fredbram wrote:I am now leak-free and happy. Oddly enough, while retrieving my tools and o-rings, I found that I had ordered and received a new ball valve assembly 2 or 3 years ago, stashed it for the future and completely forgot about it. Put that in, added an o-ring at the bottom where I had neglected to and all is good.
I appreciate you all being here for help.

Enjoy the party for now. But it will leak again as the seals flow to the shape of the ball, and then become loose. The leak is not a pot-luck roll of the dice. Not a case where you got a "lucky one". The flowing of PTFE is deterministic. So...you should still consider re-sealing your old one to have it ready for service when the time comes. My re-sealed 9 year old valve is going on two years in a two year old machine. Yes, that means I removed a perfectly good, nearly brand new valve, and replaced it with an old one I rebuilt myself.

-Peter

Hello all! Wow this thread really took off since I last posted.
Turned out my wand leak went away after some descaling & thorough/full lever actuations, so I took the advice not to disturb my relatively new valve and went away.

Looking at all the progress made and the photos has got me thinking, surely it's quite possible to use donor parts from an off-the-shelf (Aliexpress) option?
As already pointed out, these mini valves are internally hexed.

I have found a really cheap highly quality option:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4001321257081.html
Yes, it's practically the same spec as the one I posted a couple of years ago but $8/£6 all in (UK delivery)
304 stainless steel, 180 deg C, 1000PSI - WELL over spec but hopefully contains far better quality of components.

This picture in particular really excites me


I wonder if valves are not too dissimilar dimensionally and whether it's worth buying a valve to dissect it.
What if the balls (heh!) are transplantable?
What if the notched stem or ball seats are interchangeable?

At worst maybe the SS ball is slotted 90 degrees the wrong way. What if the ball could be slotted with an angle grinder, circular saw, or local fabricator for a few £$? Certainly beats the circa £60 it will cost to import an original part from the States.

All very much conjecture at this point, but I think I know what I'll be doing when my valve starts leaking! I am too curious and too much of a tinkerer not to want to try a few things out. Flipping over the seats and ball will probably work for the interim, but for the long term? No one likes the sound of pitted balls, right?



Oh just whilst I remember and not entirely significant. This is more of a random rambling as I was dabbling with ideas. Has anyone noticed that the lever on the DB only gets about 65 (not a full 90) degrees rotation? I wonder if the original DB valve is ever fully open, and with regards to an after market part having to use reverse lever logic, if the valve would ever fully close without some really hacky stuff?

G'Day Chris.

I went partway down the path of trying to fit up similar sized ball valves. I even have one of the Ali ones you linked to. But after the discovery that the Breville ones (I'm sure they're not actually made by Breville), are serviceable instead of disposable, and that servicing it is easy, I started doing that instead. So any progress I made in trying to replace instead of re use, is stalled due to lack of interest on my part. Right now, I'm using a 9 year old ball valve that someone donated to me for free because it was leaking, in a two year old machine, where all I did was service it. That's right. I took out a perfectly good, nearly new, not leaking ball valve from a brand new machine, and replaced it with an ancient one that had previously been leaking. Now it's been two years on that old valve and it hasn't leaked a drop. It will eventually leak though. It must. Just as car tires and brake pads wear out. There is no such thing as an elastomeric seal that never wears out. But it is little bother to service it. Barely any more trouble than replacing with something new. And worlds less dear.

HTH

-Peter

Hello Peter, lovely to hear from you.

I can appreciate that you'd not want pursue trying to retrofit a part, if the original still has legs. I suppose I am trying to tackle the inevitable next stage requirement of replacing failed worn parts, as you point out nothing lasts forever.

My machine is 3.5 years old now, so I am thinking at the very least it's time for an o-ring service. So whilst I have the hood off I am wondering if it's worth pulling out my current ball valve for a service. If I get this new part I can dissect and compare findings. Hopefully there is some potential for donor parts to be transplanted, even if it means retaining some of the originals, such as the body.

