Hi All,
I thought I would share my experience with my Bianca.

The Good:
- Unboxing and setup was really nice, easy, quick
- The learning curve was reasonable short I think. The paddle is intuitive and easy to control the shots
- Good fun playing with extractions, and you can recover as you go
- The movable water tank was really helpful for me, because I moved the machine and had to change the orientation
- Drip tray is luxuriously large compared to machines I had in the past, and it rinses clean easily

Overall, I really like this machine.

The bad:
- I now also have the common gicluer problem, where it is broken off in the machine due to bad assembly and/or design by Lelit
- Lelit won't consider this a warranty problem, and only sell a replacement of the complete needle valve assembly (ie: 180 USD)
- The replacement kit will include the same poorly designed or bad quality gicleur again I guess?

So my experience is exactly the same as some others that posted here earlier. Now I have to decide if I should drill a standard gicleur myself.

I would still buy this machine again, but some of the glitter faded after experiencing this common quality failure with the Bianca.

Yours worked fine for a while, then broke? Sounds like you may have been a little aggressive in closing the paddle?

I was thinking the same thing. The earlier issues involving broken gicleurs were discovered upon unboxing and attributed to a gorilla technician on the Lelit manufacturing line over tightening during assembly. The gicleur itself is made of brass and is thin walled by design and can be easily broken if over-torqued during assembly or dismantle and reassembly.

dane5431 wrote: {snip}...
- Lelit won't consider this a warranty problem, and only sell a replacement of the complete needle valve assembly (ie: 180 USD)
- The replacement kit will include the same poorly designed or bad quality gicleur again I guess?

So my experience is exactly the same as some others that posted here earlier. Now I have to decide if I should drill a standard gicleur myself.

If you have never disassembled your machine I imagine yours could have been partially broken or cracked and it finally failed through use. FYI: It seems most of the failures occur when closing the valve - clockwise (paddle fully to the left) Ideally the paddle handle should hit the case at the same time water stops flowing from the group. If the flow stop before the handle hits the case, continuing to move that paddle closed after the flow has stopped can fracture the gicleur.

Anyway, regardless of how it happened it seems neither Lelit nor either of the US distributors (Clive or 1st-Line) have provided a readily available or inexpensive source for replacement giceurs. Very disapointing. As you've discovered the quoted 180 USD price is for the entire flow control valve kit and was initially intended for those who want to "Biancafy" a non Lelit E61 machine. Sheesh! Buying the entire kit for the gicleur is like replacing the entire engine in your car just because of a broken water pump.


Unfortunately, it appears the only solution / option at this time is to order a 6mm gicleur and drill it out to 1.5mm as discussed in this HB thread

If anyone reading this has a part number or source for the Bianca gicleur please let us know.

In addition to over tightening, I seem to recall DaveC made the point in his installation video that it is critical to ensure that the needle get seated correctly it it will break when the paddle is closed.

hi folks
new owner here (well, owner-to-be, once 1st line ships it, hopefully mid-may)
what is the size of the stock basket - looking to order an amazon/ebay distribution tool, and am unsure if i need 58mm, 58.35mm, or 58.5mm

TIA

Lelit included tamper is 58.55 so I'd go with the 58.5

Did my first descale of the Bianca today after 20 months on my rather soft tap water. I followed the instructions in Lelit's video. Overall the process is a little easier than my old HX machine because the vibratory pump in that machine didn't quite keep up and required pauses every 4 oz or so to ensure the boiler filled to cover the heating elements. Judging from the color of the water that came out I had very minimal scaling and I do not plan to descale more often than every 18 months unless something changes with my municipal water.

I made sure the turn the machine off/on after every cycle because: " . . . eeeza gooooda for the softa-wara . . ." Only amusing if you watch Lelet's video. I still have no idea what that means.

Does anyone have experience changing the portafilter handles?
I seem to remember reading that they are glued in but I don't know if they are threaded and whether it can be done without destroying the timber and/or basket carrier.

Super quick question. Is it perfectly normal behavior that the overflow steam valve goes on for a few seconds on each warmup. Thanks for a great thread.