First of all thanks for the advice prior to picking it up thread here. I bought it for £480 (764 usd), I knew it needed some work when picking it up but that was part of it for me.
The lady didn't have it plumed in so I got a signed, dated receipt to say that it was in full working order so that if it isn't I could take it back (which I don't really want to do).

Here is a quick front and sides. One of the lights (red in colour) isn't present on the front pic but it is there, just the thread has cracked on the plastic and the metal disc has been lost so it won't stay in place.






It was a little older than I thought, 2000 I believe, the electrics are marked as dec 2000 and May 2001. Under the cover for the electronics seem to be in very good order. Below are the wires coming off the main power switch.




As you can see from the next pic the electronics under the cover are fine, but those not are a little grungy, and the floor needs a good old clean. (The purple ring will come into play shortly)




This (below) is at the front right of the machine next to the electronics, I don't really know what it is (pressure over flow?), but it was really just to show that I put a little de-scaler on it for a couple of seconds and it came off pretty easily.




I switched it on to make sure that it would turn on. It did and it sounded as though the pump was running which was a good thing. Checking that there was some water in the tank (with a wooden skewer via the boiler level probe nut which I removed) I quickly pressed one of the dispense buttons on for the left group, but nothing came out. I switched the machine off/on and tried it with the right. This resulted in a very loud 'warning buzzer' sounding. Anticipating something like this may happen I had my finger on my circuit breaker and off it went after half a second. I also noticed water coming from the brew/auto fill solenoid (see below) which is not attached correctly, broken or simply unscrewed I do not know as I thought it better to seek advice before messing about with it.






The last thing to say is that looking inside the tank there is a lot of scale and does need a fully, well, de-scaling. I intend to do this by stripping it down but a couple of questions.

1) I do intend to fully strip it down and de-scale it, but before I get that far, I haven't seen any water come out of the group yet. Should I plumb it in and see if the tank fills and I can get water to come out of the GH's? This will of course mean fixing the solenoid leak first. Also there is always the possibility of thick scale blocking the pipes. I only assume at the moment I can plumb it in because there is an outdoor tap plumbed in under the sink, a converter may be needed.

2) Before buying I asked about power supply. A user suggested that a normal mains plug would be okay. And I know it did switch on through a regular 13A fused plug but my maths says I=P/V, I=3700/230 =16A. Can you get a standard UK plug with a 16A fuse? Even if you get a converter from the 16A plug to a 'normal' plug, that will still have a 13A fuse.

3) I think I'll go with the citric acid method of descaling. I.e. chuck all the pieces in a bucket and let it get on with it. here this seems to be a good place to get it. It's labelled as "100 % Fine Anhydrous Grade Citric Acid" £10 for 1kg delivered to my door. Is this the right stuff? How much will I need? What proportion of acid to water?

4) Going back to the purple ring in the electronics picture, there are 2 sets of electronics, one for each group. The one on the left has these wires (circled) but the one on the right does not. Is this important?

5) I'm going to need several parts including a drip tray, electronic programming key and probably gaskets to start. Any recommendations for suppliers?

Thanks in advance!

Damien

(The names of the parts were supplied by Dave in this topic http://www.home-barista.com/espre...ow-mine-t6800.html started by Mark Hoy)

Hi Damien,
the loud sound you heard when activating the pump could be due to the safety valve (shown in your picture #7) located under the drip tray. This valve opens when the pump pressure builds up over 12 bars. Have you noticed the pump pressure needle going way up when this occurred? If this is the case, the pump might be badly adjusted. There is a screw to adjust it, there's several posts on the board that you could refer to for this adjustment.

check the pump for leakage. I have bought my machine used too, after a year of non-operating. turns out the pump is bad and needs replacement.

DDTTAA wrote:Here is a quick front and sides. One of the lights (red in colour) isn't present on the front pic but it is there, just the thread has cracked on the plastic and the metal disc has been lost so it won't stay in place.

Actually looks pretty good in there. Should be easy to replace. I put all new lights in mine as they are plastic and were crispy from the heat. Send some email to Elektra via their website, you may end up with an owners manual like I did. This included a CD with PDFs schematics of the internals of the latest versions, sure not everything is identical, but they haven't changed a great deal over time.

BTW: Take pictures from a couple of angles before taking things apart. You may want to physically mark your HX lines as with a two group system some of the lines may look very similar (heck they might be interchangeable and then again they could be off just a bit and mess up alignment later).

DDTTAA wrote:1) I do intend to fully strip it down and de-scale it, but before I get that far, I haven't seen any water come out of the group yet. Should I plumb it in and see if the tank fills and I can get water to come out of the GH's? This will of course mean fixing the solenoid leak first. Also there is always the possibility of thick scale blocking the pipes. I only assume at the moment I can plumb it in because there is an outdoor tap plumbed in under the sink, a converter may be needed.

1. Yeah, you could plumb it in to test some things out. That way if you have to order a pump, or get it rebuilt, that can be done while you descale the boiler. Don't run it without water for the pump to suck in. Ideally at pressure too, otherwise you'll ruin the pump. I ran my very briefly from a bottle of water just slightly below the level of the system. The pump takes water from the incoming line and pushes it through the HX line when you press a button. No water supply, no water out.

DDTTAA wrote:2) Before buying I asked about power supply. A user suggested that a normal mains plug would be okay. And I know it did switch on through a regular 13A fused plug but my maths says I=P/V, I=3700/230 =16A. Can you get a standard UK plug with a 16A fuse? Even if you get a converter from the 16A plug to a 'normal' plug, that will still have a 13A fuse.

