I started this at alt.coffee. but feel this is a better location since I will be posting a load of pictures.

This is a project to revitalize a model year 2000 Laurentis single group commercial espresso machine that I will be using at home. This machine is identical to the Astoria Argenta Junior Automatic 1 group machine. Like the Astoria, it is made by CMA (Wega, Rio, etc). I purchased the machine on ebay. The seller said it had been in a "high end gas station". This is my third espresso machine coming in behind first a Saeco Vienna super auto, then a Silvia. My goal is to get this machine working properly and to do some hot rodding and make some cosmetic improvements. More on that later.

The machine arrived yesterday April 7th. This machine requires plumbing so I performed the minimal to get that setup. I split my ice maker valve and ran the supply into the that T fitting and ran the drain into a bucket. I had a 20 amp outlet waiting, so I turned on the water, pushed the manual fill valve, then turned the machine on. I couldnt tell immediately the reading on the tank level site because I didnt know I was looking for a little black floating ball. After I discovered the little ball, I realized the machine came to me with a full tank of water (explaining the soaking wet box). After turning the switch (2 position - 0 or 1) to 1, I could hear the heating element and the telltale moaning and groaning of heating metal. I turned on the manual group head dispenser and water trickled out. I noticed the brew pressure was at about 6 bars. It drops slightly when water is moving through the system, but it does not climb. This is line pressure.

The machine heated up and the boiler pressure rose to just above 1.1 bar. This seemed about right, so I fiddled with the Auto buttons and hot water came through the brew group in a trickle. I open up the steam wand and steam came out in gushes at first, then like an F-14 in full afterburner. I opened the Americano wand and green water came out like a fire extinguisher, high pressure with a lot of steam mixed in. I pulled about a quart of water out of the boiler via the Americano wand and then let it sit for a few minutes. Loads of sediment settle in the container. I continued to run water out of the wand in hopes of cycling clean water into the boiler. At this point something bizarre occurred.

I heard a clunk that I assume was the auto-fill solenoid opening a valve to let water into the boiler. This seemed to cycling on and off several times. While this happened, the American wand started to dry up. By that I mean that only steam came out of the wand, then as the boiler pressure continued to drop, less and less came out until the boiler pressure was at 0. I could however hear the solenoid clunking on and off. I really dont know why this happened. Maybe it is related to the pump and motor not working? At this point, I knew more or less the general condition of the machine so I shut her down and planned my assault.

I have now begun taking her apart. I know that the motor and pump are not working. The pump drive shaft is quite stiff to turn with my fingers. The motor weighs more than some of my bikes so it sure seems like it would have enough torque to drive even the stiffened up pump shaft? I am somewhat at a loss as to how to test the motor now that it is removed from the machine? It seems like it may be a good idea to just get a new pump and motor?

The boiler was surprisingly clean inside. There was very little scale. Only some soft buildup around the various inlet and outlet holes and at the high tide line. The heating element was mostly clean and not deformed. Some of the pipes had some scale buildup but most did not. Either way I will soak them all in a citric acid solution. Here are the regular maintenance things I think I am going to replace:

- group head gasket
- group shower screen
- anti-syphon valve (when I took it apart it showed signs of poor repairs -Teflon tape wadded up to stop a leak)
- Pump
- Pump motor
- Boiler level site glass assembly (some hissing coming from that general vicinity and a slight leak from the top of the glass tube)

Here is a pic of the right side. The pump can be seen at the lower right corner and the motor is attached behind it. I unscrewed that pipe to drain the boiler. The outlet was clogged with junk that simply took a screwdriver shoved in there to clear:




This next picture is from the rear of the machine. The big gray thing on the bottom is the motor. Top right is the pressure-stat which inside looks very clean. I have no idea what the black box on the upper left is. That longish silver piece between the elbow and the braided hose has a shutoff valve on the other side. What is that?




