I have a Profitec Pro 500 PID (1 year, 2 months old) that just started exhibiting this:

Heats up fine, boiler pressure 1.4, group idle 199. Pull shot fine.. go to steam and virtually no steam..

Pull off steam tip to look for issue, but notice steam pressure at .4 bar and PID temp at 190 and dropping. Turn machine off for a minute.. Turn on, heats up fine. Put steam tip back on and steam is normal.

All of a sudden, PID drops by 1 deg per about 5 seconds and steam pressure drops..

Turn off again and on.. no change.. finally PID temp gets under 240.. repeat, turn off, wait a minute turn on.

Now temp rises back to 256 and pressure back to 1.4 bar..after TS reheats, I make shot and steam milk and everything is fine.. Left on for 15 minutes and now stable..

Anyone seen something like this.. I hate random problems because shop (under warranty) might not be able to duplicate.. Any guesses as to likely issues?

Edit: Inside the PID is the relay that turns the boiler on a solid state variety? Wonder if that is getting hot and failing.. I noticed the failure after 2.5 hours on. Can't make it fail now, but only on 40 minutes or so. Just a guess.

Dave

Failed about 5 times today.. sent back to IDC under their VIM warranty program. One plus for buying from IDC (Canada) as they extend the 1 year Profitec warranty by another year and pay shipping both ways. Full marks to them, as there is no local shop. But many here build/repair their own. Guess I'd be going that route.

anything can fail.. didn't expect a failure in just over a year. Suspect PID.

Can't tell you how p.... I'd be if I only relied on the Profitec 1 yr warranty. I understand that a user's water can cause problems that manufacturers don't want to repair, but having only a 1 yr warranty on these prosumer (expensive) machines seems short.

IDC isolated problem to faulty SSR.. Was failing "open" due to high thermal temp. It has no heat sink and is placed near boiler. Tech has said he relocated SSR to back of machine. This might be a problem with this lot of designs, so will document this here in case others have same issue.

Hi,

thanks for updating it here, do you have diagram or photos for future users on where the ssr is and how to relocate it?

cheers

No..as I didn't do repair.. I googled SSR 10A and saw some pics that likely show a similar item. Should be pretty obvious as it is some type of square block-like component connected to PID controller and boiler heater power. On my PID version it is apparently very close to boiler and so it gets heated up too much by that. The tech said he relocated it to the back of the unit, but I haven't taken the cover off to look at it.

If yours breaks and you need to ID it, I can do that.. It should be relatively simple to replace the SCR.. think they are 4 terminal device and likely has screw tabs.

My first post here-
I've had my Profitec for almost three years, still barely under warranty. It recently started taking longer and longer to reach 254 deg on the PID. It used to be ready in about 15-20 minutes from a cold start. Last week it would heat, pause heating, heat again, pause again but it never reached 254 even waiting for an hour. The tech that I'm working with at Clive Coffee thinks it's the SSR (solid state relay).

I found this older thread that discusses the same problem and that they ended up relocating it because it was next to the boiler. Mine sits close to the boiler but on a bracket, possibly serving as a heat sink. I was wondering if I should relocate it so the SSR doesn't give me problems again.

Thanks!

Hey brother pliny from Tundra forum, our peeps here will help you!

I don't know how your machine is built/setup, so this is just basic info. The SSR should have a led light on it. When it's passing current during heating, the led will illuminate. You can check to see if it is. If the led is not lit, then the SSR is not passing current... hence no heating. The pid controls the temp, but the pid will only follow along with what the temp sensor tells it. If the temp sensors are scaled/corroded, then they may not be sending the pid the correct temp information.

I'm also not sure from reading your post if you already suspect it's the SSR failing due to environmental heat and location it's in. If so, just move it.

I was one of the posters of the original SSR Pro500 failure.. When my SSR failed, the symptom was that the steam gauge suddenly dropped (indicating that the steam boiler was no longer heating) and the temp dropped, but the temp display is not visible with the drip tray in position.. My red light was still on, so looking at an LED is not a conclusive indicator. The SSR itself is just a single component. My machine was returned to IDC in Canada under warranty. The other HB poster fixed his own, but I don't know the details of his exact fix. I actually told IDC the issue and told them to relocate the SSR away from the boiler. If the SSR is close to the boiler, the ambient temp can get too hot around the SSR and it just gets too hot to do its job. The failure could be due to improper thermal design considerations, but there are only a few SSR replacements reported here on HB (2) from this model.

I have not taken the cover off to see where it is located. I am assuming the tech did relocate it as he replaced the component. I have not had another issue in 1.5 years.. (machine is almost 3 yrs old).

But if it is attached to a metal bar, it requires some type of heat-sink so relocation needs the same consideration. I might still go to the vendor to see if they'd do the replacement under a warranty, as the failure could be attributed to faulty thermal considerations by the manufacturer. Many designs attach the SSR to the bottom plate, so that it acts as a heat-sink and is away from the boiler.. Because the heat should rise, I assume the bottom plate would be a much cooler location.

Thanks for the welcome Pliny! I've actually been browsing this forum way before I even joined here and the Tundra forum.

The SSR light is on. Their is no scaling in the machine at all, at least in all the places that need to be regularly cleaned. Clive thinks it's the SSR so I'll wait and see when I get the new one. We have some really good well water that is very low in mineral content. We've never needed to descale anything using the water in the 23 years we've live here.

The SSR sits on a bracket just to the side of the boiler. It will be easy to replace, much like anything else in the machine. I haven't looked where I would relocate it yet. There seems to be plenty of room.