Nice, clean installation. I'll be interested in seeing how the Sugru holds up on the hot boiler. Does it stick to the boiler? Does it deform over time?

Mark - that's a very nice looking machine.

And, a little off-topic, but I'm very curious about the pilot light on the front of the machine. Does it just light whenever the switch is on, or have you done something special under the hood? (I always thought it would be interesting to have a dual-switch paired with a single 1000W element and pStat, so that when on the II setting it would bypass the pStat and pressure up to whatever the safety valve allowed. I would set the pStat fairly low, and only go to II when steaming.)

Pat: I can't take credit for the pilot light. Kurt August added it back when he did an extensive restoration of this machine, as well as the powdercoat and wood accents. It is not nearly as fancy as you were hoping; it just indicates when the switch is turned on.

Gary: Yes, we will have to see how the Sugru holds up. They do advertise it as heat resistant up to 356F, and it has held up so far, but long term it is anyone's guess.

[creative nickname] wrote:. Gary: Yes, we will have to see how the Sugru holds up. They do advertise it as heat resistant up to 356F, and it has held up so far, but long term it is anyone's guess.

Does it adhere to the hot boiler?

I used high-temp velcro for the boiler attachment to make the whole thing easier to remove and then reattach, so I'm not sure.

That's probably the way to go. Thanks for letting me know. There's some Sugru in my future.

I just worked on adding this mod to my '78 Europiccola... I did a few things differently than others thus far, figured I would share them. The mod is not complete, as apparently the "high heat" velcro I bought wasn't so high heat. The velcro slid off when I was pulling my second shot. So I connected it via two separate zip ties. I also installed the thermometer on a foot/grommet that came off of an old external hard drive enclosure... this worked well as I could feed the probe wires through the screw hole. I also notched the grommet/foot so the wires would be flush, thus enabling a nice flat surface area for the velcro.

I seated the thermometer so it would sit at a nice angle for viewing. I superglued the grommet to the thermo. You can also see the notch in the grommet.



I used aluminum tape (for now) to hold the probe under the back side of the group head bell.



Installed using the not-so-high-heat-velcro



After the thermo fell, I wrapped a small zip tie around the joint of the grommet and the thermo. Then used another zip tie to connect to the top of the sight glass. This is temp for now as I am installing a manometer later this week. So I will need to rethink and figure a cleaner install...





What high heat velcro are you guys using?

Is the best way to connect probe to bell is portafilter gasket?

I used this velcro, which has held up so far under moderate use: http://www.amazon.com/Coil-Wrap-71-Temp ... B002NI0NQI

As for attaching the probe to the group, I do think a gasket is your best bet. If you scroll through this thread, you'll see that the tape tends to fail and peel off after a while.

Thanks, I just placed an order for that velcro. =)

I've moved away from Velcro and am going in the direction of using a lab clamp on the neck of the group to hold the thermometer behind the group. I'm about to do this on my La Pavoni but it's boxed up for moving. Here's that installation on my Cremina. I like the Taylor thermometer because of its appearance and the leads can be freed from the sheath. The only drawback with this setup is finding a clamp that doesn't rock on the group neck and that holds the thermometer without swiveling. To set this up I adapted a piece of Teflon and a lever pin roller bearing to hold the thermometer in place. It's a work in progress but I use it every day and like the way it looks. This clamp may work very well on an early version La Pavoni, where the group screws into the boiler and the group neck is round.