I have a lot of idle time atm since I had a load of annual leave to use up, so we'll see.
Failing all else I just want to show my gratitude to all that have contributed, especially you Peter. Amazing!
Thank-you.

Just so we're on the same page here, Chris...

Unless one physically damages some crucial part of the Breville ball valve, (like a bloke in another thread did), it ought to be able to go on virtually forever, just with periodic servicing of the seals. It's a rather brilliant design in that way. Almost all friction and wear is borne by the seals which are not only easily replaced, but they are actually easily re-USED.

-Peter

BaristaBob wrote:After disassembling the ball valve unit I noticed that the ball itself was etched badly along a particular area (maybe where the steam hits it most?). I believe in order to rebuild this unit all I need is a new ball...but is that easy to find? Here is a pic of the ball.

I was under the impression that the ball is of a lower (plated) quality and as the picture above clearly shows, can get pitted and worn.
I assumed at some point the loss of smoothness would eventually cause some issues, hence why I suggested replacement ball solutions.

Since there is no current issue with my valve perhaps I'll park the idea for now. I would only be looking into this out of sheer curiosity and a continued effort to contribute. However "if it ain't broke..." said no engineer, ever

I have yet to see any pitting of consequence. The black appears to be some kind of oxide layer that occurs on brass. I just gave mine a wipe, but I bet it can be removed or polished off by someone who is motivated. In general, thin oxide layers in a mild Ph, water environment are usually somewhat protective. So I usually don't bother removing it from brass, copper and ferrous metals. IOW, it may do more good than harm. Versus rust, which is much more likely to cause harmful pitting and is less chemically stable.

When my 9 year old re sealed valve begins to drip again, I'll examine the ball more closely using magnification, before I re seal it.

-Peter

pcrussell50 wrote:Just so we're on the same page here, Chris...

Unless one physically damages some crucial part of the Breville ball valve, (like a bloke in another thread did), it ought to be able to go on virtually forever, just with periodic servicing of the seals. It's a rather brilliant design in that way. Almost all friction and wear is borne by the seals which are not only easily replaced, but they are actually easily re-USED.

-Peter

I resemble that remark! In all seriousness though. Even after finding that damage that I or the previous owner did ( blaming him based on some corrosion patterns and because he can't defend himself) - I ( with help from Peter and everyone here) was still able to patch it up enough to get it to about 85% performance until my new ball valve arrived AND still eliminate the slow drip from the valve.

I would agree that it is a pretty resilient design.

DocPseudopolis wrote:I resemble that remark! In all seriousness though. Even after finding that damage that I or the previous owner did ( blaming him based on some corrosion patterns and because he can't defend himself) - I ( with help from Peter and everyone here) was still able to patch it up enough to get it to about 85% performance until my new ball valve arrived AND still eliminate the slow drip from the valve.

I would agree that it is a pretty resilient design.

Good! You took my bait. I was hoping you would read my lure and pitch in.

I had actually not conceived how your situation had occurred at first because it would never have occurred to me to try to separate the halves of the ball valve before removing the end caps first. But now I see how it's fully possible. Even reasonable, if you have never done this before. Your experience, (whether it was you who did it or the previous owner) is a valuable lesson that in a large community, all things can and will happen. Nothing should be taken for granted.

-Peter

One reason why I think I can maybe blame the previous owner is because I was even able to do it! Everyone else talks about how hard that joint is to unscrew, but mine came apart easily with almost no effort. I was actually trying to take off the end caps first, but the whole thing rotated and unscrewed and I didn't think anything of it.

My current theory is he had tried.. something to fix it before but hadn't succeeded and didn't realize he'd actually done some damage as well.

There was corrosion patterns where that leak was - which means it has been established for a bit. The bracket had rust stains there when I opened it up for the first time.

But, all's well that ends well. It was surprisingly cheap to get it shipped to texas from Australia and Covid only added a week to the delivery time.

That extra few mm on that stem is still my other theory. I can't figure out where it comes from. Side by side with the new one is was visibly longer - but not enough I could even get a good picture of it.