Where is the shot count displayed?

Thanks for the ball valve detail pointer, Peter. I also found Bacek's April 2019 post #107 that lays out the tools for the job. That inspired confidence.

Bacek deserves the credit for discovering that the ball valve is serviceable. BUT... We have since discovered that you don't have to make a shim like he did, in order to get the seal tight against the ball again. All you have to do is flip the seal over so the flat, not conical side of it is now against the ball. This runs counter intuitive to how our minds work but for one thing... PTFE for these purposes, acts like a thick liquid. If you flip the flat side against the ball, it will slowly reform to the shape of the ball. You do not have to do any manual re shaping yourself. Just flip the seal over, and screw the two halves of the valve together until the pressure feels about right. You do NOT have to force the two halves ALL the way together. Just tight enough to form a seal. Over time the PTFE will flow and the seal will become loose again because of it. Then tighten the two halve some more to re seal. Some years down the road, you may have to flip the seals again.

-Peter

bhennessy wrote:I found the page - BES920 error codes Here is the text in case the web page goes missing... The site has some good DIY repair info as well - BES920 repair info

Error Codes

• 00 Steam Boiler NTC Error
  01 Steam boiler NTC Error
  02 Coffee boiler NTC Error
  03 Coffee boiler NTC Error

OK so if anyone is interested, I thought I'd post this to save a few machines hitting landfill - NTC probes for these machines seem to not to be readily available and I had a Dual Boiler (920) with an err2. I managed to gouge out the old ntc test a few to see what might give similar readings and ultimately replace it with one that seems to work all for a couple of dollars.

This also works for an Oracle (I have both machines - I got one for parts) and I reckon this could be done for the older style boiler NTC on the 900 too...

I have some pics and if anyone is interested in the details please message or reply and I'll gladly supply more info!

Slight edit - err2 was actually the Steam boiler not the Coffee boiler as stated above...

Kannan wrote:OK so if anyone is interested, I thought I'd post this to save a few machines hitting landfill - NTC probes for these machines seem to not to be readily available and I had a Dual Boiler (920) with an err2.

I've never had a probe failure. BUT I use water that doesn't scale (zero Mg and zero Ca) and that does not corrode (maximum 25ppm chlorides). The odd NTC failure I've seen over the years has been due to scale or corrosion or both.

If mine ever did fail, I'd send away to Breville for the cost of a house call for LM servicing. These machines are far too good for the landfill for failure of simple part.

Kannan wrote:I managed to gouge out the old ntc test a few to see what might give similar readings and ultimately replace it with one that seems to work all for a couple of dollars.

Please share. This is very useful information for the community.

-Peter

pcrussell50 wrote: If mine ever did fail, I'd send away to Breville for the cost of a house call for LM servicing. These machines are far too good for the landfill for failure of simple part.

totally agree, hence my post - I got a "for parts" dual boiler having owned an Oracle for many years... the db was out of warranty and everywhere I searched couldn't find any one with stock of the NTC for the steam boiler... I have also read of people now not being able to find the NTC for the old boiler (screw in NTC) at all... I suspect it probably would have been 400-500 for an out of warranty repair, hence my landfill comment.

So basically I took out the same NTC from the Oracle, ordered a few different NTCs from RS that I thought would have similar specs and tested the resistances at various temps... eventually settling on one that looked close. Then gouged out the old ntc from the housing and soldered silicone wire onto the new ntc, wrapped the legs in heatshrink and stuck it back in the housing. Crimped a new connector on the end and it all seems to work like dandy... only just finished the repair so time will tell if it will hold out, but all seems good for now!

The ntc that worked was:

https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/products/0151243/

btw pcrussel, love your rotary pump mod, I'm looking to put a smaller rotary pump (fot MG204?) into the db if possible for a few reasons - better control over pressure and less noise... looking into PWM vs VFD for varying the motor speed right now, starting with the ULKA, but just starting this journey (given the lockdown and all that!)... Not sure this is the right thing to do, but I do like tinkering so in any case I'll learn something

I do know that James used PWM for his pressure control on his RasperryPi mods but not sure if this is the best way to vary pressure in a vibratory pump (or a rotary for that matter)...

Haven't done the slayer mod yet but want to do that next...

