Rocket Cellini Pump Replacement - My Story
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AlohaDearEspresso
- Posts: 1
- Joined: 5 years ago
I've had a Rocket Cellini Plus with PID for about 4-5 years and just replaced the pump. There are quite a few threads on this forum related to that same process, but I wanted to share my experience as well.
I use my Cellini every morning and that's about it, just 1 double espresso every day. Maybe I'll do 2 some mornings, but that's rare. I usually (90% of the time) use filtered water from my refrigerator dispenser. I also flip it on, wait 10-20 minutes, make my drink, then flip it off. I see this as a pretty light usage of the machine over the years. I've never descaled other than to one time use vinegar, so it's probably my poor preventative maintenance that's the cause of all my troubles.
About 2 years after I had it, the pump noise, which is generally a fairly loud vibration, went very quiet and I was getting very little pressure at the head. Couldn't brew any drinks. Not sure why, I started looking into solutions, and after 4-5 days, it magically fixed itself and went back to normal sound and pressure.
Recently, the no pressure/quiet pump happened again so I started with a descaling. That didn't fix the problem, but many threads say that a descaling can possible be the cause of no pressure at the head due to a clog. So, I took the whole thing apart...
I can say that the inside of a Rocket is pretty straightforward. Everything is logically laid out and it's a clean "plumbing" design. The biggest challenge was getting my fat fingers into some of the tight areas where nuts are, but patience is the key. There was a lot of scale in my machine, and many of the clear tubes were caked near the connections. Valves had some scale, and when I drained the boiler tank, it had some as well. I took everything apart, blew them out, and reassembled the unit. The head also had the hard "green scale" that's referenced here, so I scraped that off.
Again, no luck. So I sent for a replacement pump. Amazon had the cheapest I could find at $35 here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00B8KBVZE/
I had already removed and cleaned the old pump, which has just a few moving parts, mostly springs and ball chokes. It looked fine, and had no wear or clogs. But based on other threads here, seems like they have a 1-5 year lifespan. I thought my very minimal usage would be a bonus and extend the life, but no luck I guess.
I installed the new pump, fired it up, and it worked like a charm! It does sound slightly different than the original pump, with a quieter sound (the original one was really loud, like I woke up the family when it first kicked on in the morning). But it works, so that's all that matters. Unfortunately, in all of the removing/cleaning, I somehow cracked the capillary tube from the pump pressure gauge, probably from bending it too far/too many times. That replacement part is on order and it looks like it'll be the most difficult to replace given the location of the gauge holding assembly.
As an aside, the gauge/capillary tube is one soldered piece, which is a negative for me - especially since the gauge end is threaded. A replacement capillary tube is about $10, while the cheapest Rocket gauge + tube I could find was from Canada-based Espressotec for C$55 here:
https://www.espressotec.com/rocket-plus ... -3157.html
With C$10 shipping, it worked out to US$48. With the previous pump, I was consistently getting 9 bar at the head during a pour. Even if I did too fine a grind and got a tiny trickle of espresso or nothing at all, the pressure never went above 9 bar. I'll be curious to see what it is with the new pump and will update this thread.
This was all a pretty good learning experience, and not quite as difficult as I had imagined. Although taking this thing apart, doing something like a clean of a specific part, and reassembling multiple times makes it easier every time... And, although I had to go 2 weeks without my daily espresso, I did get to perfect my Chemex brew.
Good luck - and THANK YOU to everyone else who shared their repair stories in so much detail! I never would have been able to do this repair without all of the great info on this forum. (I reached out to a couple local coffee shops and commercial coffee machine repair people here in Honolulu and was unanimously met with either "we don't do home machines" or no answer at all. My local coffee shop guy said his repair person wants $1,000 minimum to make a visit. And, shipping this big machine back to the retailer - Seattle Coffee Gear - for repair would have been about $200 each way! Sucks living in Hawaii.)
I use my Cellini every morning and that's about it, just 1 double espresso every day. Maybe I'll do 2 some mornings, but that's rare. I usually (90% of the time) use filtered water from my refrigerator dispenser. I also flip it on, wait 10-20 minutes, make my drink, then flip it off. I see this as a pretty light usage of the machine over the years. I've never descaled other than to one time use vinegar, so it's probably my poor preventative maintenance that's the cause of all my troubles.
About 2 years after I had it, the pump noise, which is generally a fairly loud vibration, went very quiet and I was getting very little pressure at the head. Couldn't brew any drinks. Not sure why, I started looking into solutions, and after 4-5 days, it magically fixed itself and went back to normal sound and pressure.
Recently, the no pressure/quiet pump happened again so I started with a descaling. That didn't fix the problem, but many threads say that a descaling can possible be the cause of no pressure at the head due to a clog. So, I took the whole thing apart...
I can say that the inside of a Rocket is pretty straightforward. Everything is logically laid out and it's a clean "plumbing" design. The biggest challenge was getting my fat fingers into some of the tight areas where nuts are, but patience is the key. There was a lot of scale in my machine, and many of the clear tubes were caked near the connections. Valves had some scale, and when I drained the boiler tank, it had some as well. I took everything apart, blew them out, and reassembled the unit. The head also had the hard "green scale" that's referenced here, so I scraped that off.
Again, no luck. So I sent for a replacement pump. Amazon had the cheapest I could find at $35 here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00B8KBVZE/
I had already removed and cleaned the old pump, which has just a few moving parts, mostly springs and ball chokes. It looked fine, and had no wear or clogs. But based on other threads here, seems like they have a 1-5 year lifespan. I thought my very minimal usage would be a bonus and extend the life, but no luck I guess.
I installed the new pump, fired it up, and it worked like a charm! It does sound slightly different than the original pump, with a quieter sound (the original one was really loud, like I woke up the family when it first kicked on in the morning). But it works, so that's all that matters. Unfortunately, in all of the removing/cleaning, I somehow cracked the capillary tube from the pump pressure gauge, probably from bending it too far/too many times. That replacement part is on order and it looks like it'll be the most difficult to replace given the location of the gauge holding assembly.
As an aside, the gauge/capillary tube is one soldered piece, which is a negative for me - especially since the gauge end is threaded. A replacement capillary tube is about $10, while the cheapest Rocket gauge + tube I could find was from Canada-based Espressotec for C$55 here:
https://www.espressotec.com/rocket-plus ... -3157.html
With C$10 shipping, it worked out to US$48. With the previous pump, I was consistently getting 9 bar at the head during a pour. Even if I did too fine a grind and got a tiny trickle of espresso or nothing at all, the pressure never went above 9 bar. I'll be curious to see what it is with the new pump and will update this thread.
This was all a pretty good learning experience, and not quite as difficult as I had imagined. Although taking this thing apart, doing something like a clean of a specific part, and reassembling multiple times makes it easier every time... And, although I had to go 2 weeks without my daily espresso, I did get to perfect my Chemex brew.
Good luck - and THANK YOU to everyone else who shared their repair stories in so much detail! I never would have been able to do this repair without all of the great info on this forum. (I reached out to a couple local coffee shops and commercial coffee machine repair people here in Honolulu and was unanimously met with either "we don't do home machines" or no answer at all. My local coffee shop guy said his repair person wants $1,000 minimum to make a visit. And, shipping this big machine back to the retailer - Seattle Coffee Gear - for repair would have been about $200 each way! Sucks living in Hawaii.)
