I recently purchased a 3 year old ECM Veneziano S1 from a friend who is upgrading(!). After a couple of weeks of bedding it in and getting the plumbing sorted, I realised that the pump was very loud and vibrated in comparison to other rotary machines. After making sure that the source of the noise wasn't due to pipe or body work vibration, I split the pump apart from the motor and found that the exterior of the pump bearing and motor/pump mating area was covered in a lot of corrosion. I've run the motor while separated from the pump, and it sounds/feels like the bearing has badly corroded, and is the main source of the noise and vibration.



It appears that the pump has been leaking into the space between the pump and motor. Over time, it must have been a steady amount as the water has dripped out of the drain-hole in the motor flange and has caused the motor mount to rust (I've removed and cleaned this up).



I suspect that I need to replace both the pump (due to the suspected leak around the pump spline), and the motor due to amount of corrosion and binding in the bearing. Anyone else wish confirm my diagnosis? I've cleaned up the outer area of the pump, and attempted to get lubrication into the bearing area. I had a go at splitting the motor in half to get to the bearing, but was unsuccessful (I know... way above my expertise level!)



The motor and pump still work and produce sufficient pressure for a brilliant brew, so I've put it all back together in the mean-time - but without the side panels so that I can monitor for further leaks in the interim. The next plan is to track down the elusive Paul Pratt here in Hong Kong and hope that he has some spare parts - failing that, it's time to start tracking down spares from somewhere!

FWIW: The motor fitted is a RPM 230V 120W, type C013703.
The pump is a Fluid-o-tech rotary pump, compact type PO052.

You could replace the motor bearing fairly easily or take it to a small motor repair shop & have it done. Several guys on the Vivaldi forum have had the same issue & changed the bearing themselves. Buying a new pump is probably the best option although it probably could be repaired also. Looking at the chart on this page:
http://www.fluid-o-tech.com/files...e_Compact_Plus.pdf it would seem that you could replace your pump with the same pump used on the Vivaldi S1 (054) if the 052 is hard to find.

Thanks for the reply John, I've found the post on the LaSpaziale S1 site. Looks like an identical failure mode from a matching pump/motor combination. Other pumps appear to have a external drain hole, whereas this Fluid-o-tech compact design doesn't?

The previous owner is graciously paying for a replacement motor and pump. Interestingly, he says that it has been reasonably loud since new. I have a couple of theories on this:
1. The pump has been leaking since build-up in the factory, therefore the corrosion had started during delivery (1/2 way around the world), and the pump has been grinding its bearings the whole time but getting gradually worse.

2. The lack of vibration mount for the motor increases the noise level. The motor mount is bolted directly to the chassis, and the only vibration isolation is two thin pieces of foam tape on the bottom. I replaced this after stripping back the mount and repainting it, but I'm going to have a look at fashioning up some rubber mounts that the bolts will go through.

Cheers
Phil

Rubber mounting the motor/pump assy should quiet it down noticeably. The unit in the Vivaldi sits on a bracket similar to yours & that sits on 4 1/2" tall rubber mounts with studs coming out each end. You should be able to buy something similar as they are used on lots of different items. The motor/pump in my Vivaldi was louder then I thought it should be when I first got it. Turns out the capacitor mounts on top of the S1 motor/pump unit & the mounting bracket was touching a chassis brace. Once I adjusted the bracket the pump was much quieter so I can imagine how loud yours is being rigidly mounted.

During my Elektra T1 rebuild the frame was just barely touching the motor (which was mounted in nice rubber mounts) and it made more noise than I thought a rotary pump should. I moved the frame out of the way and voila, much quieter. At least you'll have a reference point.

I don't have a great picture of the Elektra pump mounts, but the pump itself is held up by two rubber bushings on each end of the pump. You can see the bolts that tighten up the mounts on each side of the pump.



BTW: I've also seen Ebay with rotary pumps up for sale on occasion.

mark

I'm going to try and bolt the motor frame through approx 1/2 an inch of high density rubber. It's hard to see in the first post's picture, but there's limited space vertically under the boiler to put tall motor mounts. I'll run new pump/motor combo both outside and when bolted in to see how much difference it makes (if at all!).

Along with the previous owner, I'm trying to figure out why the pump failed. Another theory: the OEM pump supply and delivery lines, as well as the water-mains connection line ECM has installed aren't of sufficient diameter, and this has led to pump cavitation? The previous owner ran the machine as a pour-over for the first 18 months of its life, so the pump would've relying more on suction feed? I have plumbed the machine in, so at least the new pump will now be getting a positive head of pressure.

The piping is the 5mm OD flexible hosing as you can see in the picture below, but the majority of the pictures of other machine internals that I've looked at over the last few days has 3/8ths braided piping to and from the pump.



All comments appreciated!!

The inside if a 3/8 stainless braided after you take the ss and the thickness of the rubber tube inside is not but different in size than yours
water building pressure is more a concern than the size
a pump will go bad no doubt
did you check inside the boiler any way to see the scale situation?

Thanks for the reply, Stefano.

I pulled the water level sensor from the boiler earlier today and it looks clean and free of scale. I'm waiting for the replacement pump and motor to be delivered next week, and since the sides are still off I'll do a boiler descale anyway. I also removed the mushroom and gicleur for a look, and apart from a few loose chrome flakes, it was completely free of scale.