I would appreciate any help or advice anyone can offer. And I thank you in advance. This is going to be an ongoing saga until complete.


Thanks,

Chris

Take the pump and motor out of the frame. Remove the pump, there should be a metal band with a screw or bolt holding the works together. Just loosen it and the two parts will separate. You should have three power leads on the motor (actually two and one ground), take a set of meter test leads, hook them up to the motor terminals (not the ground!) and put the other ends in the wall outlet. It would be advisable to have someone hold the motor when you apply power, it will want to torque to one side when it spins up.

Motors are pretty bulletproof but pumps wear out. You should also have a capacitor attached to the motor. It probably looks like a silver tube attached to the motor. If the motor does not spin up, and the shaft rotates freely with your fingers, you could have a bad cap. You may want to check it before you replace the motor.

The small black box looks like a Parker solenoid, it is hard to tell from the photos but that may be your boiler fill solenoid.

A filled boiler and heat exchanger is real bad. If the temperatures are below freezing, the water could freeze and rupture your HX or boiler. Think of a can of pop in the freezer. When I rebuilt my Faema, I put everything in a drum full of descale solution to clean it up.

Your machine is in pristine condition compared to what my two group looked like. A good descale and cleaning and you will probably be up and running.

A personal suggestion. If you are taking it apart anyway, replace every seal, gasket and O-ring in the machine. Your 1/4 ice maker waterline will probably need upgraded to a 3/8 line.

Edit....
Your switch, one position will be off, another on with no power to the heating element (so you can fill the boiler before energizing the heater) and the last power and heat. The thing I found strange on my Faema, down position was off, second position was power with heat and the third was power no heat. You would think the heat would be the last setting. It was a good thing I took a meter to everything to verify my electronics before I actually put power to the box.

If your boiler was not shipped full, you would have energized a dry heating element. A few seconds of power and you would have gotten a lowed POW as you heating element exploded.

Thanks for the reply. Your Faema project has been an inspiration for me. And due to the severe condition some people start with, I wanted to be specific that my project is just a revitalization, not a rebuild.

The boiler and HX were fine when I took the boiler cover off today. No signs of freezing and the HX has no cracks.

I actually took the motor and pump out today. The motor has two wires exiting the rear. Each wire has a connector with two little plugs ( I can take a picture). Are you saying I can simply connect two leads between these two connectors and a wall outlet and it should turn over? Even though the capacitor is not inline? I dont want to kill it if it isnt already dead.



Thanks,

Chris

Interesting. Maybe you motor does not need a cap. There should be a ground somewhere unless it grounds via the motor mount to the frame. My motor was/is rubber mounted to reduce vibration and noise. You can hook those two lines to power and off it goes. I used test leads with alligator clips. My power hooked to a terminal block on the motor so I connected the gator clips to the studs and put the test lead ends into the wall socket. Just use some common sense when doing it; you do not want to electrocute yourself.

If it does have a cap somewhere before the motor, it will simply not spin if you bypass it. You will not hurt the motor, it will simply not run.

Day 2:

The tear down continued. I removed the rest of the copper and steel pipes. I removed the front face plate with the control system and gauge in tact. I removed the HX from the boiler. I started deliming using CLR (I could not find in citric acid locally, yet). The HX, some fittings, pipes and valves got very very very clean (too clean?). The copper turned very coppery colored. I think it is ok.

Here is a photo of the decapitated front of the machine. That gaping hole feeds the group:




Here is a closeup of that hole showing a lot of green scale buildup inside. I could not get those three outer bolts loose. They hold the boiler to the frame. I may need to torch them if I really want to get the boiler off. I haven't decided yet.



Here is a picture of the group head. The gasket is spiritually bonded up in there. I am probably going to have to take a torch to it to clean it out well:



The last two pictures are the motor and the pump. The pump is still very tight (no magic happened during the evening that fixed it). The motor is as yet untested. Any more advice on testing would be great. I am still wondering... is it water cooled? Is that what the piping is about?





