I was away for a week and had turned my LMLM off. When I came back and turned it on, it made a loud clicking noise as the water LED turned on and off. The machine was working well before I left, and the water tank is full.

Here is a small video of what I see and hear.

Any idea about the issue, and steps to troubleshoot and fix that I could take? I came back from Portland with a bunch of local beans to play with, so this is a bit disheartening.

Thanks in advance!
YA

It's got a short circuit bad enough somewhere to rob the powerboard of so much power that the powerboard shuts off. Then it restarts, gets ready to run, you hear the click of whatever relay it is energizing to power the shorted out component, and repeats.
My guess is that it's probably happening on boiler fill. Either the pump or the boiler fill solenoid is shorted out.

Unplug the machine, remove both connections from the boiler-fill solenoid, plug the machine back in and see if the pump runs. Shut it off after a couple seconds. If the pump was running, then you've pretty much proven that the short is in the boiler-fill solenoid coil.
If the machine recommenced doing it's click-blink click-blink routine, unplug it and disconnect the pump the same as you disconnected the solenoid. Continue with components until you find the one starving the machine for power.

I suggested starting with the boiler-fill components because I assume that's what the machine wants to do first after being unused for a while. But it could be the element or any component.
If you eventually disconnect all components and the board is still behaving that way, then the short circuit may be on the board itself.

I turned it on this morning, and after one click, it now simply blinks the red light to indicate an error, with the blue light steadily on. No more clicking. When I turned the machine off last week, the pump may have been running.

The boiler-fill solenoid plug is the big black box on the top right of the machine when facing it, right? (Also shown on page 16 of the parts diagram here I think.)

I did disconnect it, but I think that when the machine is in that state (blinking the red error light) nothing is running? So I don't see a difference. (Also, the thermal breaker didn't go off, that's the obvious thing I checked too.)

I'm sorry to say that the test I mentioned isn't going to work, now that it isn't trying to run at all.

Yes, Part 11 on page 16 plus the black cube-like coil make up the boiler fill solenoid valve.

I don't have a next step for you to try. I hope someone who knows LMLM intricately might jump in, here.

Hi, adding to this thread, as I have been having the same behavior with my LMLM. See the video below for the entire cycle. It only happens after turning the machine on in the morning, having been turned off since 4 PM the prior afternoon. Once it makes its way through this behavior, it works normally. I've tried turning it off for a couple of hours during the day, and it does not exhibit this behavior when turned back on after a couple of hours.

I showed this video to a local SF Bay Area repair shop recommended by Chris at La Marzocco Home, and they said they had never seen this before, and that it could be something loose somewhere or a fault in the board. I was hoping someone from HB would have some more specific thoughts.

Any thoughts are welcomed!

Did you send Chris that video? It looks very abnormal. Perhaps the motor is binding on start-up. Mine has never done anything like that.

Hi mgwolf, I did send Chris the video. He said he hadn't seen this before. His thought was that it may be an issue with the control board. The interesting thing is that it only happens after being turned off for an extended period of time, i.e. over 12+ hours. So it's almost like the machine goes through a routine trying to make sure the boiler is full only after being off for an extended period of time and it's having a fault with that routine. I interrupted it this morning after it "tripped" one time by pulling out the water tank. I then put the tank back in and it "tripped" maybe 2 more times and then went to normal startup.

Thanks for the thoughts!

A belated update - I brought my machine to OZ Espresso in the SF Bay Area, as recommended by Chris at LM. Yossi at OZ replaced the control board, and that fixed the issue. My machine was from 2015, so it was an older model. Hope this helps!

PS Yossi at OZ Espresso was great to work with. He runs a small shop, does the work, and loves to talk espresso and espresso machines. Highly recommended if you are in the Bay Area.