I've ordered some parts. Should have it descaled and back together in a couple of days. I'll report back and let you know if anything blows up when I plug it back in!

So... it's been more than a couple of days, but I've finally managed to get new gaskets for the boiler and grouphead. Machine is now descaled. One heating coil has been disabled making this a 1200 watt machine. Power cord has been chopped and changed to 15 amp standard. Last but not least, it's now plumbed in and...

MAKING ESPRESSO!!! Excellent espresso at that!

For anyone out there wondering, the 1300w Junior DT/1 element that I was originally asking about does in fact fit the M30. I compared the two physically when I went to my local Cimbali parts supplier. I didn't end up switching because, as I described above, I was simply able to disable one of the three heating coils in my machine. It now runs fine on 15 amp. I haven't used it long enough (2 hours so far!)to really develop an opinion of warm up time and recovery, but it got to full pressure after only 15 minutes or so and seemed stable after maybe half an hour.

The previous owner seems to have the dosing set a little too much volume and I might drop the boiler down a bit - it currently cycles between 1.2 and 1.4 bar. But all in all - IT WORKS!!! Just a bit of tweaking and I think I'll be very happy!

Thanks to all who helped me with this.

Hi Mark,

It look like you got a really nice clean example there, not used and abused like so many commercial machines. You should get decades of use out of it. (Unless of course you contract Upgraditis ...)

Alex G wrote:So... it's been more than a couple of days, but I've finally managed to get new gaskets for the boiler and grouphead. Machine is now descaled. One heating coil has been disabled making this a 1200 watt machine. Power cord has been chopped and changed to 15 amp standard. Last but not least, it's now plumbed in and...

MAKING ESPRESSO!!! Excellent espresso at that!

For anyone out there wondering, the 1300w Junior DT/1 element that I was originally asking about does in fact fit the M30. I compared the two physically when I went to my local Cimbali parts supplier. I didn't end up switching because, as I described above, I was simply able to disable one of the three heating coils in my machine. It now runs fine on 15 amp. I haven't used it long enough (2 hours so far!)to really develop an opinion of warm up time and recovery, but it got to full pressure after only 15 minutes or so and seemed stable after maybe half an hour.

The previous owner seems to have the dosing set a little too much volume and I might drop the boiler down a bit - it currently cycles between 1.2 and 1.4 bar. But all in all - IT WORKS!!! Just a bit of tweaking and I think I'll be very happy!

Thanks to all who helped me with this.

Congratulations on your success!

I would caution you that unless this Cimbali is unlike all the other Cimbalis I know of, 1/2 hour of warm up time will NOT make it stable, at least not if you are talking about shot temperatures. One disadvantage of Cimbali machines is that they need a long warm up time to become temperature stable. I would be thinking more along the lines of 4 hours, not 30 minutes, if that is your goal, and I caution you against trying to use this machine on a timer after a brief startup period.

ken