Next steps are to finish deliming the rest of the pipes, valves and etc. I still have to pull a few things off the frame and then hose out the boiler...

More to come.


Chris

cannonfodder wrote:Interesting. Maybe you motor does not need a cap. There should be a ground somewhere unless it grounds via the motor mount to the frame. My motor was/is rubber mounted to reduce vibration and noise. You can hook those two lines to power and off it goes. I used test leads with alligator clips. My power hooked to a terminal block on the motor so I connected the gator clips to the studs and put the test lead ends into the wall socket. Just use some common sense when doing it; you do not want to electrocute yourself.

If it does have a cap somewhere before the motor, it will simply not spin if you bypass it. You will not hurt the motor, it will simply not run.

Follow up on this: There is a capacitor still mounted to the frame. I guess testing could be trickier than just jammin the ends of the wires into a wall outlet. There was also a ground wire attached via a screw. The wire led back to a common area on the frame where many wires grounded. I may take it to a local shop to have a look at it.

C.

I'm not sure that I'm getting all of this 100%, but capacitors are so cheap that is just makes sense to replace them if they are in question ( EDIT: and would allow testing of the motor in its intended manner). Copy down the info written on them and call RadioShak. Alternatively, a decent multimeter would have a test function for capicitance, microFarads I think. Don't mean to intrude; i'm just so cheap that I hate to take things to the 'shop' for stuff like testing, etc.


cheers,
dan r.

Capacitors are cheap and you can test it with a meter and Dan suggests. Problem may be finding the correct size cap. You being in Oklahoma city, electronic specialty shops should not be to hard to come by.

The two big thing you need are the voltage and Mf off the cap. You may have an electronic schematic on the pump motor or a label with the motor spec. The capacitor details should be on that. You may be given a Mf range which might make finding a working part easier.

It looks like you have a Teflon boiler gasket. It was recommended to me to use the Teflon and not the paper gasket. When you reinstall the element, pay particular attention to the gasket. It sits on a small ridge around the element back plate. If you are not paying attention, it may slip off as you reinstall the element. If you tighten down the bolts while it is off center, you may ruin the gasket (crush it or cut it). I almost did that on my machine.

That does look like a water cool jacket on the motor. I have seen a couple of others that used a coil around the exterior of the motor for cooling. Don't forget to descale in it as well.

OkcEspresso wrote: Here is a picture of the group head. The gasket is spiritually bonded up in there. I am probably going to have to take a torch to it to clean it out well:

image: http://www.myhuevos.com/pics/laurentis/groupHead.jpg

The PF gasket is easy (well, not really, but it doesn't require a torcj) to remove. The local espresso engineers here showed me what they use. Its an awl, from TrueValue Hardware! They just poke it into the gasket and start pulling pieces up until the gasket comes apart, and then they pry the thing loose. Be careful not to scar the bed that it sits in doing this, though. It takes a bit of grunt and some patience, but it'll come.
Oh, and being that they are so cheap, the proper cap could be gotten from the CMA reps here in the states, General Espresso Equipment. And, getting the rating on the cap is important, but the voltage only needs to meet or exceed the original, it doesn't have to be exact, i.e., a 32V cap could be used in place of a 16V cap.

cannonfodder wrote:That does look like a water cool jacket on the motor. I have seen a couple of others that used a coil around the exterior of the motor for cooling. Don't forget to descale in it as well.

A couple of questions about this:

- In a pinch, if this motor is dead, could I use a different motor and just reroute the water lines that made it happen? A new one of these puppies is $350+

- I am assuming I can't just drop the whole motor in my descaling solution. Any thoughts on the best way to descale?

- Could the pump be replaced with a procon or other similar unit?


Thanks,

C.

*Just pulled a double of Capri from Caffe D'arte on the Silvia... she doesnt know about Laurent yet.