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New to Me V2 Issues

Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2017 11:48 am
by kyroadrunner
Hey all! I recently purchased a 3 year old v2 on ebay. I fired it up for the first time last night and noticed a couple of problems. First of all, when purging the steam wand there is a lot of water that comes out. Water continues to come out as the valve is opened and the steam remains very wet. When purging steam I noticed that there are little white "flakes" in the water. They almost look like small paint chips. I'll attach a picture below. I don't know if the problem is scale build up or something else. The second issue I noticed is water from the hot water dispenser is blue-ish and seems to have a sweet smell to it. I cycled a lot of water from the dispenser and saw the color change from more blue to white. I'm attaching a picture of the water from dispenser.

The seller of the machine had is serviced from an espresso machine service center in LA. I'm wondering if any or all of the issues are related to any service that might have been performed. Any help or insight any of you could give me would be much appreciated.

Re: New to Me V2 Issues

Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2017 4:05 pm
by kyroadrunner
I've been reading about the water in the steam wand. It seems it could be too much water pressure or the water fill probe needs to be lowered.

Re: New to Me V2 Issues

Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2017 7:35 am
by Ed
Congrats on your new/used machine! Some thoughts:

- My first thought is that you're looking at a scale issue
- Attempt to flush: Try warming up the steam boiler fully then purge as much as possible from the hot water tap. This will force it to refill and bring in fresh water. See if there is any improvement visually in the water that comes out. Repeat as necessary.
- if the steam boiler has a drain plug underneath, you can check to see if it's blocked which indicates a certain amount of scale buildup. I would suggest searching these forums for more information on this task and how to clear the drain.

Hopefully you are able to simply flush the boiler clean enough to use, and that you don't have a similar issue on the brew boiler side.

Hope this helps, good luck!

Ed

Sent from my SM-N910W8 using Tapatalk


Re: New to Me V2 Issues

Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2017 8:36 am
by chas
The white is mineral deposits suspended in the water. The blue is from copper etched from the boilers by the chemical used to descale the boilers. Obviously someone did a poor job descaling before you purchased the device and did not properly flush out all the chemicals or the minerals.

As mentioned previous keep flushing water through via the steam wand and hot water tap until the problem goes away.

Re: New to Me V2 Issues

Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2017 9:29 pm
by kyroadrunner
Thank you both so much! I'll keep at it.

Re: New to Me V2 Issues

Posted: Mon Aug 28, 2017 12:28 pm
by AndyPanda
If you are mechanically inclined, it is really pretty easy to open the machine, remove a fitting on top of the steam boiler (when it's cool of course) and then you can manually drain all the water from the boiler. Just purging the boiler under steam pressure doesn't get all the water and descaler out, though it gets better if you do it over and over. I found that way too tedious and it's much easier, IMO, to just open it up and drain it --- in fact I like to manually drain it - then fill it with fresh water and shake it up and drain it again - repeat a few times and then fill it and put it back together.

Re: New to Me V2 Issues

Posted: Sat Sep 02, 2017 9:04 pm
by kyroadrunner
I was able to drain the steam boiler. There was just a little residual mineral material that I was able to get ride. Steam and hot water look MUCH better! I do have another question. I programmed the volumetric single and double buttons according the manual. However, while trying to dial in my shots, every shot pulls the same regardless of my grind adjustments. I'm using a timer programmed for 27 seconds and almost without fail, the pump will turn off with 9 seconds left on my timer. I am starting the timer when the pump kicks on, after the pre infusion. I am using a vario w with ceramic burrs calibrated according baratza's instructions. I have made what I feel are major reductions in grind size yet the shots pull the same. One other thing I've noticed is the divot in the puck from the hex bolt, and the shower screens have quite a bit of coffee on them after every shot. I'm trying to learn this machine and I appreciate all of your help and guidance!

Re: New to Me V2 Issues

Posted: Sat Sep 02, 2017 11:01 pm
by AndyPanda
I only have experience with the vibe pump model - and on mine the volume setting needs to be done with tamped coffee in the basket as it pours a completely different volume when there isn't any resistance.

I can't make any sense of your problem - maybe I mis-read what you said but it seems you are saying that whether you grind fine or coarse you get the same flow either way. Is that what you are saying? Let me clarify -- when I say flow, I actually mean rate of flow .... i.e. 2 oz in 25 seconds. So are you saying that whether you grind fine or coarse you get the same volume of liquid in the same amount of time?

The divot in the coffee puck from the bolt isn't really a big worry and doesn't affect much --- I ground the head of the bolt thinner just because I like to tinker ... but it doesn't really make a difference either way. But most people have the best luck when they use less coffee in the basket so the coffee doesn't touch the screen or the bolt at all. Since you say you have a lot of coffee on the screen, you are probably dosing your basket too full and that may explain why it pours the same regardless of grind (packed in so tight it is restricted).

I set my single shot button to give me a small amount of liquid and I use that button to do my warming flushes. Then I set the double shot button for much more volume than I expect to really need and I manually stop the shot at about 30 seconds from the start. That is including preinfusion time - so if I preinfuse for 15 seconds then I would only go another 15 seconds with the pump. And I like 1.5 to 1 or 2 to 1 --- so I usually dose my basket around 14 grams of coffee and try to get 28 grams or less of espresso in 30 seconds. (that is only half of a shot glass - so it always seems like it isn't very much but that is a proper 2 to 1 ratio).

Re: New to Me V2 Issues

Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2017 5:58 pm
by kyroadrunner
Thanks for the reply Andy. I did set the volumetric settings with tamped coffee. I think I've got the right amount of water programmed. Yes, the flow rate does not seem to change based on adjustments made to coffee particle size. I am posting a video of the water flowing from the shower screens for analysis. I think I might have an issue with the pump or something.

https://vimeo.com/232396213

Re: New to Me V2 Issues

Posted: Thu Sep 14, 2017 12:28 am
by Frisco
Your pump pressure could drop slightly but the pump seems to be working fine. How about a video of a shot being pulled?