The S1 Cafe - Helping Your Espresso Dreams Become Reality

Last night after I turned my machine on it heated up like normal. About the time the boiler came to operating temperature, the entire machine turned off. No stby light or anything. I thought I had tripped the breaker but after checking it and trying a different outlet, I confirmed the machine had power to it. I have the cover off and verified that the power is making it into the initial white plastic power block in the rear of the machine. However, no lights come on, and of course the machine does nothing. I thought there would be a fuse somewhere, but the fuse location on the bottom of the VII's must not be present on the V1s. I couldn't locate a fuse anywhere.

A side note, I just got this machine up and running after it setting for some long time in somebody's storage. I have noticed that the steam boiler heats up really hot before it turns off. Like 1.65 bar or so. Seems too high, and I haven't read how to change that yet. Is it possible there is some thermal fuse that would have blown? Although if the hot boiler was the culprit, I wouldn't expect the power to the entire machine to be cut.

I'm here looking for ideas from the amazing S1 support community. Any ideas?
Thanks,

I had one of the very first S1s and I thought that it did have a main power fuse though it appeared to be tacked on as an after thought. It is in one of those black plastic in-line fuse holders just on the inside of the frame from where the AC power cord comes through. Facing the back that would be the lower right corner.

If not or if you find it and that fuse is good, there is power fuse on the controller board. If you don't already have a copy of the User's Manual, download it here: s1v1/S1Pix/S1OwnersManual.pdf, then look at diagram 5.2 for location of the 5A fuse. If this is blown the controller board will not turn on or consequently turn on the machine.

Okay, I didn't have that manual, thanks for the link! I see what you are referring to, with the 5A fuse. I will check that when I get home. I will also look for the inline fuse, although I would be surprised if I missed that. Yay, I get to go home and tear apart my S1 even further! By the time I get done I should know this machine through and through. I will report back what the problem turns out to be.

Several folks have had that in-line 20A fuse blow including myself. In my case it's because I was fooling around inside the machine with the power on and shorted something out. (Don't do that!)

However, if your case turns out to be the 5A fuse you may be the first. Of all the things I've seen go wrong with these machines, the controller board has been extremely robust. So if instead you've actually fried the controller board, you might also be the first.

Since you did tear the machine apart, it might also be what happened to me. A year ago, I had to replace the group boiler element, and went about beating on the retaining ring on the back of the boiler trying to open it (before resorting to penetrating oil which worked). My banging dislodged a connection on the board, which I found by accident when I went looking for the control board fuse. So make sure your connections are seated when you check the fuse.

Here is an update. I spent the weekend in Phoenix, so I was unable to spend much time on it, but so far all my troubleshooting has returned nothing. Here's some pics.

Can't find any inline fuse.
And here's the computer. If I put a tester's ground to the main ground on the machine, I have ~122V to every blade coming into this computer. Seems odd. Also, the fuse is not blown. I'm a little blank right now what it might be. Like I say, this has worked fine, and this only happened the last time I was heating up the boiler, which goes pretty hot, and about the time it should have shut off, the whole machine went dead.

Strange. I am grasping at straws here but you see that ribbon cable that attaches to the controller board in your bottom photo? Have you checked that the other end going to the front panel board hasn't come loose?

If the problem is in with power to the front panel none of the LEDs would light nor would the buttons respond to presses which would also cause the symptoms you are seeing.

I did check that ribbon cable and it was a tad loose, but I thought that it likely happened when I took the gemini off. However, I will likely have some more time to mess with it tonight.

Well. I found out what was causing the total loss of power on the S1. I did and I didn't. Let me explain. Last night late I was tinkering on it again, and pulling the element wires loose and checking the voltages and noticed that the machine was only showing 31v input. Odd. I had checked this numerous times before and it was always ~120v. So now I can see a problem, and I traced it back to a cheap adapter the previous owner had included which switched the 20A plug to a 15A one. I removed the adapter and found a cord with a 20A plug (one leg vertical, one leg horizontal) and low and behold, the machine stby light came on, and testing further, everything worked like before. So it was the cheap adapter. On a close inspection, the adapter showed signs of melting, the obvious culprit. I still don't understand why I would have been seeing 120v across the power leads and the machine ground before. I checked it so many times in so many different places that I know I am not mistaken on that point. But suddenly, for no reason I am aware of, the input voltage dropped to a strange 31v, and that indicated the source of the problem. I am embarrassed by the simplicity of the problem, but the joy of getting the S1 operational again completely eclipses my shame.

Problem.

Since you saw some voltage on your machine, the adapter didn't completely fry. It just turned into a high resistance. In this case when the machine is on but the boilers are off you will see pretty much a normal AC voltage inside the machine because very little current is being drawn. But if the boilers try to turn on then the voltage will drop to a low value since at that point most of the voltage is getting dropped across the adapter which heats up and melts.

It's a good thing you discovered the problem before that adapter went up in flames. Glad you figured it out.

That would make sense. Thanks for the input!