Hi All,

DIY repair novice here. I have a Breville Barista Express BES870 at my workplace which just recently has not had any water coming through the group head. Steam wand and hot water output still working fine. Have put a vinegar/water and descaling solution through to no avail. Pump still appears to work when pressing for an extraction, but no water coming through. Have now opened up the back to try to diagnose and the solenoid (on the right) looks like it has had a blow out (see images attached).

Can anyone confirm if this is a reasonable diagnosis based on the images and issues described?

New solenoid is ~$155, and I am hoping I may be able to order online and replace myself (am I being over ambitious??).

Any help/guidance gratefully received.

Many thanks,
Alice

I wouldn't replace that expensive on the assumption it's broken, test it!

Turn it on and measure if the solenoid gets powered, if there's power going to it, but it ain't working, it's probably broken. If theres no power... well then it's something else.

Assuming its broken; take it out, inspect it, see if you can find out how it works and why it doesn't. Test it outside the machine, measure resistance over the two contacts (both ways since we don't know if it's one that has an AC input, with a rectifier, but you could google that too).

Then perhaps if the selenoid valve really is broken, you could only replace the selenoid part, not the valve part, which is pretty hard to break. Perhaps only cleaning or slightly lubricating the valve is needed.: quick google search: I doubt breville / solis makes their own selenoid valves, so you could probably score an identical one on aliexpress or something similar for 20$. If not; just measure thread and find one that fits. Youre crazy to spend 150 on a solenoid valve!

The solenoid coil is potted and housed in a plastic housing shown as the black box in your pictures. When the housing has got ruptures and with potting material sticking out like that the coil has burned to death unless some miracle has happened to that machine. As the other member put, test it to be certain. Unplug the machine, pull the top two connections off the coil, measure the resistance with a multi meter, should read 500 - 600 ohms between the upper two lugs. Compare the resistance with that of the coil on the other solenoid -- they are identical coils although the valves are different. the replacement for BES870 isn't that expensive:
https://www.ereplacementparts.com/solen ... 29955.html
there seems to be leaking, and as a result, mineral build-up around the 90-degree elbow where the hot water/steam enters the valve stack, so I would just go ahead and replace the whole shebang. there is usually no fix when the plastic pipework leaks in that area. That is where the water or steam being at their highest temperature coming right out of the thermal coil. I found in my BES840 a small chunk of plastic chipped off the internal of the flexible joint, causing excessive play where the elbow joins the valve inlet having a poor sealing around the o-ring. I doubled up the o-ring to take in the slack and the leak stopped. I was lucky it was fixable because it was a "right" chunk of plastic that broke off. In short, it usually makes more sense to just replace the whole assembly than to source and replace individual parts, given the cost of the assembly.

Be very gentle to the small, red silicone o-rings. They could be easily damaged. when you take the flexible Teflon tube connection apart, always take the o-rings out of the receptacle. When install, put the o-ring around the Teflon tubing leading end first then insert into the receptacle. Don't force the tubing into a receptacle with an o-ring already in the receptacle, or there is a good chance that the o-ring gets cut broken by the tip of the tubing.

Try not to take pliers to the Teflon tubing, when they get pinched they don't like springing back to shape.

I'b not going to say it's an easy or a hard job to replace the valve stack, but I broke into my BES840 so many times that I'm pretty sure I can do it in 15 minutes, from taking the first screw out of the machine to fastening it back in.

********Edit**********
Sorry Didn't realize you're in Australia, and the part in the link doesn't likely work. The coil's DC resistance for 230-240 VAC should be about 2x that of one for 110-120VAC. Do compare with that of the other coil.
If the coil is the only part broken, and you can fix the leak at the elbow joint, the 3-way solenoid valve is AUS$89.17 at:
https://spares.bigwarehouse.com.au/prod ... id=3726071
The whole valve stack assembly at the above vendor does cost a costly AUS$157 if you'd like to replace the whole thing.

Wow! Thank you canatto for all of the additional information - I will try my best to do the further testing - thanks for the detailed instructions. I think it will be my skill level and time, not determination that might make me come undone.

She's had a very good run and been well loved by the office, so it would be amazing if the fix was under $150 + some time. I can't make it any worse than it already is

Wish me luck!

Thank you also Caffeine - glad to have a few other check points before purchasing the part, I will investigate further and try to isolate the problem more thoroughly! The video also looks helpful.

I'll have to bring it home for a weekend project!

Appreciate the time you've both taken to respond.

Good luck!

If you have any questions, just post a few clear pictures and I assume there is enough knowledge among the members to help you out.

I didn't realize you were in AUS aswell, that might make stuff a bit more expensive (currency & location wise..)

Since your doing it yourself, I assume money is a factor; a solenoid is nothing special, just an electromagnet / coil with sometimes a rectifier (to change ac to dc).

If you measure the outer diameter of the valve / piston housing, / the inner diameter of the selenoid, and the resistance, with some googling & math you could very likely find a very cheap replacement.
I couldn't find a direct replacement for the part # mentioned above, but a similar one cant be hard to find!