I stumbled across a pristine Pavoni Pro for cheap a few weeks ago. I'd always wanted to try one, but I couldn't justify adding it to the ... collection (when did that happen!). I'm in the middle of my first overhaul project (a zerowatt ca310), but this was too great to pass up.

Anyway, after some cleaning and making sour coffee for a day. I slapped the thermoprobe on the group, turned down the pstat, and followed all the great wisdom here. As indicated, the Pros are nice - pstat keeps them in a reliable range and the gauge let's you know where it's at. With thermometry, you're golden!

At that point, I had two irritations:
- Warming up the group from a cold start with hot water flushes leaves me with a lot less water in the boiler. Which means refilling more, etc.
- Waiting for the pstat to cycle before I pull a shot (while watching the grouphead temp drop).

Often, but not often enough, the stars align and I do a warming flush which brings the group up to temp which then kicks off the pstat. What I really needed was to get the group to the temp I want, then be able to manually bring the boiler up to temp.

If you happen to share my minor irritations, this simple mod is for you!

I took a spare 1980s momentary button (left over from the ca310) and put it in the pavoni. Any momentary button rated for the load will do. (I opted to not use a double switch because I didn't have any on-hand which would let me still switch the neutral off when I switch the load off.)

Unfortunately, my phone (and camera) was charging when I did the work so no in-progress pictures. I did the following:

1. Measure the cutout needed for the button with calipers
2. Make a template with spare cardstock.
3. Put painters tape over the chrome base where you want to cut (be liberal with the tape)
4. Center and trace the template
5. Cut with a dremel!

I cut smaller than the template then slowly ground out larger so I wouldn't accidentally overdo it.

Once that was cut out, I prepped the switch by soldering on a wire to each terminal (scrap high-temp silicone insulated wire). The point of the switch is to bypass the pstat when pressed, nothing more. To that end I just joined the connection at each terminal of the pstat inside the existing end caps. This meant I didn't have to change the original wiring (much).

Here's the switch I used:


And here's the end result:




Now I can kickstart group warm up by pressing the button until I hit ~1.5 bar, do some half-pumps, then let out a little water. If the boiler is still too hot afterwards, letting a little steam does the trick. If by the time I return with a prepped basket it is cold, I can press it for a second to get it up to temp. As a bonus, I can also hold it if I want to build (and keep) pressure before steaming. From my perspective, it gives me the best of the pavoni worlds: two-switch like massimo and pstat stability (though I've never used the two-switch models).

This isn't groundbreaking, but I thought I'd share anyhow!

It's like a turbo switch for your espresso machine
Nice job, looks almost stock. I've often thought about doing something similar to my Gaggia Factory for that extra oomph.

oofnik wrote:It's like a turbo switch for your espresso machine

Exactly! Now it goes at 14MHz! I only wish I'd thought of calling it a turbo switch

oofnik wrote:Nice job, looks almost stock. I've often thought about doing something similar to my Gaggia Factory for that extra oomph.

Thanks! I was hoping using a button from another machine of the same vintage (that even share the _same_ red power switch) might give it an authentic look.

You should definitely go for it. It took just about an hour to do, and it's been super convenient so far!