On and off......On and off....

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zoey

On and off......On and off....

Post by zoey »

I find myself turning my machine on and off about 10 times a day as I don't leave it turned on all day long.

Will this cause any harm to the machine due to heat cycling?

Is it bad or will it shorten the lifespan of my machine to leave it on all the time?
JohnB

Post by JohnB »

Turning it off & on all day long will definitely accelerate wear. If you are using it throughout the day just leave it on. Turn off the steam boiler if you aren't going to be making milk drinks for 4-5 hours.
zoey

Post by zoey »

In what way will it accelerate wear?
JohnB

Post by JohnB »

Repeated heated & cooling cycles. If you are using it that much why would you keep shutting it down? Then you have to wait for the entire machine to get back up to temp or cheat by running multiple warming flushes (more wear). Not to mention what your habit is doing to your electric bill. Its got to suck up much more juice when you repeatedly bring the boilers up from cold then it does to maintain a hot boiler.
zoey

Post by zoey »

To save electricity and I don't like the constant heat on the cabinets.

Honestly, I've been lazy. I turn the machine on: wait for the lights to show its up to temp, run 2 flushes through the PF into a cappa cup to heat it up (and then put the PF in the cappa cup for more heat), and pull my shots. I don't wait for 30+ minutes. I know, I know, it's bad form.

Just for giggles, I called Chris's and talked to a tech (not that I don't believe you John, just to confirm). He stated the same thing:

A.) It takes more energy to heat it up than it does to leave it turned on.

B.) The heating/cooling cycles causes expansion and contraction of the metal parts, which increases wear/decreases life expectancy.

Maybe a towel over the top of the machine will help eliminate some of the heat on the cabinets (but then again, maybe the retained heat will cause ill effects as well...).
JohnB

Post by JohnB »

[quote="zoey
Just for giggles, I called Chris's and talked to a tech (not that I don't believe you John, just to confirm). He stated the same thing:

A.) It takes more energy to heat it up than it does to leave it turned on.

B.) The heating/cooling cycles causes expansion and contraction of the metal parts, which increases wear/decreases life expectancy.

Maybe a towel over the top of the machine will help eliminate some of the heat on the cabinets (but then again, maybe the retained heat will cause ill effects as well...).[/quote]

No problem, the Internet is loaded with bad advice so its a good idea to confirm what you read. The towel over the cups should help reduce the heat in your cabinets. Another option is to pick up a sheet of the foil covered heat insulation they sell to protect saddlebags from muffler damage. Its self adhesive & you could place a sheet in the recess under your cabinet where no one would see it. Might help reflect a large amount of that heat away from the inside of the cupboard.
zoey

Post by zoey »

I've been using a towel today and it works pretty well. Doesn't look very good though. I've got some heat shield for my race bike that I might try.
Richard

Post by Richard »

zoey wrote:To save electricity and I don't like the constant heat on the cabinets.
The electricity is likely less significant than one might think. See the S1 Power Analysis page.
zoey

Post by zoey »

That's pretty interesting. I thought it would use a lot more electricity than that. Running the group head only, as I do, costs significantly less than watching tv for just a few hours/day.
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PBL
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Heat heat heat

Post by PBL »

I usually leave the machine on all day when I am home and when I first got it I left it on for many days straight. Yes I found the inside of the cupboard to be getting quite warm. Just turing off the steam boiler is sufficient to cut down the heat in the cabinets above the machine. With the group head only on the cabinets are warmed ever so slightly, the cups are a bit cooler and the consumption goes way down. No need for the towel or heat shield though a heat shield on the bottom of the cupboard sounds like a good idea.
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chas
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Post by chas »

Richard wrote: The electricity is likely less significant than one might think. See the S1 Power Analysis page.
I did that original analysis by measuring the power of each combination of heaters, fans, and the pump then did some time measurements to estimate duty cycles for all the combinations and calculated it all out to come up with about $9.00 a month to run it 24x7.

Recently I purchased a Kill-a-Watt device which directly measures the KW-Hrs. Now-a-days I am running the V2 for 13 hours a day and the cost of electricity has jumped from 8.4 cents/Kw-Hr to 10 cents. I calculate that this is costing me $8.88 per month based on the energy usage I see on the Kill-a-Watt device

If I were running the V2 24x7 it would be more but not 2x since it would be idle for the remaining 11 hours. Maybe $12/month???

BTW: The Kill-a-Watt device is only rated at 15A but it works fine with the V2. It has a feature where it beeps if the current exceeds 18A. The only time that happens is when both boilers are on at the same time. So you easily can hear how often both boilers are on and also for how short a duration this happens.
Chas
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Richard

Post by Richard »

chas wrote:. . . the cost of electricity has jumped from 8.4 cents/Kw-Hr to 10 cents.
We should all be so fortunate. Rates here jumped nearly two years go from $0.10 to around $0.17.
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