2. Can't tell you much about the UK power lines. Get the water supply there first as you don't want to run it dry by accident. Melting the heating element would be a bad thing.

DDTTAA wrote:3) I think I'll go with the citric acid method of descaling. I.e. chuck all the pieces in a bucket and let it get on with it. here this seems to be a good place to get it. It's labelled as "100 % Fine Anhydrous Grade Citric Acid" £10 for 1kg delivered to my door. Is this the right stuff? How much will I need? What proportion of acid to water?

3. I got my Citric Acid from a local home brew beer shop. I gather it's used to clean things out. I think I used a bit less than 1/2 lb. total and I was VERY liberal with it. For smaller pieces I used a small plastic bucket or an even smaller glass bowl. I didn't measure the amount of citric acid, I just spooned it into the boiling hot water, if it stopped dissolving I had enough.

In the large plastic buckets in which you'll place your boiler, it's hard to keep the water hot. I took out a couple quarts every now and again and heated it in a microwave and then replaced it. It still took a week to dissolve the hard black scale I was facing. Hopefully your boiler is in better condition.

DDTTAA wrote:4) Going back to the purple ring in the electronics picture, there are 2 sets of electronics, one for each group. The one on the left has these wires (circled) but the one on the right does not. Is this important?

4. [Edit] Whoops, wrong circle....Not sure what that does, trace it back to what it connects to. [/edit]
You should re-thread the solenoid.

DDTTAA wrote:5) I'm going to need several parts including a drip tray, electronic programming key and probably gaskets to start. Any recommendations for suppliers?

5. Not sure of a supplier in the UK. In the US, Stefano at Espresso Care is great. Probably expensive to ship to the UK. Ideally you could find a used one.



Mark

Hi guys thanks for the responses

SylvainMtl wrote:Have you noticed the pump pressure needle going way up when this occurred?

Hi, when i turned it on i was looking around the back to be honest so i didnt see the gauge, i also didnt have any water in it so i dont know how much pressure would have built up.

Vad wrote:check the pump for leakage

There wasn't any water under the pump but then again i wasn't fully focused on it and didn't really have the time to look at it as it was only switched on briefly.

mhoy wrote:No water supply, no water out.

I assumed it may draw from the bottom of the tank, but obviously i knew this might not work with only 2in or so of water in the bottom.

mhoy wrote:Whoops, wrong circle....Not sure what that does, trace it back to what it connects to.

Yes, i had a mate over last night we were trying to do just this, but after a few beers it became confusing. but with a clearer head this morning i found that the two wires coming out of the left box are; Black: this links to the boiler level probe Yellow: its actually yellow and green and is an earth wire. There are some different wires in the two boxes, but it looks like they are to link to each other via various sensors.

mhoy wrote:Not sure of a supplier in the UK. In the US, Stefano at Espresso Care is great. Probably expensive to ship to the UK. Ideally you could find a used one.

I'll check out espresso care and the other sponsors. I think it would be pretty slim of getting a used one as a search on ebay for "elektra coffee" brings up 0 results.

mhoy wrote:Send some email to Elektra via their website, you may end up with an owners manual like I did

Did you write to them and specifically ask for the maintenance manual? something like "i have recently bought one of your beautiful machines and wish to restore it ...." ect. ect.

I will check the lights and replace them if not pristine. and with the amount of pictures im going to take of her she'll start to believe she's Kate Moss!

Thanks for the responses guys, now.......to find the water mains cut off!!

i have just discovered that the nut holding on the brew/auto fill solenoid is not just out of place but cracked, i guess until this is replaced i can't fill the tank!

Damien -

Nice pics and nice machine.

You can simply take the fill solenoid valve out of the circuit (temporarily) using 1/8" BSP and 1/4" BSP caps and a little teflon tape.

Mark, disconnect, and tape over the electrical connections to the heating element - you won't need that for a while.

DO NOT run the pump unless the suction line is connected to a pressure regulated water supply (2.50 to 3.50 bar) or, preferably, a simple 2 litre water reservoir (for now).

You need to verify that both groups flow water. After this is completed, pressure test each hx by "pulling a shot" with a blind filter. Remove some fitting(s) from the boiler (vacuum breaker or level probe) and MAKE SURE that the boiler is not getting any water when you do the blind filter shot. If the boiler is getting water, this would not be good news and would be cause for some thought as regards returning the machine

Hi Eric,

you say use 1/8" BSP and 1/4" BSP caps, i assume this reffers to the depth of the caps? what are the two caps for? if i remove the solenoid only 1 "hole" will remain - do i need to block off another part of the water flow?

Thanks

Damien

1/8" and 1/4" refer to the nominal pipe size. I do believe a typical UK hardware store should have brass caps on the shelf.

From your pic of the solenoid, the inlet (left) threading into the solenoid appears to be 1/4" BSPP female. A 1/4" BSP cap should easily thread onto the fitting that screws into the solenoid.

The other end (right side from your pic) appears to be 1/8" BSPP threads. Yes, you need to cap off both ends after you remove the solenoid.

edit - yes it would be a good idea to cap off both ends but not necessarily mandatory.

to be clear, are you saying completely remove the fitting in which the solenoid fits on top (1) and cap the pipes off at A (pipe from solenoid to boiler) and B (from one way valve to flowmeters / 4 way fitting to pressure gauge / from pipe flex to 4 way fitting) ? so essentially there would be a gap where 1 is?

would water still come through the group if it does not flow through the flowmeters? if it is possible to complete the water circuit without passing through the solenoid, what is its purpose? to manage the pressure?

thanks

Damien