Hi,

I recently purchased a Bellezza Inizio R from the distributor in Australia (I understand it's 'designed' in Germany and assembled in China, although i was not aware of this when I bought it, there wasn't much info on these machines at the time) and have been using it for around 4 weeks. It's actually makes really good espresso as it's a rotary pump, very quiet and plumbed in via a filtration system - through a pressure limiting valve which sits around 3bar. The last day or so however, when pulling a shot, water is running out of the drain (not from the e61 group head drain but from the small outlet which sits behind this, not sure what this drain is called...)

Any of you guys have an idea what may be causing this? I have yet to contact the company i purchased from as it's the weekend in Australia

thanks - Jim

Thanks for the response Kitt. The pressure is factory set at about 10bar-10.5bar which hasn't been a problem until yesterday (i've only had the machine for about 3 weeks), then noticed the water running during the shot..
hmmmm where is rotary pump bypass

thanks again

In this video ( not in English) you can see at 14:23, he pointing the rotary pump bypass valve.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPk5lN9a2kE
You don't need to remove any panels, just get the screw with a flat screw driver and turn it clockwise to increasing pressure or counter clockwise to decreasing pressure.

That is brilliant thank you so much for your help Giampiero and kitt. Really appreciate it! Hopefully this will solve the problem

Just a quick update...

I switch water supply from mains water supply to tank and as the pressure using tank is only 9bar, there was no water out of expansion valve during the shot. Switched water supply back to mains, lowered pressure to approx 9.5bar at the pump and no water... the expansion valve is producing droplets now so I will need to take in to where i bought the machine from for them to have a look if the valve is damaged or blocked.

thanks for your input guys!

At some point is normal if the expansion valve release pressure, so don't get confused by that.
It depend when your expansion valve it release pressure, if during the shot is not properly calibrated, if during the heating up, or sometimes during the idle on is normal or even a while after a shot due to the fresh water entering the HX get expanded during the heating up.

Thanks for the clarification re the expansion valve pressure release. The interesting thing is that i don't recall prior to this issue if the expansion valve dripped water or not
Once Melbourne (Australia) is out of this lockdown I will take it into the place of purchase and get them to have a quick look to ensure the valve isn't damaged.

Thanks for your help Giampiero, appreciate it!

Giampiero wrote:At some point is normal if the expansion valve release pressure, so don't get confused by that.
It depend when your expansion valve it release pressure, if during the shot is not properly calibrated, if during the heating up, or sometimes during the idle on is normal or even a while after a shot due to the fresh water entering the HX get expanded during the heating up.

The issue seems to be getting progressively worse. For the first day or two after the brew pressure was reduced to around 9 bar, the droplets from the expansion valve drain only occured post shot and only for a few mins. Now the dripping starts once the bolier is up to temp and doesn't stop until the machine is turned off.
The dripping itself is not a big problem, it just seems something happened to the valve and reducing the pressure on the rotation pump only covered the problem. Or I'm not sure the expansion valve is dripping because of other issues.

Regards - Jim

Jim, just out of curiosity, why you always mentioned to the expansion valve as the possible culprit, does the droplets coming from a pipe directly and only connected to the expansion valve or maybe is a drain pipe that is shared eventually with the breaker/vacuum valve?