Hello All,

Long time lurker, and thanks to this site I have learned a lot and it led me to the purchase of the Elektra Microcasa Semiautomatica some time ago. Love the machine except the recent sticky pressurestat which I will be replacing...

Anyway on to my problem and the reason I registered to ask for your help. Most my problems have been solved by reading on here, but either this one hasn't come up or I missed it.

When I push the brew button, less and less water comes out of the brew head and at the same time it fills up my boiler. I wasn't quite on the ball when it happened because it was early in the morning so the boiler filled completely, the sight glass was full and water came out of the pressure release valve on the top of the machine. I shut it off draining off the excess boiler water, tried again with the same results.

I am completely stumped and input and advice would be greatly appreciate. As you probably can understand my sanity and happiness depends on getting this back up and running!

thanks!

Not good. It looks like the solenoid valve for the boiler refill is not sealing, so the water is leaking into the boiler when there's a puck blocking the flow of the coffee water. Send Stefano a message, since you may need to replace it

Luke - I agree with Jim, contact Stefano. I had this problem not long ago with my MC Semi. Hopefully, your problem resolves better than mine did - the hx in my machine developed a hole, which is not repairable. My thread with troubleshooting info, etc. is here Help with Elektra Microcasa Semiautomatica Troubleshooting.

Good luck, Stefano is a good resource. One thing, although I am fairly handy, I found I would have been better off just sending it to Stefano in the first place rather than replacing several parts that were not the problem.

Enjoy your experience, James

I have dealt with a ruptured HX before. It is a deathblow for most machines. Hopefully your problem is a stuck solenoid. Otherwise it is a door stop.

Ouch! Thanks for the input... I am talking to my Elektra distributor, that I bought the machine, today . Hoping for the best, to have this happen in less then 3 years and a machine that saw only light morning use is pretty devastating


edit..

I want to add this bit of info... a day before this happened I went to fill up the boiler and I pushed the fill switch there was a hum but no pumping, did this a few more time until finally the pumped kicked in.. I hope this points towards solenoid!

That does sound like the solenoid, but it could also be a sticky/bad switch. I had a similar problem, and replaced the switch, then the solenoid. Replacing these solved the humming problem, but neither was my ultimate problem. Coincidences are funny things.

You can easily check the solenoid with an ohmmeter (ensure it has resistance between pos and neg terminals). Also, you can remove the electrical leads from the solenoid, then press the coffee switch. The solenoid for boiler fill should be normally closed (when not energized) so you should not see water go into the boiler, all the water should come through the group. If water does go into the boiler, the solenoid could still be bad, but this is where I would have been better off sending my machine to an expert.

Moral of the story (as stated by an old Army sergeant): "Just because you found and fixed a problem doesn't mean you shouldn't keep looking". Check everything out - solenoid, switch, water path, hx, etc. before you decide you've fixed it.

My machine was about 9 years old, with several years of daily use when it finally failed. Also, the old boilers could not be fixed (because the hx was welded in), from my discussions with Stefano, it seems like the newer boilers (2005 and beyond) may be possible to fix if necessary. Again, hopefully you are facing a more simple scenario with a better outcome.

Success!! Posting my results as a future reference for others...

I checked the solenoid and it was fine, unbolted it to get to the valve.. the solenoid is the black box at the bottom of the pic held on by one nut and two wires plugged into it..





Once the solenoid is off you are left looking at the valve (the metal shaft in the pic) which needs to be unbolted to come out..






Once it is out you this is what you see...




this is the valve once it is out, the valve was stuck and had calcium deposits on it and took some repeated pressing to pop out





Once we got the valve to release out of the housing this is what we saw...



we soaked the parts in hot water with citric acid and a bit of rubbing to help the process along, the end result:







Now the valve once reassembled, opened and closed easily. Put everything back together again and it worked perfectly. Disaster averted, I have to admit I was assuming the worst initially! Thanks to my brother for his help, he has repaired quite a few machines for fun and he certainly figured this one out right. Thanks also for all the feedback here, that helped me to try to tackle it on our own.






sorry they are all phone pics, so not the best for looking at....

Good work, nice photo tutorial.

I have an Elektra Semiautomatica (about 3 1/2 years old) - and this will be a good pictorial reference to save - just in case.

Howard

It is always good when it works out. That buzz you mentioned is the key. That is the solenoid energizing but not snapping open. I had the same issue with my A3 after several months of storage, and I did not get a chance to descale it before it went away.