So, I was having issues with brew pressure on my Anita.

Upon pulling a shot, the pump will run up to 9.5 bar then drop down to 3 bar along with a "humming" noise.
I've tentatively traced it to a bad Klixon thermal fuse, as the pump runs fine when the fuse is bypassed.

That's not the issue at hand though.

Anita is 2 years old and the boiler's insulation has cracked and is falling off. It seems to also coat everything inside the machine with a residue of some sort.



My question here is - can I just take all of the insulation off the boiler and run it bare without any problems? I've read through the different insulation threads and there isn't really a cohesive school of thought on whether or not insulation is needed.

You will use a lot more energy without insulation and the outer shell will be hotter to the touch.
You can get 1/2" or 3/4" Armaflex sheeting at a refrigeration wholesaler and re-insulate it. That would be my recommendation.

Funny, my Anita has the same problem, though not quite as bad as yours. Mine's about 4 and 1/2 years old, and has the green foam insulation. I recently had to remove the boiler to reseal some of the connections and replace the heating element. When I was removing the boiler, the insulation just cracked and fell apart. I asked the tech at Chris' Coffee about it, and he said it was fine to run the machine without insulation, or he could sell me some new insulation for about $15. I opted to just piece the old insulation back together and hold it in place with cable ties. Seems fine, though it did crumble a bit and make a little mess inside the machine. One of these days I'll probably order up some melamine foam and use that instead, but right now it seems to be fine.

Also, see this thread for tips on insulating a boiler with melamine foam:

Insulating the Elektra A3's boiler

Something has been bothering me about all of this.

I've noticed that a lot of Quickmill machines use green foam, where this one is black foam. When I first got Anita, she gave off quite a smell from the insulation for a couple months before it finally calmed down. Secondly, when I see open machines from other people, everyone has gleaming copper pipes and clean connectors. Not mine. Everything is tinged in a blue-green tarnish - it can be scrubbed off.

I think I got caught with inferior foam that just kind of vented itself all over the machine, and I certainly hope it isn't toxic.

-R

It's hard to say. It does seem strange that your foam decomposed so quickly, which makes me think that it's not as good quality as the green foam on other Quickmill machines. My foam was still intact after four and 1/2 years, and only cracked when I took the boiler out. I don't remember it ever giving off a bad smell either. So maybe you should look into replacing it with something else, like melamine or similar insulation.