Well, I swapped mine tonight. I noticed the pressure release valve blowing off steam a week or so ago, and then again tonight. My Semiautomatica is only a month old! I had preordered the Ceme and had an extra hour. So...

It was easy enough to do. A couple of crescent wrenches did the trick for getting the Mater off. The Ceme went on easily. I had turned it clockwise (towards the -) a half turn before installation. I probably had to adjust it another full turn before I got it in the right range. Then just a few tweaks and it stays in the green zone for its full cycle.

I found once I hit the high end of the cycle and it switched off, I could rapidly find the low end by letting steam out from the boiler slowly, until the heating light went on. That made dialing it in pretty fast.

A very doable repair job.

It is a wonder that they put these Maters in the Semiautomaticas!

Thanks for everyone's help.

Geoff

gchapman wrote:It is a wonder that they put these Maters in the Semiautomaticas!

Sadly, they are in the bulk of Italian machines. Mostly they do well; but when they go wrong, the whole shipment goes wrong from the outset. Both Jim P and Chris N have been bitten in their a***s by batch defects in the Mater, and they've both stopped stocking it as a spare. They can muscle the smaller producers to make machines with another pressurestat; but Elektra is sadly big enough to do the "we're Italian, we never listen" bit.

If you're feeling cheesed off, just imagine what's going down at Williams Sonoma, who stocked the machine for the holidays!

another_jim wrote:
If you're feeling cheesed off, just imagine what's going down at Williams Sonoma, who stocked the machine for the holidays!

i wonder what the odds are of finding one there thats 'broken' and i can get at a good price..

i wouldnt expect them to even carry the machine though, since most that would buy from there wouldnt even consider cleaning, let alone descaling.

another_jim wrote:Order a Ceme from Jim as a replacement. You'll need two 11/16 or metric equivalent wrenches to replace the stat, and a jewellers screw driver to set it. The electrical connections go on COM and NC. The one I got was set to high, and you might want to give it a full turn before you install it. To set it, let the machine warm up with the bottom cover off, and the tank empty. If the pressure goes too high, unplug the machine, tip it on its side, set the pstat and repeat as necessary.

I tried installing 2 different new Cemes, the single white wire connector to Com, (the silver colored connection) and the black/white wire connector to the NC, (one of the copper colored connections, the one that is not ON). I got the power light, but no boiler light, no heat, no pressure with either of the new pstats. I then switched wires and connectors, the B/W to Com and the Single white wire to NC and got the same results. I reinstalled the Mater pstat and got heat and pressure. I'm out of moves, got any ideas?

Fullsack wrote:I tried installing 2 different new Cemes, the single white wire connector to Com, (the silver colored connection) and the black/white wire connector to the NC, (one of the copper colored connections, the one that is not ON).connectors, the B/W to Com and the Single white wire to NC and got the same results ....

Check the continuity between C and NC, with the pstat on the counter; it should show continuity (i.e. that the switch is on between C and NC). If that's the case, you missed something when you installed them. If there's no continuity, the setting screw may be turned all the way out - turn the setting screw a turn or two towards the +, and listen for a click. If you hear it, that was the problem. Otherwise I'm out of ideas.

I got it going this morning. I had turned the pstat a full turn toward the - before installation and it was too much. A half turn back towards the + did the trick.

Here it's more than a full year since this thread was last active, and I was hoping to avoid these problems with a newer batch of pressurestats. No such luck. I've had my new Elektra Semiautomatica (manufactured November 2007) for less than ten days and already the p-stat has stuck twice, sending the boiler pressure over 2 bars. I'm using only distilled water in the boiler, so scale/crud in the diaphragm hardly seems possible. It's hard to imagine that the electrical contacts have failed already. I don't know what else can go wrong in a pressurestat. I wonder if dirt, metal filings, or other junk is getting in there during Elektra's manufacturing process?

I've seen a couple of references to the Jaeger p-stat sold at Chris Coffee (http://www.chriscoffee.com/products/home/repairparts/jaegerpressurestat) as an upgrade over Ma-ter and C.E.M.E. Has anyone tried this with the Elektra and is there any opinion about whether the Jaeger is more reliable? Are there any issues with the form factor and are any adapters needed?

Fullsack wrote: Most people who bought the Semi, especially the ones who bought the "shiny toy" at Williams Sonoma, are not going to find their way to H-B or CG. When the pressurestat fails, they will think "I got taken, Italian piece of junk" and it will probably end up as a cobweb catcher in the garage or as a decorative piece for the patio with pansies planted in the water tank. Regardless, the affair with espresso making will be over and all for the want of an upgraded part that would probably only cost Elektra an extra $10.00. It's like powering a Ferrari with a hamster wheel.

The condescension to those of us who brought this shiny toy is misplaced. When I bought mine in 2006, it was simply the best espresso machine available on the market at the time that permitted me to actually try some shots prior to making a purchase. Williams Sonoma made this easy and had a very helpful salesperson demo the machine. They even changed the grind (finer) and made water dosing adjustments (less) at my request while demoing the machine (and a few others). I would have loved the opportunity to try some other, possibly superior machines at a small boutique coffee-snob shop somewhere, but no such animal exists in my town. (We have some fine shops, but nobody selling machines) That said, I'm a cheapskate so I just went home and price-shopped the Semiautomatica at Williams-Sonoma against the online competition. Pricing was almost identical, and NOBODY matched WS's no-fuss return policy.

This thread, which perfectly addressed my issue (Thanks Jim!) was still a bit difficult to find, incidentally, but I found it, and my very handy wife had no trouble replacing the Mater.