Hi all,

Thanks in advance for your time!

I have a Profitec Pro 500 and it's been running well for a few years. This problem has emerged on Saturday:

1) I noticed that the brew pressure was running very high when cleaning the grouphead w/ blind portafilter (norm is ~10bar, was at 12.5 or so)
2) Simultaneously noticed that the boiler pressure was running very low-- norm is 1.1 bar, was at 0.6.

I took the trim pieces off and was able to adjust the brew pressure back to 10bar. I have tried adjusting the boiler pressure up, but it will not move past ~0.9 bar and doesn't seem to be entirely stable there (went back down to ~0.6 and then up to 0.9 again).

I found a very small leak (noticeable due to small amount of buildup on the threads) on the steam wand valve where attached to the copper pipe. Backing off and re-tightening the nut resolved that. I have also flushed the boiler twice.

Any ideas what could be wrong or what to inspect further?

Thanks!!!

-john

Update: i did some troubleshooting this evening and now think the problem might be a faulty gauge. I removed & cleaned the vacuum valve and it seems to be functioning mostly correctly. It may have a slight leak at pressure and I'll probably swap it out for new.
However, it seems like the pressure gauge is reading very low. The pressure switch seems to be working and steam pressure seems high. Thoughts?

I'm not an expert, but appears to be a pressure gauge issue given the good amount of steam it seems to be producing (you won't get that type of steam at 0.3 Bar pressure or whatever its reading.

If you keep steam open longer does it continue producing dry steam for a minute or so? If so, it's likely gauge malfunction as you diagnosed

let the steam on for 15 seconds and then check pressurestat, if it turn off on 1.0 on your pressurestat manometer then its OK....

desmodici wrote:I'm not an expert, but appears to be a pressure gauge issue given the good amount of steam it seems to be producing (you won't get that type of steam at 0.3 Bar pressure or whatever its reading.

If you keep steam open longer does it continue producing dry steam for a minute or so? If so, it's likely gauge malfunction as you diagnosed

if you keep steam open longer pressurestat will fall from (for example) from 1.0 to the 0,6 or even lower then that and when u close steam it will raise again to the 1.0....