fortunately my brother is an engineer and is going to talk me through this. It's always good to have one of those in the family!

I agree with that. I've been trying to analyze what wiring snafu could possibly cause the symptom you saw (red light works only when white switch is in the middle) and I haven't come up with an answer. I took a circuits class in school, but didnt like it (and really didnt learn much.) Hope your bro can figure it out. Do be careful, make sure it's on a GFI protected circuit, make absolutely sure you can't get one hand on a live and the other on a ground or neutral. (Some people work with one hand behind their back if they must touch the innards of an energized appliance.)

Related to this, I just posted some nice diagrams that I found just a day or two ago that I think make the wiring of these machines very clear, including the diferent way that the old (white body) and new (black body) switches are wired up. See La Pavoni Europiccola 2-element wiring diagrams

Thanks a bunch for the link.

My basic problem is figuring out which terminals are 200W and which are 1000W. My brother wondered if I could just take the base back off and see if I can tell by looking at where the elements are attached to the top of the base -- if they line up with their respective terminals on the bottom of the base. I'm pretty close to just seeing if there is a good, small appliance repair shop in town that I can take this to.

john402052000 wrote:My basic problem is figuring out which terminals are 200W and which are 1000W.

The two that are furthest apart are 800, and the two closest to the center are 200 (the 200 element is nested inside the 800 element.)

john402052000 wrote:My basic problem is figuring out which terminals are 200W and which are 1000W. My brother wondered if I could just take the base back off and see if I can tell by looking at where the elements are attached to the top of the base -- if they line up with their respective terminals on the bottom of the base.

Probably. Take a look. Often on such machines the element plate of the boiler is stamped with that information.

Wow -- I just saw that in the diagram. Thanks again for posting that link. I now know which terminals are which!

john402052000 wrote:I'm pretty close to just seeing if there is a good, small appliance repair shop in town that I can take this to.

Good idea. Show them the diagrams that I linked to, and the specs for the resistance on those elements. Also have them check to make sure that none of the element terminals leaks current to ground (to the element base) when there's water in the boiler. For that you need a tester that measures megaOhms.