A good friend bought an Anita a couple or three years ago after some of his own research but also based heavily on my recommendation. He would have picked an Isomac like mine wanted to buy from Chris and Anita appeared to be the logical choice. He has had a slew of problems within the past several months and despite changing out the pressurestat and a few other parts - based on recommendations from the tech guys at Chris Coffee - it still has issues.

His Anita has always had a lot of noise issues with resonance in the chassis and case that cause really loud noise when the vibe pump runs. Even after remediation with little foam blocks and other recommended tactics it is still about 2x as noisy as my Isomac. He was told that it's because his Ulka pump is 53 watts and the Isomac Tea is only a 42 watt pump but that doesn't make sense to me.

here's the thread of his email commentary to me on the issues - do any of you have some ideas? He's about ready to dump Anita and I'm hoping there's a better solution. I really haven't hard of these problems elsewhere apart from a few mentioned in this thread and wonder if he just got that rare lemon.

I had another episode of finding the brew head to be insufficiently hot the other day so I called Chris Coffee service again.

This time I talked to Jason who was convinced that the problem was (now) a partially plugged gicleur valve below the top hex nut on the E61. He had me remove the hex nut and repeatedly fill the hole with white vinegar and let it soak for a few hours. I have to say that despite it LOOKING clean free of deposits, when I flushed out the vinegar a few hours later it came out sort of blue-green like the oxidation on the brass.

Since this treatment the brew head has been hotter than the hubs of hell, and I'm now seeing more super-heated water on the flush.... which is an improvement.

On the down side, the NEW problem is that I noticed the pump sounded a bit funny and I was only getting 7.5 bar of pressure... and fluctuating. This is a new symptom. I readjusted the brew pressure to a bit over 9 bar when using the blank - with a tamped 2 shot portafilter I'm seeing just below 8 bar which seems low. In both cases I'm seeing the pressure bobble up and down about half a bar. I'm thinking I may have a pump problem. That would be $51 to replace, after the $63 Jager pressure stat.

and now a week or two later...

found out that the blueish color is the action of the vinegar on the brass and is expected.
I don't know why the pump makes a "stumbling" sound...but when it does the pressure gauge fluctuates right along with it. Could be blockage is making the pump sound funny and affecting the pressure, could be the pump is freaky and causing the pressure to fluctuate.

When I removed the top hex nut to get to the top of the gicleur, the lower hex nut loosened. I started to turn it but felt it bind like on a spring, so I just retightened it. This was only about 1/4 of a turn. However, after reassembly the gicleur was leaking (eg. water dripping out the bottom of the flush when lever was down and pressure was coming up. This continued until I did a head flush with detergent and activated the lever about 12 times... almost like I got the gicleur needle out of position and then reseated it. Now that part is OK, but I wonder if something else in there is displaced and affecting the water flow thru the dispersion nozzle...thus affecting the pressure.

What a mess!

Can we help him? Any ideas?

Has the machine been descaled?

On Quickmill machines, the OPV is subject to hot water, so teardown of that with a seat replacement could be a good beginning.

Ditto what Ian said.

In addition, most vibe pump machines are equipped with a air release/priming valve screwed into the snout of the Ulka pump. This valve is designed to close at 6-8 bar pump discharge pressure. A malfunctioning valve can easily cause the problems your friend is seeing.

See here for a quickie on checking for scale buildup: http://www.home-barista.com/espresso-machines/checking-e61-espresso-machine-for-scale-t6704.html

Owen - are you physically helping your friend?

Hey,

Owen's friend Andy here....with the quirky Anita.

I'm seeing the brew head pressure hopping around.... after preinfusion the pressure rises to about 9 bar, then the pump will sound like it's "stumbling" and I see the brew head pressure drop to 8-8.5 bar for a moment then pop back up. This will happen 5 or 6 times during a 30 sec. shot pull at uneven intervals.

After replacing the expansion valve seat and while adjusting the brew head pressure, I observed that whenever the pump "stumbled" and the brew head pressure dropped, I would see a stream of bubbles coming out of the bottom silicone tube exiting the expansion valve (that I was adjusting). Eventually I see them make their way down the return tube to the reservoir. I am wondering if I have air trapped in the HX loop and if that is sometimes causing the siphonic flow to stop...creating my intermittent "cold E61" after hours of inactivity but "on", as well as this stumbling.

