Today my beauties arrived from Italy- after months at sea. Today espresso culture in Australia has been gifted with two classic pieces from the Golden Age of Italian design! Grazi Italia!

The Gaggia America arrived in a huge 85KG wooden box- the delivery guys simply slid it from the truck onto a table of mine on the sidewalk and left me looking dejectedly at this massive object in the street. I was contemplating taking the box and espresso machine apart and carrying the bits inside like an ant- when a Giant Man made another delivery to the neighbors house. With his not inconsiderable help- we finally managed to drag the giant cube into my house.

Hats off to Mr Massimo of Italy- he did a superb job on this crate:



today I have only taken off the lid and had a peak Inside: My Lord the Group head is HUGE! I knew they were big but until you see it in person you have no real idea. There is NO way I am going to be able to put a group like that on any home machine:



I had no time to contemplate this as the Faema Lambro beckoned- this was also well packed but no wooden crate... I quickly had it on the table. It looks PERFECTO- completely restored seemingly- but 100% original. It has two mercury switches- and a giant weight that goes on the pressure release valve. It appears to have gas fittings complete- as well as an electrical element. I can see that some of the interior wires still have that ceramic insulation. I can also see what looks like a thin sheet of asbestos covering the back wall on the inside (crap! I am going to need to get it professionally assessed- I think the same thing may await me inside the Gaggia).

The Lambro lever action is smooth- and peeking in the top of the machine I can see a 2mm white seal on the boiler lid- this looks to me to be modern? The brass all looks very clean. There are a few tiny drops of clear water visible in the sight glass indicating the machine has been used recently. It all looks to clean not to work- no signs of any leaks around the fittings inside. This machine came with a large stainless steel water softener filled with tiny strange little amber balls? I am thinking this machine will need to be plumbed in to work at all- but I cant wait to try it out.

First Impressions are that the Lambro is also HUGE. The group is truly massive though not as heavy as the Gaggia obviously. This picture really doesn't give a good impression:



I have a few questions for those in the know- the electrical cord has four wires coming out of it: black, brown, blue, yellow/green. Usually there is only 3... I am thinking the yellow green is positive- of the others the black and brown wires are twitched together at the ends- would these be positive and the blue negative?

Green/Yellow will be neutral (the bottom vertical pin on an australian plug), the other three will all be phase which means at some stage this has been run on 3phase power.

If you need to connect to a plug, it doesn't matter which way the three phase wires are connected, connect two to one terminal and one to the other, then the neutral (earth) to the vertical pin.


Australian/New Zealand standard plugs have the following configuration;

...............................Phase 1 /....\ Phase 2
.............................................|
....................................Neutral/Earth

Secretly showing off some other gadgetry eh?
I am 100% positive that green/yellow is earth.
It's not threephase, because then you'd need 4 leads. 3 for the phase, and one for the neutral.

So i'd connect the black and brown to the neutral, blue to the phase and green/yellow to the earth.

Bluecold - it has four leads, if you look at the picture blue and black are two separate leads which have been twisted together. Since they were twisted together i'd assume that it's fine to run as 2 phase because as the OP said they've obviously been tested.

Whoops. I meant four leads and a ground, totaling 5 leads.
L1
L2
L3
Neutral
Ground

I thought you could run neutral and ground together? What would use 3 phase leads and a neutral?

Love that Red Lambro. As a fellow Lambro owner they are great bang for the buck.

Looks like it has been wired 220V 2 Phase (Black + Brown) + Neutral (Blue) as mentioned. I do this a lot with machines as well. Why? well it means I can split the power on say a La Marzoco between the 2 boilers. On HX machines this is also done because more often than not 2 elements are in the boiler.

joellawry wrote:What would use 3 phase leads and a neutral?

These are 220V machines not 380V, hence the neutral Don't think I have ever seen an espresso machine with 3PH and no neutral.

Paul

There is NO way I am going to be able to put a group like that on any home machine:

umm... hate to say I told you so...

Who cares anyway, now that you have all the rest of the parts attached to the groups are designed? Well, I've getting some nice espresso out of the little 40s-mm groups lately, but I must admit to a certain amount of envy..

PC

I was contemplating taking the box and espresso machine apart and carrying the bits inside like an ant- when a Giant Man made another delivery to the neighbors house

Oh yeah, and I've also had it reasonably easy, since I can single-handedly carry them to the sink and simply turn them upside down to empty the boilers!

Congratulations Sorentino, She looks bellissimo! I must say the Italians seem to be great packagers, I too received a little bit of Italy today in the form of a beautiful little Caravel. The packaging and insulation was clearly done in a very conscientious manner.

Other than the grey paint needing a refinsh she looks to be intact with the handle on the very little portafilter showing no wear at all.

I am very excited to say the least and cannot wait until Caravel has been spruced up and made ready.
I am however in need of the little drip tray. She only came with the drip grate. I had a look on the OE site but nada. Any advice or help with a tray will be greatly appreciated!

Cheers, Ted.

* My espresso machine is run by an adaptive controller, Me!
* All those that believe in telekinesis please raise my hand.