Hi, I just got back from a business trip in India (where I had to drink tea, incidentally), fired up my Fiorenzato Bricoletta, and was greeted by a clicking relay. No autofill. Can't seem to trick it into working. If I press the lever switch it tries to turn the pump motor in tiny little increments. The Gicar case has looked charred for a long time, but the boards inside seem fine. Any ideas on what I should be testing or replacing?



-John

Could this be a problem with the pump or motor? Are you able to get water out of the group if you turn on the machine and enable the shot lever/button/touchpad (not sure what your machine has)? It wasn't clear to me from your post whether you had tried this.

If the machine is having trouble filling, you may want to disconnect the heater terminals (and be sure that the connectors are isolated) to prevent the heating element from burning out if the water level is too low in the boiler (which it shouldn't be, if you didn't empty it before leaving and didn't come home to a puddle on the floor).

Hi Dan, thanks for the reply. The motor seems to be OK, but the pump has a slight leak. Using a multimeter, I can see a spike on the AC voltage to the motor (and capacitor) when the relay clicks on for a moment.
Good call on disconnecting the heating element, by the way, I'll be sure to do that before I continue troubleshooting.
-John