Sharing a data point on the clips, boots, and o-rings for a Breville Oracle (looks like the boiler setup is fairly identical to the Dual Boiler). This thread as well as this (and various others) has been extremely helpful in figuring out how to resolve, wanted to share back

Tldr:
* boots can be stripped off without causing issues immediately (we'll see about long-term effects still..)
* confirming that o-rings can be replaced by #007 for the lines with boots
* boot hairpin clips can be replaced with 7/32 in. "external hitch pins" -- according to this post I'm unsure whether it's the 4mm or 6mm, but it measures 4mm across the clip "id" and 6mm across the clip, void, and clip
* tie up your clips so that you don't lose them!
* you can lose a washer and still be okay with the above o-rings and clips

I started having some symptoms of o-ring issues 1-2 months ago, but didn't have time to address it. In particular -- temperature dropping significantly during extraction (at first, from 200 to ~195, then nearing 185 by the time I did something about it), constant under-extraction, low pressure, water pooling/leaking under the machine (it found a way to leak outside the drip tray).

After popping open the back/front, and running either "hot water" or espresso cycle, it was really quickly obvious that one of the lines with boots was leaking. Example below -- basically the water leaks out from one of the lines, mostly boils away, but then finds its way to drop outside of normal drip tray areas.



It was fairly quick to pull out the hairpin clips (I used tweezers), but as others noted, really easy to lose them. I lost one fairly quickly to the void of the boilers and so on, and couldn't figure out a way to fish it out.. I ended up finding a replacement at a big orange home improvement chain. On their online stock there are listings for "3/32 in. Zinc-Plated External Hitch Pin (2-Piece)" or "5/32 in. Zinc-Plated External Hitch Pins (2-Piece)", but not for 7/32. That said, thankfully, they do exist in-stores. I picked up all the sizes from 3/32 to 8/32 but found the first one I tried (the 7/32) worked well. Example of the 7/32 pin (edit: for clarity, left is the "new", right is the factory pin, which I've tied up to avoid losing another one of):



I replaced the o-ring (which had double o-rings, basically the same as noted in this video) with a single 007 aflas o-ring from Amazon. Consistent with the video, there is also a washer above the double o-ring on the two booted lines I looked at.



It was extremely hard to put the tubing and clips back together. The tip here seems to be to push the tube (not the boot) down while trying to insert the hairpin clip back. I ended up cutting apart the bottom part of the boot to be able to more easily see the tube and where the clip should go. No issues yet.

I then also lost the washer underneath the boot into the machine void, while putting this together. So now the tubing only has a single o-ring, and the hairpin clip. Put it back together, seems to work fine, except the other booted line is now leaking. I removed the other line (folding up the boot this time, rather than cutting it), replaced the double o-ring with the single 007 o-ring (this time not losing the washer), and used the factory clip to put back together. I currently have the boot still folded up during this trial period. So now it's
* booted line 1 -- 1x 007 o-ring, no washer, cut-up boot, 7/32 clip
* booted line 2 -- 1x 007 o-ring, washer, rolled-up boot, original factory clip

No leaks now, and the machine is back to making coffee without losing water, temperature, or pressure others on this thread are a lot more professional than I am at fixing this machine -- and thank you all for your detailed writeups and info! -- , also hoping this helps any other clumsy readers who start losing parts as well.

Wow, what an inaugural post the the BDB community here on HB! Straight to something highly useful for the whole community.

1) Nobody has ever confirmed it, but I think the purpose of the boots is to stabilize the tube so that (ironically) the o-rings will last longer. The newer version of the BDB uses tube nuts instead of clips and o-rings, but when I had the older clip and o-ring version, I just slid the boots up out of the way and I don't think I ever put them back. They accomplish no actual sealing purpose.

2) Yes, learning how to get a good push down compressing the o-ring is the key to getting the clip in easily.

3) Great find on the clips. I had found some that work at the local mom'n'pop, but they were so muddled up, I never knew the size. I just knew that they worked. Now we have an actual size we can refer others to. Well done.

4) Over the years, others have lost the washers and been fine without them. Some of the fittings, I have found, didn't even have them straight from the factory. Though I can see where they might be helpful on the double-stacked o-rings.

5) Not sure if it's workable on the Oracle, but in the BDB community, a growing number of us have discovered that there is nothing gained by keeping the screws that hold the top cover in place. By putting them aside for safe keeping, we can lift off our top cover any time we like, for more frequent inspections.

6) If you haven't come across this, some of it might help with the Oracle: Breville Dual Boiler Mods and Maintenance

Don't be a stranger in the BDB threads.

-Peter