Thanks for the link, although it looks like he doesn't carry that particular thermal fuse.

Write to him. He's very helpful. A thermal fuse doesn't have to have the same part number to function correctly for your machine.

john402052000 wrote:The thermal fuse was the problem. Where do I get the replacement? The photo in the link is too small to read the name/part number. Thanks for your help!

Electric parts stores, including Radio shack, sell them. I think that's why Francesco said they were "easily found." The Radio Shack 128C thermal protector fuse should work, but I think is a little lower temp than the original.

Stefano sells one with a set of spade terminals, and I think he'll include how-to solder instructions with his. But is higher temp (167C) - you might ask him if he sells one that he advises for use with your Pavoni.

When you say lower temperature, do you mean it would trip at a lower temperature than the fuse that came with the machine? That may be a good thing.

Homeburrero,
the original fuse in the orange sleeve was a 109 120 Celsius part.

A 121 C fuse should is perfectly OK inside the well, though, being so near the HE. La Pavoni used 109 Celsius fuses even outside of the well, it was the brown screw-on fuse. Today resettable fuses trip at 127 Celsius, the one Francesco suggests on his site (which looks a lot like the one Stefano sells) is a 121C part. But, going off at 167 C, the one Stefano sells is not compatible with any model of the Europiccola; and even the RadioShack part is one C above the resettable part.

Edited to correct wrong temp of the fuse

john402052000 wrote:When you say lower temperature, do you mean it would trip at a lower temperature than the fuse that came with the machine? That may be a good thing.

That's what I was saying, but see Franco's post - he says the original was a 109C fuse*. I was under the probably mistaken impression that the original red wire thermofuse burned at a higher than 128C temp. And you're right that lower is good, as long as it doesn't tend to burn at normal operating temps.

I looked again at Francesco's web pages, here, and here. He mentions the temp on the other style fuses but I gives us no numbers on the red sheath style. Not sure why I thought it was higher. Thanks for the correction on that.

* Edit addition. Note that Franco corrected that in the next post, to 120C. And after enlarging Francesco's picture of the old style thermofuse I see the marking on his pictured fuse - indicating 120C.

I actually made a mistake! The fuse in the well is a 120 Celsius part. Sorry about this. I'm editing the previous post so that there is no mistake.
Homeburrero, you are absolutely right, as the temperature inside the well would be higher being nearer to the coils.

I should probably mention that I'm not very "electronically literate".

So -- the way the fuse works is it blows once the temperature of the area it is in reaches the number it's rated for -- the fuse for the Radio Shack model being rated at 128C. Because of the design of that fuse it looks like it can't be tucked into the recess under the heating element like the yellow tip of the red stock La Pavoni fuse. If I use the Radio Shack fuse it looks like the temperature in that area would need to get higher to trip that fuse than the original La Pavoni fuse. Am I right about that and, if so, will that higher temp put the heating element at greater risk?

Thanks for all your help and patience!

john402052000 wrote:So -- the way the fuse works is it blows once the temperature of the area it is in reaches the number it's rated for -- the fuse for the Radio Shack model being rated at 128C.

Yes.

john402052000 wrote: If I use the Radio Shack fuse it looks like the temperature in that area would need to get higher to trip that fuse than the original La Pavoni fuse. Am I right about that and, if so, will that higher temp put the heating element at greater risk?

You might check to see if they have a 120C, but I think that 128C should work fine. I noticed that the old Dr Pavoni instructions recommended using the 128C fuse in your model, and a lot of Pavoni owners have used that advice for years.

john402052000 wrote:Because of the design of that fuse it looks like it can't be tucked into the recess under the heating element like the yellow tip of the red stock La Pavoni fuse.

You just have to bend it. The leads on the fuse are bendable - unless you bend them back and forth they won't break. So once you have it wired up and inside the insulating sleeve you use a pliers to carefully bend one side so that it's doubled back on itself. Look at your old one as a guide when you take it apart.

For advice on wiring it up with butt connectors, I did a quick Google, and found a nice detailed instruction on the Gaggia Users Group - see this: http://www.gaggiausersgroup.com/index.p ... =page;p=35 (steps 1, 3, and 9 - 17.)

I would add that you should make sure you keep about 10mm of wire between the fuse and the connector. I think you can solder the connection if you are careful to use a heat sink (needle nose pliers) on the wire near the fuse, and solder quickly. Also, the instructions above say it doesn't matter which way you wire in the fuse. Is not a big deal, but the preferred orientation on a US 110V machine would be to make sure the colored ceramic end of the fuse is connected to the side that goes to the switch rather than the side that goes to the element.

P.S. Other people on this forum are way more expert than I am about soldering and connections, and may want to weigh in here.

In a recent thread one of our members with engineering expertise advised that thermal fuses on these machines aren't reliably protective and that a much more reliable method is being able to power off the machine by monitoring temperature inside the boiler or by monitoring the water level in the sightglass. That's somewhat difficult to do and upgrades beyond original specs on one of these machines. So, the best thing is to be careful and not boil it dry. At the least a thermal fuse will protect against fire but it may do so after the heating element is blown. Here's that thread for the detailed discussion:

Can Thermal Switches and Fuses Protect Heating Elements?

To add a bit of perspective: I recently restored what may be the U.S. prototype for the first La Pavoni Europiccola. It's now a working museum piece. I put in a single failure, meltable thermal fuse and did not try more advanced thermal protection. I determined how many shots I can pull on that machine before shutting it down and I make sure to never boil it dry. Those original machines had no thermal fuse. The following link has the place where discussion of thermofuse safety began and how I resolved that question with that machine.

1961 La Pavoni Europiccola History and Servicing