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Wet steam troubleshooting

Postby torretta on Wed Jun 25, 2008 10:25 am

the steam from my cimbali junior has been very wet lately as if the boiler was almost getting flooded. I dont suspect a busted hx and the water level appears to already be set to the lowest level.

I was thinking of removing the water level probe to see if there is any scale build? Is this recommended? I never removed this probe from the boiler before...is it easlily just unscrewed from the boiler?

any tips or advice regarding the wet steam would be appreciated? thx
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Postby CDMTech on Wed Jun 25, 2008 1:15 pm

Yes they are easy to pull out, clean and re-install. It does sound like you do have build-up on the probe. Does it keep filling or just seems to be to full? If it just keeps filling you might check the continuity of the probe wire to make sure there is not a break in it somewhere. Also make sure all the grounds are good and tight.

Ray
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Postby another_jim on Wed Jun 25, 2008 3:09 pm

All probes tend to get a little gunky where they contact the water due to the trickle current they use. Most probes are vertical, so as they gunk up, the boiler level rises slowly. The probe on the Cimbali is more or less horizontal, so a little gunk doesn't affect it at all. But once it's all gunked up, the boiler overfills quite suddenly.
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Postby Spresso_Bean on Wed Jun 25, 2008 4:30 pm

I have wet steam from my Junior also, although my probe is set to keep the water level in the boiler as low as possible and it's approximately 3/4 of the way up to max level from the minimum. I would guess the previous owner shortened the probe, but on my Junior the probe is vertical - the newer models appear to have a different boiler with the probe on the end cap which has it running horizontally, so it depends on which model you have. I just purge as much wet steam as I can and then do the milk, and it seems to work fine. My guess would be that even if you had scale on the probe, the front sight glass would still reflect the correct level inside the boiler, wouldn't it? If you followed the steam piping from the wand to the boiler, there's a short section of metal tubing that sticks down into the boiler, so if the water level is too high it might be sucking some boiler water out which would cause wet steam. I don't know how that would happen at the minimum level, though.
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Postby torretta on Wed Jun 25, 2008 5:45 pm

thanks for your comments. this weekend i will attempt to remove and inspect the probe...here is a pic of what I think the probe should like...Image
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Postby torretta on Wed Jun 25, 2008 5:49 pm

Spresso_Bean wrote:I have wet steam from my Junior also, although my probe is set to keep the water level in the boiler as low as possible and the it's approximately 3/4 of the way up to max level from the minimum. I would guess the previous owner shortened the probe, but on my Junior the probe is vertical - the newer models appear to have a different boiler with the probe on the end cap which has it running horizontally, so it depends on which model you have. I just purge as much wet steam as I can and then do the milk, and it seems to work fine. My guess would be that even if you had scale on the probe, the front sight glass would still reflect the correct level inside the boiler, wouldn't it? If you followed the steam piping from the wand to the boiler, there's a short section of metal tubing that sticks down into the boiler, so if the water level is too high it might be sucking some boiler water out which would cause wet steam. I don't know how that would happen at the minimum level, though.


i dont have the boiler sight glass on my Junior...although it would be a nice feature! I always purged the steam wand into a cup and normally see less than .75 oz of water before getting drier steam suitable for steaming. hopefully it is just some scale build up, although I have been using everpure's double filtration system that includes a softenor.
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Postby torretta on Wed Jun 25, 2008 5:56 pm

CDMTech wrote:Yes they are easy to pull out, clean and re-install. It does sound like you do have build-up on the probe. Does it keep filling or just seems to be to full? If it just keeps filling you might check the continuity of the probe wire to make sure there is not a break in it somewhere. Also make sure all the grounds are good and tight.

Ray


the boiler level seems to be higher than usually...once my boiler was completely flooded (do to a loose connection at the steam outlet port) the steam wand produced water comparable to the water wand!

btw, should I use teflon tape on the connection when reinstalling the probe?
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Postby Spresso_Bean on Wed Jun 25, 2008 5:58 pm

If you have the older Junior, the probe will be near the top and center of the boiler. The newer ones are on the end cap of the boiler. Just make sure you have the machine unplugged when removing the probe and don't remove it if the boiler is pressurized but you probably already know that. The probe on mine looked like that but the angled part on the end that sits inside the boiler was missing, possibly shortened or replaced by the previous owner. It'll at least give you an idea of what to look for - there will be a wire connection on the flattened end.

If yours doesn't have the sight glass, that's either the newest model or the version just before that as I believe they eliminated that feature in the recent Juniors.
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Postby Spresso_Bean on Thu Jun 26, 2008 11:59 am

You probably won't need any Teflon tape, but when I took that part off of my Junior it appeared to have some sort of fiber washer or gasket between the threaded probe bolt (not sure of the exact name) and the boiler. It sealed up fine without adding anything else, but double check it after the work to see if it's leaking at all once it's pressurized. I guess a little Teflon tape wouldn't hurt if you wanted to use it, but you might not even need to.
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Postby torretta on Fri Jun 27, 2008 9:45 pm

Ok, here's an update...the level probe was easy to remove from the boiler, in fact i was surprised how little torque was needed to break the bolt free. when i removed the probe i did note some scale which i removed with sandpaper and buffed with fine steel wool. after reinstalling i let the machine refill and tested the steam wand and now there is very little water before getting powerful steam...seems like new!!

here are before and after pics of the probe:

before:
Image

after:
Image

many thanks for your posts!
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