Hello again,
Tonight I noticed my "tank refill" message come up when I turned on my GS3. I filled the tank as usual and the message did not disappear. No matter how I manipulate the tank I cannot get it reset. I tried jumping the safety mechanism with some electrical wire, but no change....
Powered down the machine etc
Anyone with ideas????

This is the 4th time I have had a non-functioning machine in the 6 months I have owned it (some of you have been very helpful with my recent gicleur issues). I am beginning to worry I have a lemon!!!! Or is this the price of business with a high end machine?

Any help or advice appreciated.
Dave.

That should be the price with a LOW end machine, not a high end one.

Have you contacted your vendor or LM support? I don't have my reservoir tank handy to remember how it works, but I remember getting the impression it might be easy to jump it wrong. Are you sure you did it right? Maybe another owner who uses their machine with a reservoir could help you, but personally I'd be calling my vendor or LM-USA in your situation.

Anyway, short-term fix is to change the operating mode to plumbed in. It will work with the reservoir, but of course won't protect you from running dry. Be advised that running a pump dry is not a good idea, and if you try this you need to be sure yourself that the machine has water. Do it at your own risk, naturally.

I've never used my GS/3 with the reservoir, which always struck me as a bit of a Rube Goldberg sort of contraption. This obviously won't solve your current issue, but have you considered plumbing the machine in? I never appreciated how much I would like having a machine plumbed in before I got my Cimbali rotary machine, after using my old Cimbali pourover for 11 or 12 years. It makes a huge difference in usability.

I would not switch back to a pourover self contained machine if I had any other option.

ken

If you haven't already done this I would suggest that you give it a try.

Go to page 12 of the GS3 Software Programming Guide and re-program it to reflect that you are using the reservoir. I used the reservoir on my paddle machine for the first two months and recently plumbed it in. If you bought it from Chris Coffee I would suggest that you call and talk to their service department if that doesn't work.

Good luck.

robertdi8 wrote:Hello again,
Tonight I noticed my "tank refill" message come up when I turned on my GS3. I filled the tank as usual and the message did not disappear. No matter how I manipulate the tank I cannot get it reset. I tried jumping the safety mechanism with some electrical wire, but no change....
Powered down the machine etc
Anyone with ideas????

This is the 4th time I have had a non-functioning machine in the 6 months I have owned it (some of you have been very helpful with my recent gicleur issues). I am beginning to worry I have a lemon!!!! Or is this the price of business with a high end machine?

Any help or advice appreciated.
Dave.

See here, bottom of the page, for one possible fix :-

http://coffeegeek.com/forums/espresso/m...238&Page=9

Could be that one of the connectors inside the brainbox got of. Reprogramming will not help.
If you remove the complete top from the machine and remove the 2 scews at the bottom back, you can remove the back cover and slide out the brainbox.

Frank

what water are you using?

Thanks everyone for the responses
Here's an update and answers to questions....
I am using filtered water that has about 5 grains hardness
I did take apart the brain box and ensure everything was in place

Today switched over to "tank not present mode". the boiler began to fill...and ...filll...fill, soon pressure off the scale and water spraying everywhere. So I took out my boiler level probe to ensure there was no scale build up etc. It was sparkling clean.
Turned on machine and get a message on the screen saying "Boiler temp probe unattached" This is a new one. Disconnect temp probe and re-attach. Same message. I noticed the brain box had a little water, so I blew dry it out.

On advice of vendor, inserted a paperclip into the connection and grounded out to boiler itself. Seemed to fill and stop properly, so i re-connected. As well "boiler temp probe" message is gone. I left the steam wand open to allow venting of over-filled boiler as it came up to temp. Eventually everything looks good and seems to work. So I get out the coffee to prepare a shot and figure one more check......

Now everything looks good on function pad, but pressing keys does not result in any action!!!! Although I can power the machine down via the pad So I un-plug and try again and this time everything works. And so far so good.

As well the "refill tank" message has only appeared when appropriate.

I am not sure what to think about this and it worries me that I have so many annoying and occasionally bizarre problems over my short time with the GS3. When is it appropriate to start thinking that the machine you got is a lemon and getting it replaced is the way to go????

Thanks,
Dave.

Dave,
This is a classic case of interference in the 60-hZ line. The reference (or Ground) for the water level and the fill probe is the same as the machine ground. Have you added anything new like a variable frequency drive or anything? One fix is to adjust the sensitivity of the fill probe to HIGH (see programming guide). This will actually filter out some of the noise through the electronics and most likely get you up and running. I have a variable frequency drive on my coffee grinder and it made my GS3 do the same thing.

Give this a try first before you call your service tech. I doubt anyone would think to ask you about this.


Bill C

Thanks for the reply Billc.,

I really have no idea what a variable frequency drive is.....so I don't think I have one of those. I certainly haven't changed anything on my setup and I believe my grinder (Macap M7K) is not variable frequency.

Thanks though for the input Bill, this forum is amazing for the quality of help you can receive .

As you suggested, I have adjusted the fill probe sensitivity to high and so far, so good. Would it be worth trying to separate the ground on the fill probe from the machine ground??? If yes, how difficult might that be??

Thanks everyone,
Dave.

Billc wrote:One fix is to adjust the sensitivity of the fill probe to HIGH (see programming guide). This will actually filter out some of the noise through the electronics and most likely get you up and running.

Bill, I have a question about this probe sensitivity. In the programming guide it says you can adjust it based on the "hardness of your water," but doesn't really go into any detail about on what basis you change it. What exactly does this parameter adjust with respect to boiler auto-filling? Namely, why shouldn't everyone's sensitivity be set to HIGH?

Unless you are single you should never set your sensitivity to high.
The sensitivity of the probe can be changed via software. When you change the setting it tells the cpu to compare the probe reference with respect to 3 different circuits (low, med high). Each of these circuits has some differences (resistors and capacitors) that have some different effects of filtering noise. Additionally at each increase in setting a bit more current is allow to flow in the different circuits. This causes a bit more heat in the cpu but not enough to be concerned about. Also at the higher settings the probe can react to boiling water (a condition that happens most times the steam valve is opened).

Other than this is really does not matter.

In case you are wondering, a frequency drive is a device that can adjust the speed of a motor. The motor is a 3 phase motor that is hooked to the frequency drive. The frequency drive has 3 transistors (usually triacs) that switch in sequential order at the speed of the frequency selected (i.e. 10 Hz, 60Hz, 500Hz etc.). The higher the frequency the faster the motor goes.