Just installed my FC on my ECM. One thing I found no matter where I put my FC, the reading on group head gauge is always 9bar. I did measurement for flow rate for every ¼ turn and seem fine. Was my gauge defective? Or something I miss when I was doing installation?

At what point in the flow path does the pressure gauge measure pressure? Are you in Germantown MD?

-Greg

Type1 wrote:Just installed my FC on my ECM. One thing I found no matter where I put my FC, the reading on group head gauge is always 9bar. I did measurement for flow rate for every ¼ turn and seem fine. Was my gauge defective? Or something I miss when I was doing installation?

If the pressure drop across the coffee-prep is always 9 bar, then the actual flow must be terribly slow.
The flow will be first restricted by the FCD, then by the the coffee-prep. The more of a restriction caused by the FCD(ie. the further closed) the less relevant the restriction of the puck(so the less pressure displayed on the gauge).

However, if the FCD appears to have no effect on the gauge, then one or both of the following are true:
1) The coffee-prep is far too fine/over-dosed to the point where it is choking off the flow so much more than the FCD that the coffee-prep is the only relevant restriction in the brew circuit. If this is so, dial the grinder slightly coarser.

2) The FCD is unable to get anywhere near fully closed such that even when fully "clockwise from above", it's fairly wide open and allowing the coffee-prep in the portafilter to be the only relevant restriction. Maybe test the FCD with the portafilter not in place to ensure you can "throttle" the flow from something like a stock gicleur to so close to closed that you only get a drop every couple of seconds.

If you didn't lubricate the o-ring at the bottom of the flow control mushroom, it can be damaged when you install it. That would cause the problem you are experiencing. Don't ask me how I know this...

When the pump is running and without the portafilter, can you completely shut off the water flow from the group by only using the flow control device?

This ^^. And if you can't, you need to adjust the valve stop point. From the ECM Puristika Review:

HB wrote:One thing that may not be obvious is that you can adjust the flow valve stop point. When I initially installed the control valve, the adjustment bottomed out before the needle valve shut completely. By removing the knob, you'll see that the mating piece accepts a 5mm Allen wrench:



Loosen this a bit and the adjustment mechanism can move up/down a few millimeters; that's enough to tweak the point where it bottoms out. I adjusted it to be zero flow at the very bottom (i.e., when the knob is turned fully clockwise), but you want to simplify the "slow-flow point", you could adjust it to a drip-drip-drip instead.

gscace wrote:At what point in the flow path does the pressure gauge measure pressure? Are you in Germantown MD?

-Greg

At ¼ turn, yes I live in Germantown (off middlebrook&waring station

JRising wrote:If the pressure drop across the coffee-prep is always 9 bar, then the actual flow must be terribly slow.
The flow will be first restricted by the FCD, then by the the coffee-prep. The more of a restriction caused by the FCD(ie. the further closed) the less relevant the restriction of the puck(so the less pressure displayed on the gauge).

However, if the FCD appears to have no effect on the gauge, then one or both of the following are true:
1) The coffee-prep is far too fine/over-dosed to the point where it is choking off the flow so much more than the FCD that the coffee-prep is the only relevant restriction in the brew circuit. If this is so, dial the grinder slightly coarser.

2) The FCD is unable to get anywhere near fully closed such that even when fully "clockwise from above", it's fairly wide open and allowing the coffee-prep in the portafilter to be the only relevant restriction. Maybe test the FCD with the portafilter not in place to ensure you can "throttle" the flow from something like a stock gicleur to so close to closed that you only get a drop every couple of seconds.

Likely because ground is too fine. After I checked it again I was dialing at 13g/s as my baseline. I will try on coarser ground.

daviddecristoforo wrote:If you didn't lubricate the o-ring at the bottom of the flow control mushroom, it can be damaged when you install it. That would cause the problem you are experiencing. Don't ask me how I know this...image

I didn't know that. What kind of lubricant

If your Flow Control is able to throttle flow all the way down to No-Flow, then you know that o-ring survived, if that o-ring were allowing flow to pass it, water would go around the mushroom rather than through the Flow-Control valve.