comes from a cold feed that in supplied via the injector tube.

It's mixed in a heat exchanger tube which is inside the boiler, the water from the heat exchanger sits at about 90-96 DegC normally, the boiler is around~120DegC ( differs to machine and setup) but its hot enough to produce 1 bar pressure and supplies the steam for foaming milk etc, so all the heavy elements tend to get left behind in the tank.

 

The water inside the heat exchanger tube forms a natural convection current and flows through the group head (Solid shiny bit bit on the front of the machine that the coffee handle goes into to extract espresso) and as it cools it recirculates back through the underneath pipework and into the bottom of the heat exchanger, and repeat...

 

My pet hate is when Barista's have only boiler water for Tea/Long Blacks etc, ( some machines have a separate supply just for this) as it can be pretty average water at times and is so hot it burns coffee/tea making it bitter.

 

qjefn222.u4t.jpg

 

One of the real tricks is getting this thermal siphon speed right and keeping the group head temperature spot on. Something that's fairly uncommon and utilized on this machine is that it has Temperature bias/flow adjustments on each group head circuit, you can see both of them at the top of the boiler-> on the larger curved pipes (orange section) going into the back of the group head.

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top notch ms paint kempy, i really need to get mine open and get a handle on what does what. I need to check but I believe my group head is very similar to e61 but has something auto or somesuch - theres a lot of misinformation online though so could be all crap

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Gave the boiler a quick bead blast at lunch time, came up really nice and really easily too.

 

0zfw4y1w.1yd.jpg

 

In font are the cold water Injectors I mentioned in a previous post

 

Inside the boiler is fairly mint too.

 

usjm2ddf.gis.jpg

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Stripping down the Group Heads while I'm finishing off the boiler and pipe cleanup.

 

By far it's the most complicated part of the machine and a lot more needs to be done than people realise.

 

Most tend to think that servicing the group head is replacing the shower screen and head seal with new ones, like those on the bottom right of the picture.

It it's done properly then all of the components on the bottom half of the pic. need replacing along with a couple more seals I haven't stripped out yet, sometimes springs need replacing as well and occasionally the jet housing (tall bit between the 2 springs).

All this needs a good soak in hot cleaner and then I'll start rebuilding the group heads.

 

ed1hqsnl.3ka.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...

Chassis back from the powder coater, they did an OK job, nothing like the quality of my Quad Bike bars though.

 

ndqntueu.fsk.jpg

 

  Electrics cleaned up and going in

 

m4vkwuxq.43z.jpg

 

It's worth mentioning that a fairly regular item to get missed out on cheaper rebuilds is the pressure-stat (the grey black device in the middle) which is responsible for turning the water heater element on/off 100's of times a day, often for years on end,

The only thing separating the steam pressure from the electrics is a thin rubber diaphragm which needs replacing every 12-24 months ideally, on tops of that the contacts wear out and can stick closed if not serviced.

This one is well worn

 

lbcz0sn4.hc3.jpg

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