Hello guys,

Here's the Machine: Isomac Tea Version 1.
Use: 8 years by 1 guy, had it service checked before I bought it off him 3 years ago

I had no problems with the machine, but recently moved to Detroit from Greenville (South Carolina). Water hardness went from 20ppm to 105ppm. After 1.5 years (too long, I've heard) I ran a descaling fluid following these instructions on youtube to a T:
Here's where the problem came up. After flushing approximately 95% of the dezcal out, the machine started to not heat up and lose pressure. I read up here and on reddit trying to find a solution, as well as contacting Chris Coffee (they sold the machine to the original owner and have supplied all my parts so far). After borrowing an Ohmmeter, I determined it needed a new thermal fuse at the least. I swapped in a 170C for the 184C and thought I'd be good to go.

When I started the machine, it acted funky. It was heating up like normal, but it felt like it took an extra 20 minutes for the steam cap to shut due to pressure (this could be due to the lower rated fuse, completely open machine, and being worked on in the coldest part of the house). But after activating the brewhead, the pump never seemed to draw water into the boiler to replace the water I'd just displaced. After doing this a few times I went to bed frustrated.

Next morning, I tried again. Kicked on the machine and it drew water for 25 seconds straight. I stopped the machine as I know I'm not supposed to run the pump for any longer than that. I did that 4 times and then the machine stopped pumping and started to warm up.

And this is where I'm at now. The pump will pull water into the boiler like normal. But now it's not getting hot enough for the steam cap to shut. It's getting hot, but not hot enough. Could this be due solely to having to low a rated thermal fuse?

Have you measured the resistance of the heating element? It is better if this is done when the element is removed from the machine. I have damaged the heating element on my Isomac after draining the water from the boiler during a descale. The refill is too slow, and so the heating element burns up before the water can refill. I now disconnect the heating element during the refill, and haven't had to replace one since.

I have not. That's a great idea. I'm guessing I can just search through the forums for what the normal resistance of the heating element is supposed to be?

What I'm wondering though, is would damaging the element cause it to still heat up at all? As currently it is heating up and almost producing enough steam to shut the cap, but falls just barely short.

I had a problem with my CMA lever
Machine sort of like that, which turned out to be a bad pressurestat contact. I was able to restore it with a cleaning, but replaced it eventually and got a tighter deadband out of the deal.

SprowhenI'mslow wrote:I'm guessing I can just search through the forums for what the normal resistance of the heating element is supposed to be?

Yes, but I can tell you for mine it's about 8.6 ohms.

What I'm wondering though, is would damaging the element cause it to still heat up at all? As currently it is heating up and almost producing enough steam to shut the cap, but falls just barely short.

Good point. On mine it simply failed to heat at all.