Is there such a place / person that refurbishes these controllers?

I believe mine may be bad -- and a replacement is shockingly, expensive

Many Thanks

I can't directly answer your question but can say I have seen a couple controllers repaired by 'touching up' the solder joints. If you able to open your controller and do this, you may not need to send it out.

George

Just a matter of curiosity ... what does the GICAR module do? I have one in my new machine too, but I don't know what its function is.

I don't think that I'm supposed to advertise but I think I can answer the first question. I have a business devoted primarily to fixing espresso electronics. To answer the second question, the Gicar controller, such as the RL30, functions can be as simple as controlling the autofill which runs the pump and autofill solenoid/inlet valve which allows water to enter the boiler to automatically to maintain a minimum level. Larger more complex units, such as the Gicar 3D5, control many features such as automating the grouphead dispensing times, allowing automated preinfusion, and such things as Tea dispensing. There are many different boxes that are often custom designed for a specific manufacturers application. Some are very generic in application.
James

I think maybe this jig is up....



guys -- i think am in 'hot water'... (ahem, choke, gag... and finally - breath)

this doodad is some 444.oo USD at CMA as well as espressopartsnw

does not accept program -- autofill fails and no control of dosing

thankfully i have manual dispense button

further thoughts...?

Hi: Just curious, how long have you had your Astoria? I have the same control box on my "Jun" but have not had any trouble with the machine at all (bought it in 1997 or so). You could, as you said, go manual for dosing and use the manual boiler fill on the right side (use the sight glass!!) below the drip tray, assuming your machine is the same as mine. Have you thought about finding a used part? It might be possible to bypass the electronics with some pushbuttons if your handy with such things.
KDM

Reviving a dead post but I have the same issue with my gicar controller. Same model pictured in the photo above. One day it just stopped lighting up. I checked the board with a multimeter and it was getting power. I'm thinking the 220vac to 12vdc transformer on the board by myrra is toast. Wondering if anyone has any other thoughts, besides the guy who can't answer certain questions for whatever reason.

$440? That's cheap to what the controller for the Cimbali M31 costs! Espresso Svcs sells that part for $815. I own one that has been repaired. It was broken when I purchased the machine, and after repair has worked fine for 1 year so far. You just have to find someone who knows their way around electronics.

There tends to be nothing particularly exotic about these boxes... usually a step-down transformer, some capacitors, a voltage regulator, resistors, a microcontroller, transistor arrays, and some relays... anyone with experience in electronics repair should be able to do it. Unfortunately, those people are harder to find these days because it is harder to find work doing electronics repair when there is tons of cheap electronics coming from China.

I am by no means an expert, but it appears two of the most common things to go bad with electronics are capacitors and voltage regulators. And cold solder joints can be a problem as well as another poster mentioned. In my particular case, it was the voltage regulator -- a 50-cent part. The guy charged me $50 labor to diagnose the problem and solder in a new regulator. He had never worked on an espresso machine before but had done a lot of electronics repair. That was certainly better than the cost of a replacement.

Not holding or enabling a program is likely the flowmeter. A shorted ground on a flowmeter can also cause the auto fill to fail.

Unplug the flow meter and see if everything works. If it auto fills and goes into program mode, the box is probably okay. A bad flowmeter will program a zero value in the touchpad for that dose, meaning nothing will come out. The pad thinks you have programmed a zero value. If water flows during program mode, bad flowmeter.