The S1 Cafe - Helping Your Espresso Dreams Become Reality

Hello All,

I have a Vivaldi II S1 and “sometimes“ the pump to the boiler will not shut off. Usually when the machine is first turned on and is warming up.
The pump will start up and pump until it pops the relief valve on top. I am a DIY person and have scoured the Internet looking for answers. There has been discussion in forums but nobody ever says how it was resolved.
I have contacted tech support at Espresso planet. They suggested cleaning the probe on the water level sensor and that was done. Then he suggested descaling or replacing the boiler fill solenoid because it may be leaking. I don’t think that’s the problem because something is telling the pump to stay running.
I have checked the ground wire on the tank and it was good. I have tested the resistance on the water level rod and it showed 13k ohms.
I am waiting until it happens again and I'm ready to short out the water level rod to ground to see if I can eliminate the sensor. One Question: if the boiler fill solenoid gets stuck open, does it trigger the pump to stay running?

The controller board sends the signals to start the pump and to engage the solenoid based on the state of the water level sensor. So normally this indicates a problem with the water level sensor. However, it can be anything from the sensor to the microcontroller input on the controller board.

Most folks have fixed this by replacing the water level sensor. However, at least one person found the issue to be the cable and one other found a bad resistor on the controller board. Your first step to try shorting the water level sensor to ground is the best idea.

I forgot to ask if this has happened intermittently since you got the machine or if it has just started recently.

Thanks Chas
Yes this has been an intermittent problem, but it’s been happening more frequent lately. I will keep trying to get it to happen again and short out the water level sensor. One thing I have noticed that when the water level drops below the sensor there is a 4 second delay before the pump kicks in

I decided to register myself because this forum has been a wonderful source of information and helped a lot. Your help throughout the years is greatly appreciated Chas and only a small percentage of people that are being helped actually register themselves.

Anyway, I had the same issue on my Dream, the pump would not shut off sometimes and cause an error message after a minute or so. After a while, this happened every time and the steam boiler couldn't be used. With me, it was the entrance of the steam boiler that got blocked due to scale buildup over the years. Descaling the copper inlet solved the issue.

For troubleshooting: shorting the fill sensor by touching the bottom of the sensor to the top of the boiler did not cause the pump to start, indicating that the sensor was ok. I removed the plastic tube that leads from the pump to the steam boiler at the steam boiler end (simple push connector) and started the machine. As there was a nice flow of water exiting the plastic tube as soon as the pump started, I also learned that the water flow up to that point was ok as well.

My problem is that the pump will not stop and it causes an overflow out the relief valve so tube is not plugged.
I think my S1 has formed its own energy and healed thy self
It’s working well for now. One thing I did was that I squeezed the ground wire tighter on the connector on the tank

Happy to hear it healed itself. I must have confused this thread with another one where someone first experienced no filling of the boiler and later a continuous overfilling.