I love this machine. It has yielded many excellent espressos. Today, however, the boiler light stays lit. I approach the machine like a bomb now, although I've seen no signs of ill. But still, the boiler light should not stay on all of the time.

I seem to recall a reset. I don't see it in the manual. Nor do I see any troubleshooting for my situation.

Help! Any ideas would be appreciated.

I have the service manual, and will look it up for you tomorrow. Which model of Techno do you have?

If you imported yours through Just Espresso, Rene is very good about answering tech support questions.

-Mike

Mike,

It's one of the very latest to be sold. I had to hunt. I bought it through a place in Portland that is also very good about helping out with troubleshooting. But it's holiday, and I always like to ask here first.

Thanks.

Here's something I don't understand. I can visually see the steam, water pump relays working. But when the coffee boiler relay goes on and off, I hear the click of a relay, and yet I don't see the relay. I've been in the parts manual, and there is no mention of a coffee boiler relay. There's a triac, but that wouldn't make a clicking sound. Now I'm wondering where that relay is that turns off the boiler, just out of curiosity. It doesn't really alter the fact that the boiler light is always on.

Last time I had troubles was when the power came back after an outage. There was a blown fuse. The power was out, and it came on, and that is approximately when this issue began. But I see no blown fuses. Maybe it's time for the ohmmeter to come out.

Just blabbing out loud here.

Oops. Now I see four relays. They just aren't clear like the other two. Time to tap on relays a little. I'll be back...

By "relays" do you mean "solenoids"? If the latter are clicking, especially the one for water, that means that you are continually refilling the boiler, which is odd.

I'm afraid I'm thousands of miles from my manual, so can't give any immediate advice. Probably the first thing I'd try with an always-on boiler light is cleaning and reseating the temperature and level probes in the water boiler. I do second the advice for contacting your dealer, whom I assume is Boyds.

David, thanks for the tip. I forgot about connector issues. But I have just pulled and plugged back in the connectors for the boiler, and the light is still on.

If the boiler were really on all of the time I'd expect to be seeing the system shut down. I don't know what's going on. I hear the steam boiler going on and off, but the coffee boiler doesn't seem to be doing anything, yet I get hot water. I don't even know how the boiler is switched. Solenoid or triac? I don't know enough about electronics to know what the triac does.

Gregg K wrote:David, thanks for the tip. I forgot about connector issues. But I have just pulled and plugged back in the connectors for the boiler, and the light is still on.

I was thinking more the probes (=the bit that extends into the boiler) than the external connector. The water level probe (for example) can scale up and stop reporting correctly, or can slip in its holder and end up not being as deep as it should be.

I don't know enough about electronics to know what the triac does.

A triac is like a relay, it uses a small current to control a larger one. I believe triac failure in the Techno triggers a more spectacular light show (at least, mine did way back when), and would also switch off the machine.

mivanitsky, I used to own a farm in Fairview. I miss Coos Bay. There was great mountain biking just up behind my property. The Blue Ridge trails. I miss my elk and bear and salmon.

I went to drain the boilers, and they had silt built up in them and one wouldn't drain. So I just pulled both boiler elements out and cleaned things up. I was sort of hoping that might be the problem. But the boiler light remains on.

Gregg K wrote:I went to drain the boilers, and they had silt built up in them and one wouldn't drain.

So you probably have this on the probes as well.

I would replace the coffee boiler temp probe. It is extremely sensitive to scale. I have had to do this twice.

Is your coffee water hot? Also, have you tested the heating element? In the coffee boiler?

-Mike