Can someone explain HOW the air release/priming valve works? I see it on the output side of the Ulka, with one large silicone tube going to the "T" connector below the expansion valve (on the return line to the water reservoir) and a small hard tube going to the connector at the base of the boiler and bottom tube of HX loop. Does the physical orientation (pump can rotate about 30 degrees) make any difference? Should I just go ahead and replace the air release/priming valve?

It's not clear to me how air would get trapped up in the expansion valve, unless this is just air not yet purged from when I replaced the seat (which was baked into the brass cup...had to replace both the seat and the cup).

As I write this I'm beginning to realize that it's unlikely for air to be "sucked" into the Ulka from the reservoir, so the only things that should be affecting pressure in the HX loop would be the expansion valve and the air release/priming valve. Since I've just refreshed the expansion.....it's probably the air release/priming valve.

Has anyone experienced this?

Greetings Andy -

Certainly you are welcome to bring Anita into the laboooooratory-my little girl would like some company . You can give me a call at 301-587-5033 or email at erics@erols.com . I am located a couple of miles north of the DC/MD border.

Brew pressure will drop to the levels you are seeing when the heating element comes on - BUT NOT at the rate you are seeing.

An outline drawing of the air release/priming valve is here: http://www.ulka.it/admin/moduli/m003_web/file/pag_1pag_ULKA_web.pdf A side benefit (perhaps intentional) of this valve is to divert a portion of the pump's initial output thus prolonging the preinfusion process. There should be NO flow from this valve once pressure exceeds 8 bar, possibly even sooner. You can always temporarily run separate lines back to the tank for observation purposes (with Anita undressed).

Here's the final outcome of my Anita repairs.

After replacing the OPV seat (and the brass seat holder as the old one was baked together), and then replacing the air release/primer valve I was still experiencing a fluxuating brew head pressure...jumping between 7.5 bar and 8.5 bar. After pulling a few shots the pump sounds dropped to a hum and I got just a trickle of water out of the brew head and no pressure to speak of. I thought perhaps I had lost priming, but nothing would remedy the situation so I ordered a replacement pump.

When I replaced the pump the first thing I noticed was that the Anita was about 40% quieter than ever before. I thought at first the pump wasn't working or hadn't primed yet, but it was pumping away. I put in my blank adjusted the pressure to about 9 bar, where it stayed rock steady. I believe that the original Ulka pump in this machine was never completely right - too noisy from the start and failed at 3 years. I've never had any other Anita to compare mine to, only my friend Owen's Isomac - much quieter but his is the 41 watt Ulka, and of course a different chassis.

So, my problem is fixed! I found my shots to be a bit "thin" and on the sour side so I dialed the brew head pressure back to about 8.25 bar. The up side of this pump failure is that I got to experience how my shots changed with lower brew head pressure (albeit varying wildly) while using the same water, bean, temp, grind, and tamp. I got some wonderful shots at lower pressures - dinner guests raving over some after dinner lattes!

Thanks to my pal Owen, as well as EricS and to the ever-helpful service folks at Chris Coffee. The down side of fixing this Anita is..well... I now have no justification to purchase an Alex Duetto.

Peace out.

Glad to hear your noise problem has been resolved. Were you able to get the pump replaced under warranty, or did you have to pay for it?

I've been having some weird noise and pressure fluctuation issues with my Anita too, though not nearly as serious as what you've described. Sometimes the pump makes thumping sound under load. Other times it makes no noise at all and becomes almost dead silent. I'm wondering if replacing the pump would help, though I'm not really too concerned about it at this point.

I paid for a replacement pump, as it was over 3 years old. I haven't called back to the service department at Chris yet; I wanted to fill them in on what transpired after all my calls and part by part replacement for much of the HX loop. I wouldn't refuse if they offered to replace it, but I figure it's on me. Mostly I'd like to give them the feedback. Good folks.

Yup, Chris and his crew rock. They've always been very helpful to me whenever anything went wrong.

I'm thinking it might be worthwhile to get the 41 watt Ulka pump if it's that much quieter. Right now, my pump is really noisy, especially when autofilling the boiler. Maybe I'll break down and get a new pump sometime just to see if it makes a difference.