My purchase came with an extra brew boiler heating element. Both the original and the new one say 220V 1000W. When I am ready to put everything back together which should I use, and why? Is there an advantage to the larger element if it is rated at the same power as the one installed in the machine?

PictureThyme wrote:When I am ready to put everything back together which should I use, and why?

I would go with the new one. Why have to worry about the old one failing? If you put the new one in you will be good to go for a very long time.

Lower watt density of the newer element is a good reason to use it if it fits properly.

You should contact LM USA and ask questions there. They are good guys and like people who like their machines. since you appear to like cars you oughtta know that John Blackwell (of whatever LM USA is called these days) runs a formula Atlantic team with his brother. They are amateurs, but very good amateurs, running relatively old equipment, but regularly beating the snot out of rich wankers.

Re your pix: You don't see many street car cylinder heads with polished combustion chambers. What photo gear do you use? Is that your business?

-Greg

PictureThyme wrote:My purchase came with an extra brew boiler heating element. Both the original and the new one say 220V 1000W. When I am ready to put everything back together which should I use, and why? Is there an advantage to the larger element if it is rated at the same power as the one installed in the machine?

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Re your pix: You don't see many street car cylinder heads with polished combustion chambers. What photo gear do you use? Is that your business?

Not my business, but was a video producer so I have an expectation about the framing of shots. The camera for the Italy shots is an Olympus 5050. And the newer Marzocco images are made with a Nikon Coolpix S220. The resolution standard for this website don't do these pictures any justice. They look much better in full res. I have a bunch of Italy photos posted on a MobileMe album if anyone is interested send a PM.

Thanks for info about LMUSA. Another board member suggested I contact them for parts and the information could be helpful with my requests.

And thanks for the information about the element selection.
Steve

Lurkerjohnny wrote:I would go with the new one. Why have to worry about the old one failing? If you put the new one in you will be good to go for a very long time.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking, too. Thanks for confirming.

Just a quick update. Soaked everything in hot TSP for a day last weekend and scrubbed away most of the old gunk before soaking everything in citric acid this weekend.

Wasn't easy to find the Citric in Salt Lake. The girl at the first natural food store I went to asked me in a skeptical, "What are you using it for?!? She left out the last two words of her question but they were at the tip of her tongue, "making crack?!?" She had no idea you could use citric acid to remove lime scale. Such a naturalist was she. The second shop charged me $5.95 for a 4 oz bottle. And the "oh my gosh you have a home-beer-brewing shop in Utah" sold me 2 oz. for $2.50.
I know it's cheaper on the internet but I was ready to make some progress I could see.

One thing that happened during the citric acid bath this weekend was that the threads of end posts of the steam boiler heating element burned off the exposed sections. I checked and there are enough threads to hold the wiring connectors when it all goes back together. I will have to soak the steam boiler one more time since some of the scale is so dense it did not come off in the first soak. There was scale on the heating element was as dense and I left it soaking for way too long and burned the steel ends. I think the technical term is galvanic reaction between the steel and the copper/brass. I followed other posts I read about the acid solution and removed items from the bath that had any chrome on them as soon as they looke clean. Pictures soon.

Lights?

I'm thinking about what I might want to do to this machine while I have it taken apart and was wondering what lights if any people have used to modify their machines. Where did you obtain them and how were they connected?

I did a search on this site and saw only one comment and actually some really funny threads from last year.
Thanks, Steve

NickA wrote:I think you may find this version of the control box doesn't support preinfusion. You can still get a preinfusion effect by adding a 'gigler infusion jet' as La Marzocco call it in the water path where it exits the 3 way solenoid. The earlier Lineas didn't seem to have this and I see it is listed as an AV option in the manual. My first 2AV didn't have one and it made a huge difference once it was fitted.

According to John at LM, "It appears you have an 8 pin non-mask cpu which is capable of running a 3 group machine. The Linea 1AV came standard with a cpu the size of the keypad and was mounted through the front control panel part number LAD070/1. This cpu can be configured 110VAC or 220VAC and is quite expensive. The one you have seems to work except the continuous most right button. Only the singles have the ability to be preinfused not the doubles this is how it works, ramp-up time for a double with larger gram dose acts as the infusion time."

Edit: I am thinking that when everything is back together, I will try using another of the three connectors for the keypad to see if the continuous button works there.

John also said if I got myself a key switch I could program the CPU or just put a jumper to the pins. Anyone have an old switch and keys perhaps from a parted-out LM they might want to share? I'm building a little list of parts that need to be replaced other than the usual gaskets. Thanks for reading.

Back Flow Preventers: There was considerable leaking going on at the back flow preventers. I found that one was missing the gasket and the other had a chip. The threads on both were wrapped with about 2 feet of teflon tape, but that's not going to replace the gasket or do much for the missing metal. This is a picture of the chipped component. It will have to be replaced.

I should have taken pictures of the citric acid bath. Not sure why I didn't but I noticed Paul Pratt gets way too excited at this point as well to remember to document every step.

I bought a $22 mini fountain pump from Home Depot and ten feet of plastic tubing. I rolled the tubing and put it in a big stock pot full of water on the stove. I put all the pieces I was cleaning into a small cooler with the citric acid bath mix. The pump and the end of the hose went into the bath. The pictures below are from the TSP bath and for this I used a plastic bucket.

I found the cooler kept the solution at 120+ for many hours even without the solution heater system going. As for the acid bath the pump worked great even at 135 degrees. The instructions say not to exceed 87 on the pump but it worked well. I used a thermometer to monitor the temperature of the solution and was able to maintain stable temperatures with the stove on low for many hours. I used the foil to protect the hose from possibly melting on the hot edge of the pot. The lids in the water held the tubing off the bottom of the pot and kept them submerged.

I think the moving solution helped get things clean as well.

There are always more elegant methods to do most things but this was cheap and leaves me money to replace machine parts. This was at the end of the bath process so the stock pot looks like it could use more water.