The S1 Cafe - Helping Your Espresso Dreams Become Reality

**EDIT** So I needed to change the subject because I am annnoyed at Spaziale, probably not Gicar. A person can buy a popular Gicar flowmeter that can be rebuilt for $71 on Cafeparts.com but us Vivaldi folks need to buy the $150 plastic topped version which cannot be rebuilt. I have been told that you cannot use the $71 version because it wants 12V, and our version wants 24V. I would put the plastic top back on and buy a new o-ring but the plastic top is warped so I am not going to put it back together after buying a new o-ring only to have it pop out again. I have an e-mail out to Gicar to confirm that I cannot use a metal top version in place of our version.**

So I pressure tested my machine and, after realizing I didn't tighten the tube from the pump to the solenoid:), it seemed to hold pressure. However, there was a small leak from the flowmeter so I took the whole thing apart to see what the issue was. I am having a similar issue to a different post about a cracked flowmeter top, except mine was in a different location - at the front hex bolt. I have now read that I can indeed pull the top off, I didn't want to try to hard and break it, but I do not want to put a cracked top back on.

-Has anyone tried to install the much cheaper all metal version of the Gicar flowmeter to their machine? http://www.cafeparts.com/productDetail1 ... emID=50797
-Has anyone tried to put the replaceable metal top onto their current flowmeter? I am not going to spend $44 for a top when I can buy the entire thing for $70, just curious. https://www.espressoparts.com/gicar-thr ... wmeter-lid

As a side note, my 90 degree elbow was attached by Hercules! They must have used a TON of pipe dope/thread locker on there because it was a bear to take off. I didn't break anything though. For anyone wondering I used two adjustable wrenches to hold the body and the elbow so I could loosen it.

Rudy at Cafeparts.com, where I like to order parts, replied back to me and said that the La Spaziale flowmeter runs on 24V DC. He said that none of the other flowmeters they carry use 24V DC so I guess we are stuck with the double priced version:(

So here is some more info from a tech at Chris' Coffee. He said that La Spaziale used to use all metal flowmeters and then switched to the plastic topped version, I would imagine to some bean counters suggestion. I noticed that they had all metal versions of ours when I saw the Clive Coffee video of when they visited the La Spaziale factory:) There was a shot of a Vivadi/LUCCA A53 being built and I noticed an all metal flowmeter. I also contacted Clive Coffee to see if I could get an all metal version, which I probably could have, but he actually came back with a cheaper suggestion which I am not sure if I want to be a test mule for $50. His suggestion was to use the replacement top from EspressoParts.com. It says it fits all 120V Gicar flowmeters but that leads me back to the comment from CafeParts.com in which he said that the plastic topped version is the only 24V flowmeter he has. The guy at Clive Coffee said the 24V is only for 220V machines so I have a feeling the replaceable top would work.

This really should not be that confusing. Maybe I am making it more confusing than it really is, I don't know.

I want to throw out a big thanks to each of those companies, of which I made sure to order some stuff from for their troubles:)

You can find this info elsewhere but I figured I would put it here, the part number for the flowmeter is 9.0.69.03G.

You own a machine. That machine was built with the parts it was built with. You may not like those choices, but you need to live with them. I suggest that you look for alternate sources for the parts. For example, you can buy the pump directly from Fluidotech for substantially less than any of the coffee machine vendors; this is understandable since the machine venodors incurr an expense stocking the parts for re-sale.

I realize that and I am indeed getting the parts from alternate sources so that it has the parts I want on it. That doesn't mean I cannot be annoyed at the manufacturer for using a part that, obviously in my opinion, is not as durable as a different part that they currently use and have used in the past. Maybe the all metal version has its own issues, I do not have that data, but I do know that there are other posts about the plastic topped version cracking. They've fixed issues with the machine as the years have gone by and I commend them for that.

If all of my recent posts have come across as being annoyed with the manufacturer I am sorry about that. If my posts are not helpful, which is what I am trying to do, I will go away.

So I received the metal replacement top that includes the LED, as well as a new o-ring. I replaced the top and hooked it all up and it appears to be working. I am waiting for a whole new all metal flowmeter from Chris' Coffee as a final replacement. Why did I buy all of this stuff? Because I didn't know what would work and wanted to figure out what would work and what wouldn't. I need to set a 10 second dose so I can test the franken-flowmeter output to the new flowmeter. I also measured the resistance between the + and - just out of curiosity.

So I put together the old flowmeter with the LED replacement top and then set the single dose button to dose 2/3 cup. 2/3 cup was just a random amount. I then put in the new all metal flowmeter from Chris Coffee and hit the single dose button and it produced the same 2/3 cup.

So what I gather from all of this is that you can use the replacement top and it will work just fine. Also, Chris Coffee has good prices on their parts so as many of you probably already knew they are great to purchase from.

Thanks for the info.

Thanks! Good to know


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