Like my post count shows, I'm a newbie. I'm the guy that found a working NS Oscar and Pavoni Zip Base grinder at a yard sale for 50 dollars.

I finished getting them all together and working correctly. The Oscar had the pod diffuser instead of the ground coffee diffuser. The Zip had a seriously jammed adjusting collar that needed to be feed up.

I was so proud of myself of fixing the Oscar by resetting it and cleaning up the Zip so that it works good.

However this weekend, my Oscar ran out of water. The light came on and the machine shut down. I put more water into it and it still didn't work. I started to freak out. Took the cover off and started to mess around, trying to figure out why the heck this wasn't working.

Took a break and came here and decided to search before I really went nuts and disassembled the machine.

Searched for something like oscar water level empty and found some hits. Found out that you are NOT supposed to use distilled water. That was a surprised. I emptied my tank and filled it halfway with tap water and the distilled water and bingo! Everything works well again.

So thanks for this site and the search feature. It really has helped get my little setup up and running.

Not only do the level sensors inside boilers and the like need some mineral content to work properly but the mineral content of water affects how the flavor components of coffee will bind with the water. Crappy water will generally yield crappy espresso and drip coffee... distilled water yields a drink that tends to taste flat.... and good water at least gives you a good base from which to start.

Many folks use bottled spring water but I've had good success with municipal water and a Brita filter (I am fortunate enough to live in an area that has good water to begin with).

bobotech wrote:So thanks for this site and the search feature. It really has helped get my little setup up and running.

You're welcome! Quality search results serve newbies to oldtimers; I use the search extensively since it's always easier to link what's already well written elsewhere than attempt to compose an answer myself.

Site tip: Check out the "Related Topics" section at the bottom of each page. It's generally accurate and a portion of the results are derived from the unabridged forum FAQs and Favorites. Searching that page with Firefox's Find: field and Highlight all enabled makes it easier to spot topics.