My donuts went away after I bought a 58.5mm tamper.

Does anyone know where I can buy #007 o-rings either in Australia or posted to Australia, preferably in AFLAS?

Thanks.

Any big city should have them in an engineering supply shop. I found some in Denver, CO (USA) in the part of town where the tradies shop for supplies, auto mechanics, HVAC, plumbing, electricians. Hint: It was not the part of town where you shop for your wife or girlfriend... or where you find good espresso shops.

As a stopgap, you can find them in the much more common Viton or Nitrile in the places were home mechanics can buy auto parts. That will seal your leaks and get you going, even if it only lasts a year and not two to three. The job is quite easy, and no reason to miss out on good coffee while you wait for the exact material you prefer.

You should bookmark this thread: Breville Dual Boiler Mods and Maintenance

-Peter

pcrussell50 wrote:You are experiencing the "doughnut extraction". It is common all over espresso not particularly with the BDB. There are threads here on HB about it. Give a quick search and see what you come up with.

There are videos out there of BDB extractions that do not exhibit this behavior. Of course we generally don't know what basket they are using. My favorite basket of all time was the original -900 tapered basket. But they have become hard to find. A reasonable facsimile is the tapered EPNW ridged 14g basket. And it's cheap. That's what I use a lot recently.

[youtube] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3-b6Qr43vE[/youtube]

Stock screen:
[youtube] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0aVeezTl9Q[/youtube]

-Peter

I loved the HQ ridge-less baskets from EPNW in my Strega. Every bit as good as IMS. Not sure how they would work in a BDB. In fact, not sure how ANYTHING would work in a BDB. When I get one, I'll let y'all know!

pcrussell50 wrote:Any big city should have them in an engineering supply shop. I found some in Denver, CO (USA) in the part of town where the tradies shop for supplies, auto mechanics, HVAC, plumbing, electricians. Hint: It was not the part of town where you shop for your wife or girlfriend... or where you find good espresso shops.

As a stopgap, you can find them in the much more common Viton or Nitrile in the places were home mechanics can buy auto parts. That will seal your leaks and get you going, even if it only lasts a year and not two to three. The job is quite easy, and no reason to miss out on good coffee while you wait for the exact material you prefer.

You should bookmark this thread: Breville Dual Boiler Mods and Maintenance

-Peter

Thanks Peter. I did see them available at industrial places but wasn't sure whether they'd be food grade hence suitable for the BDB. I'll try get some AFLAS ones.

Finally got around to doing the brass pump / OPV mod last night. I had waited a month for the compression fitting that never came, got a refund, and then ordered the push-to-connect elbow Peter uses - after he sent me the link. It arrived in 3 days! For anyone contemplating doing the mod, a long magnetic Philips screwdriver is highly recommended.

pcrussell50 wrote:It is absolutely positively not in any way necessary to cut a pump or any other wire.

Unfortunately, this was not the case for me. The yellow wire that comes off the pump is connected to the black wire that goes to the brain box, and it is a crimp connector. I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to free the wires without cutting - before coming to my senses and giving up. I used a small wire nut to join them together after stripping the wires.

pcrussell50 wrote: I cut the tube that runs from the OPV to the boiler in a way that leaves enough tubing left that I could put the cut ends back together with a 4mm butt splice.

Doh! I had forgotten about this and cut it very close to the OPV. Not sure what my options would be in order to put the old OPV back if service ever becomes necessary. Is it possible to somehow take the metal insert out of the cutoff piece and put it inside a new piece of tubing? Same question goes for the outer brass piece.

On another note, I had a bit of a scare when I reassembled everything and ran the pump. No water came out, so I drained the boilers and ran the pump to no avail. I turned the power off and waited a while, and when I powered back on the temp wouldn't get above 160º. I was starting to think I'd just destroyed my 2 month old machine! I unplugged it again, waited 10 minutes, and did a reset. Like magic all was well. I'm thinking that was a coincidence, and that there must have been an airlock created doing the mod.

Anyway, thanks again for the inspiration!

pcrussell50 wrote:I think Breville chose the phenolic (heat stable plastic) disc because it does not react electrochemically with the aluminum group and the stainless steel screw. The brass disc will. So if you use it, you need to know that, and clean, inspect, use a mild steel screw, maybe some PTFE thread tape, etc...

-Peter

Hello, I just want to say thanks to Peter for helping me get my $100 CL BES900XL /B up and running. I originally got it home and thought I completely lucked out (couldn't find anything obviously wrong with it) but when I went to remove the shower screen for cleaning/inspection - the screw came out not feeling right, like it wasn't really threaded. Actually, what happened was the screw came out with all the threads on it and there were none left in the group head (and no, I did not use a lot of force to remove it). At first I was going to go the easy route and follow Peter's less-expensive advice (install a Helicoil or tap a new hole of a larger size), but I took a picture of the group head to show someone at work and noticed the bubbled coating. I ended up buying a new group head from Ebay for $120 as opposed to the eReplacements one for $170 (including taxes). I agree with Peter on the plastic likely being a way to get away from the previous corrosion forming arrangement. The outer screen didn't look that bad, like someone had cleaned it not too long before I got it. One side of the inner disc doesn't look too bad either, but I am happy to have a fresh start now.



Thanks, Marc

Dave...

1) re wiring... the pump has two blade connectors and temperature sensor slipped into a pocket on the side of the pump case. In the stock app, that sensor is held in place with a frangible glue. I cracked the glue off first, then slipped the sensor out of it's pocket. I'm having trouble visualizing from your description, the difficulty you had.

2) re the tubing... you can order up a new "T-tube" from the usual parts place. BUT Yes, you can fiddle the knob and ferrule off the tip you cut off and press them back together on the clean end of your tube by slipping the knob on first, higher up than you need, then slip in the ferrule, and press/slide the knob back down over the part of the tube with the ferrule in it.

Marc...

Your bubbled up non-stick looks better than mind did, before I began sanding it off.

-Peter

pcrussell50 wrote:re wiring... the pump has two blade connectors and temperature sensor slipped into a pocket on the side of the pump case. In the stock app, that sensor is held in place with a frangible glue. I cracked the glue off first, then slipped the sensor out of it's pocket. I'm having trouble visualizing from your description, the difficulty you had.

Jeeze, I can be incredibly dense at times...that video totally threw me off, despite how helpful it was otherwise. It never occurred to me that I could simply scrape the white glue off to free the module while still in the machine, leaving all the wires behind. Doh! After watching the video a few times it never occurred to me to use my brain.


(screenshot from this video)

I suppose it would be a lot easier to remove the glued-in module on the bench vs in the machine, but still.

Edit: Here's some great info I inexplicably missed (or misunderstood) from just a couple pages back:

lancealot wrote:I have preformed this mod. I don't know why he cut the pump wire in the video. I didn't watch it all though, I just kinda scrubbed through it. Nice video.

You can simply pull the 2 spade connectors off the pump and then pull the white thermal overload fuse and glue off.