Home-Barista.com

Latest edit, cutting straight to the chase if you don't want to read all the history, 3 October 2020, the youtube video from the second to last page And photo journal

So, the actual Breville ball valves are NLA (no longer available) with the exception of a tip that Forum Home Appliances in Canada has a few left, (and I ordered one on a kind tip from someone over in the Breville Dual Boiler (BDB), the end of the line? thread).

Anyway, all is not necessarily lost if we can't get the Breville part any more. As with many sealing and fluid control elements on the BDB, they are essentially off the shelf-type parts. Ball valves should be no exception. The world is awash in ball valves and it's certain that dozens of them out there will do the job, some requiring more "fitting" than others. It will be incumbent on the BDB community to help find them.

Here's what I know so far:

This is the ball valve picture from ereplacementparts, that is listed as "discontinued":

The middle section is the actual ball valve. The parts screwed into the ends are the Breville specific pieces. You should always keep those.

For redundancy, here is a picture of an old leaky ball valve given to me kindly by Klund, a valuable contributor to the BDB community:


Here is the same ball valve with the Breville parts unscrewed from the actual ball valve section:

The threads are BSPP (British) G1/4 thread. Female-Female ball valves with this thread are available online. Also, USA 1/4 NPT thread fits, and will probably work. Definitely use teflon tape to seal threads. The top and bottom male threaded fitting are the parts you keep. The middle section is the one you replace if you are speccing your own ball valve.

Here is a ball valve I got off eBay with the same g1/4 British thread as the original piece. As you can see, the Breville parts on the ends fit it perfectly. It's a wee bit taller and bigger around the middle than the original ball valve, but with some fabbing, it ought to work:


Not sure when I'll get around to trying the alternate ball valve, but I'll report back when I do.

Venture forth, BDB'ers and let's get this done...

-Peter

So I opened up my machine and did a little work fitting the eBay ball valve. Not enough though. You would have to do some filing or grinding on the stub where the handle screws into it, to shape it to the Breville handle's slot. I did a bit of it, but stopped and put my machine back together because my wife had things for me to do. I noticed the eBay ball valve has a larger less restrictive hole in it's ball section. It will be interesting what if any effect this will have on steaming power. Not sure when I'll get back to finish it. My existing ball valve is only leaking very slowly, so I'm not under a lot of pressure to get this done yet.

-Peter

Ask and you shall receive... The Breville ball valve body (without the top and bottom parts), is 1.525" in length. The cheap ebay valve is about 1.64" long. Being brass, it's easily ground shorter if need be.

ON EDIT: Not to be one of little faith, but I just bought one of the last two original Breville ball valves over at Forum in Canada.

-Peter

This the one I got:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1-4-BSPP-Femal ... Sw~e5ZU9UU

But be warned, it's going to take some grinding to massage it into shape. It's a little bit big around, a little bit tall, and the part where the knob attaches will have to be filed down a little smaller to fit the Breville steam lever/knob. It is job best suited to someone handy with a file and a grinder. I have not finished the job myself because we are getting ready to move for the summer and my grinder is packed away... That and the fact that I already had a spare Breville ball valve. But if you move slowly and think as you go, you should be able to do it. Maybe order a couple of the eBay ball valves since they're so cheap, so you can start over if you screw something up?

And for sure, report back your results...

-Peter