Pasquini Livia 90 - new pressurestat or PID?

Equipment doesn't work? Troubleshooting? If you're handy, members can help.
Miles
Posts: 25
Joined: 14 years ago

#1: Post by Miles »

It's been a few years since this topic has been addressed on the forum, and I figured it's worth revisiting, as technology has changed, and people are likely to have had new experiences in the meantime.

Here's the situation: I have a Pasquini Livia 90 Semi-Auto, which was new in roughly 2001. I just had a pressurestat failure, and it happens about every 2 years on this machine. The current pressurestat is a Mater. I was considering going over to a Jaeger, though someone else who did that conversion said they required an extra inch or two of wire length, so had to add extensions into their machine. I really doubt I can fit a Sirai into the case. The alternative would be trying to go PID. From what I can see, it looks like the Pasquini G4 has one temperature sensor attached to the top of the group head, and another attached to the top of the boiler. I think I recall some previous post years back stating that something about the Livia 90's design made it inherently incompatible with PIDs, but I can't for the life of me recall the specifics of that. I don't know if this has anything to do with it, but I did see that Pasquini only offers a PID on the automatic version of the G4, not on the semi-auto. My guess is that it has to do with preinfusion, but I haven't seen an official reason. I'm curious to know if anyone has done a PID upgrade on a Livia 90 semi-auto, and if it was worthwhile. Also, has anyone experimented with different brands of pressurestats on the Livia, and can anyone comment as to whether or not the Jaeger is really more reliable than the Mater or CEME?

Additional details: The current failure causes the heating element to run continuously, which makes steam blast out the bottom safety valve after about 20-30 minutes of warmup. Attempting to adjust the pressurestat setting didn't help, and the adjustment screw feels and sounds like there's a broken spring inside. I'm not currently looking to spend money on a new machine.