Ok, I'm done with it!!!
Hold your torches!!!!!!
I mean I'm done reading the whole thread yup all 159 pages.
I'm away from home so I have time to kill.
My BDB has been delivered to the forwarding service and will arrive home in one or two weeks. I'm also ordering accessories and maintenance items.
I'm totally aware of the #1 priority (water quality) so I'm after the best (for me) filtering option. I know the water is quite soft and ph is 7 anyway I ordered a test kit but I don't know if this could give me any trustable indication: I have an electric kettle and over the years I have no scale build up on it.
Will see what the hardness test kit says once I get it.
Thanks ti everybody here in advance (especially Peter) for compiling all this info.
Fernando.

Congratulations on your new BDB! You are going to love it.

If you are confident in you water's PH and softness, the only thing left to confirm is the chloride content. High chloride, even in soft water can cause corrosion.

Hmmm... how do you test for chloride?
I have some strips but only show total chlorine and free chlorine (and Peter made it more than clear that chlorine and chloride are very different).
Il search around...

There are many chloride test kits available. They range from around $50 USD to several hundred $. I have one marketed for boiler maint. I believe it is by HACH, though I can't remember for sure and cannot check right now as I am travelling.

Here's one I found with a quick google search: https://www.hannainst.com/hi3815-chloride-test-kit.html

Thank you luv,
I found one too (not sure if it was the same or not) but I thought I rather put that money towards a filtration system instead. I guess it won't hurt to filter the water anyway.
I guess the two stage offered by chriscoffee https://www.chriscoffee.com/products/wa ... 2839032868
will take care of pretty much anything needed.

I would post in the Water sub-forum. Generally chloride can't be easily filtered out. Some services that can do water testing are listed at Water testing service?

For other readers, many US water systems will list chloride and hardness on their annual water quality reports.

Thanks Jeff!

Hey everyone. This forum has been so helpful to me, thank you for posting your hard work! Because of your posts, it's been mostly fun for me tinkering with my used new-to-me machine.

I recently purchased a used Dual Boiler knowing the steam wand did not work, hoping it was one of the easier fixes as discussed on this forum. Issues I've experienced so far are erratic and low pressure while pulling a shot (I've adjusted the OPV, same issue), and the steam boiler does not heat up - 3 beeps using the lever, all that. I'm fairly certain the dreaded thermal fuse is not the issue, as it has continuity.

I'm planning on replacing both boilers' o-rings, the solenoid, and converting to both a brass OPV and pump.

So far I've tried the engineer's reset (a few times) and filling & draining the boiler by removing the red wire on top of the steam boiler, and unfortunately, no progress yet. No obvious signs of leaking, either.

I'm planning on cleaning the steam probes, checking lines, and replacing the parts I listed above tomorrow. I'll let you know if I have any success, but is there anything I'm missing? I know there's a small chance it's either the main board or the triac, but I'm going to give the replacement parts and a cleaning a try first.

Thanks in advance for any input!

Hi All,

Just registered after reading this thread front to middle, and then back to middle (had to change it up)

I'm the second owner of a BES900XL, bought it for $400 in August of last year as an upgrade to my Barista Express, which I still have. II love my BDB and can never go back! I know what you will ask, so here it is: Serial number 1132-00430-US/CN. I think that's the first year of production but I could be wrong.

When I first bought it, I cleaned it thoroughly and did a manual descale. Yes, I did have the issue where the steam boiler didn't fill, but I filled it from the top and all was good until now. I could tell it had been opened before due to pry marks right in front where everyone can see them.... I was in a rush to enjoy it, so I did not replace the o-rings on the probes I removed for the descale/flush/refill. I can hear the gasping... I know, I know.

Fast forward to 1 year later and some problems are showing up. Temp starts rising on it's own amongst other things, so I opened it up to find leaks from the top of the steam boiler. Temp doesn't go up while it's off, just after it's been sitting for about half-hour after pulling a shot, so I was hoping I could avoid trying to find a Triac board. I changed most of the o-rings on the steam boiler, even the small probe o-ring which was definitely leaking. I was not able to get the inlet to the heat exchanger off, but will keep trying to get it off so I can clean it and change the o-ring. I am running the machine while opened up, and although it takes longer to happen, it is still overheating. New Triac is on it's way. Noticed that the current Triac appears to have had parts changed on the board. Hopefully the new Triac fixes that issue.

Next issue is that I just pulled the solenoid for the first time and it's pretty crapped up. I'll clean it up and put new seals on it, they are already ordered. Both boilers seems scale free, and I run a whole house RO system with descaler, so I should be ok water-wise, or at least better than those with out it.

Last, and maybe related, is that now, about 50% of the time, the pump doesn't seem to start up for about 10 seconds. I've seen posts here that it might be the pump, but thought I'd check in before buying a new pump. I just changed the o-rings on the brew boiler, should I also hunt down and change every other o-ring I can find in there? Feels like the pump is losing it's prime or something, and I am hearing gurgling, which is also very annoying... like it's flipping me the bird or something.

I've enjoyed reading all the posts here and have learned a great deal just from this thread. Enjoy some pics from my work on the unit, including my nasty solenoid.

I initially had the smart grinder pro but upgraded to a Sette 270 and added the shim to it which helped a ton. I adjusted the OPV so it sits at about 10bar with the backflushing insert installed. I run 18grams and shoot for 35 secs and 36grams out. Unless my darn pump isn't primed then I have to start another timer when it finally kicks on, but that's just recently.

Now you are all caught up! Thanks in advance for any thoughts on my issues.

Tony G.