La Pavoni P/TRE will not heat, need help with diagnosis

[Ryan420]

Hello Everyone.
First of all, great forum, just came across it tonight and have found it very informative already. I searched around, and saw some machines very similiar to mine.
It is a La Pavoni P/TRE.
I have had this machine for about 5 years, and then I got it on eBay. I have used it pretty heavily, about 2-3 drinks a day for most of the time that I have had it. I moved out to Hawaii a few years ago, and crated it and shipped it here from Kansas and have had a minimal amount of issues with it. I do regularly maintenance the machine.
About 10 days ago, I woke up to make a coffee, my partner usually turns on the machine about an hour before I get up, then it is ready when I wake up.
This day, I went to open the steam wand to let out the excess water. At this time, nothing came out. I asked my partner if she had turned on the machine early that day which she said she did. I felt the machine, and it was cold.
I began to take off the panels, and it was completely cold, but turned on. I hit the button on the front, the manual on/off draw shot button. Water came out, everything sounded normal other than the water being cold.
The machine, it is a La Pavoni Crossroads, so I decided to call crossroads-espresso.com, (i think that is the site),
I spoke with one of their techs. I described to him the issue,
He asked me to take off the cover of the pressurestat and the tech asked me to take a look inside at the contacts, he asked me if they look burned, I had the machine off, and unplugged, i touched one of the contacts with a paper towel, and their was black stuff, like carbon or something, on the paper towel afterwards. I told the tech this. After this, he said that by the sounds of it and he said that it sounded like the heating element, and said that he had one in stock so I went ahead and ordered it ($80 + shipping).
I got the part, and I changed it out and cleaned up the machine a bit in the process. When I changed it out and hooked it back up, the machine still did not heat. I still had the cover to the pressure stat off. At this time, I noticed that the contacts for the pressure stat were up or in position where they were not making a connection.
I thought about it and it seemed like this, it would not be getting a connection. I unplugged the machine, and played around with it, what I did, I used the rubber end of a pair of pliers to wedge in the little space, to make the contacts connect inside the pressurestat. Once I did this, I plugged back in the machine and turned it on. This time, it heated! I did notice though, that it got very hot, and the pressure gauge never went up. I let it heat pretty hot, the boiler was too hot to even touch and I could hear the water boiling in there for a good 10 minutes or so.
At this point, I do not know what is wrong with it, is it the pressure stat? If that is not it, what else could it be?
I would really appreciate any help that anyone can offer me with this. I live in Hawaii on the Big Island, and I do not know if it is possible to get service on this type of unit here.
I can provide pictures tomorrow, it is about 3am here in hawaii now, just wanted to get this up tonight.
Thanks again in advance for any assistance.

[stefano65]

I'm confused from what you where told
the pressurestat has visible signs of use and they told you to replace the heating element?
save your old one for now and with a multimeter tested for ohms

and REPLACE the pressurestat
every time you turn the machine on ( from cold start of course)
the contact should be closed to allowed current to arrive to the heating element
as temp is reached ( which you can adjust the set value from the screw in top of the pstat)
the pstat will open stopping the current to the heating element
and the process get repeated every time the pressure inside the boiler goes down to a certain value


With the machine unplugged and cold

While you are at
with the pressurestat remove from the pressure pipe
inspect the copper pipe for scale build up
the least you can do for now is to clean that pipe so scale chunks will not enter the new pstat immediately
while you are at a new antivacuum valve will not be a bad idea
Stefano

[Ryan420]

Thanks for the Reply stefano65.
Here is a picture of the machine, this picture, it is a picture that I took of the machine right when I very first got it, like I said before, about 5 years ago.

So you are saying to order and replace the pressurestat? I think that you are correct in this, and I am going to order one on Monday. Do you think that this will also fix the steaming issue where I said that it will not build up steam even after boiling for a long period of time? (as I said before, with the pressurestat being manually held down to make the connection). I have had the copper tube that goes from the top of the boiler to the pressurestat off, and it is not clogged and seems to be free of debris.

In you above post, you mentioned maybe getting a new antivacuum, I am not familiar with what this part is, is it the pressure release valve thing (thing that is what is called?) on the top of the boiler?

I am really needing to get this machine going. It has been out of service for about 2 weeks now. I run a business that is ran out of my home office, I build/repair computers and then build websites. Over the years, I have really gotten used to the coffee and the lack of caffeine is seriously effecting my work productivity. I have alot of hope now after seeing all of the restored ones on this site, some of them are very nice looking.

I have a multimeter, a craftsman, I am not sure what setting to put it on, it has the Ohm, but then their are several settings, 2000k, 200k, 20k, 2000, and 200, then another one, that emits a tone, not sure. Any advise on this?

I am going to try to take more modern pictures of the internals and everything cause I think that it will assist with the repair of the machine.

Thank you so much for your assistance with this,
thanks again for the reply and any future replies.

[cafeIKE]

I have a multimeter, a craftsman, I am not sure what setting to put it on, it has the Ohm, but then their are several settings, 2000k, 200k, 20k, 2000, and 200, then another one, that emits a tone, not sure. Any advise on this?

MAKE SURE THE MACHINE IS UNPLUGGED ! AND COLD !

The tone is to indicate a short, or very close to one.
Use the 200 scale.
Touch the two leads together. Should read very close to ZERO.
Now read across the heating element. Should be around 10.