So the steam and hot water aren't coming out of my machine. Steam pressure reads zero.
I still have pressure and water out the brew head.

Prior to stopping, I did have one incident where the machine was venting out the top after using the hot water tap. Turned it off and on and it was ok. Also the wife noticed the hot water tap was giving cloudy water right before it died so I'm thinking my inline water filter wasn't doing a great job on calcium.

Parts from Rocket are not available because of COVID.

Any advice is appreciated I've never had my machine apart before and of course the 2 year warranty was up like 3 months ago.

Before anything else, let's (And by "Let's" I mean "You're going to...") open it up and see if the thermal safety has popped and just needs to be reset.

So, Take the reservoir out of the back of the machine. Use a long philips screwdriver to take those 2 bolts out that were hidden under the reservoir.

For Safety, unplug the machine before taking the top off... The whole top should lift off now, bringing the metal reservoir carrier with it.

Now, you're looking in at the tops of your 2 boilers... The big one is the Steam Boiler. Near the top of the steam boiler, kind of facing the back corner of the machine is the "safety thermostat". A little plastic cylindrical thing on the side of the boiler with 2 electrical connections...
Between the 2 electrical connections is a little button. You unplugged the machine already, unplug it again in case you forgot!
Press the little button on the safety thermostat. if you feel it click, then it had been popped and you've reset it.

If the safety pops often, like more than every couple of months, there may be something wrong, either it's generating its own heat, it is defective or your boiler is overheating too often (And now I remember, you started this with your boiler had overheated and blown over the safety valve as well).

So.
After resetting the electrical safety, reassemble the machine. Leave the screws out if you want to bet against the machine being all fixed already.
Let's (This means you again) plug it back in and turn it on, but we're going to watch what it does this time. It may take a moment of the pump running to refill the boiler if it blew off water out the steam relief. Then it should begin heating because you've reset the safety thermostat. After a minute, you'll hear the breather valve close (Ssssssssshlup) and the gauge will start rising. If the gauge goes above 1.3, get ready to shut the machine down or unplug it, it is getting close to blowing over the relief valve again... If it works properly all is well.
If it does overheat and blow over the safety relief again, please post again and we can begin working on the overheat issue. If it works fine for a couple of days, go ahead and put the screws back in under the reservoir.

JRising, thanks for your help!

Tried those steps.. unfortunately, the button wasn't popped.. no click or movement when I pushed on it.
Plugged it all back in, turned it on for a half hour, no pressure.

No pressure = no heat. No heat can be caused by a number of things: Bad pressurestat or PID, failed heating element, bad control box, etc.
Let us know if you have a volt/ohm meter and if you are acquainted with its use and we can go from there.

Alright, 2 more things to have a look at.

First, plug in the control pad and go through the menu to Service Boiler and make sure that the machine hasn't turned it off for some reason.

Second if you take the left panel off you can see the indicator lights on the 2 relays. When they get a signal from the PID, they light up their indicator as they supply power to their element. Thus, at start up, the coffee boiler heats first, you'll know which relay is the coffee boiler's because it will be lit pretty much constantly until the coffee boiler approaches target temperature.
Once the coffee boiler gets close to target, the PID will start alternating between the two relays, you'll see the steam relay light when the coffee relay is off and vice versa as the PID gives shorter and fewer pulses to the coffee relay to bring the coffee boiler smoothly up to temp.

So... If the indicator lights are blinking and alternating as described and expected, then we can believe that the PID is good. Now we'll have to determine if the problem is the steam relay or the heating element. Have you got a multimeter?

Thanks Randy and JRising,

I have a meter and know how to use it. I found a video on checking the heating element and power here.. guess I will follow along after work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaZbOXNvG5Y

Tailslide wrote: I have a meter and know how to use it.

Sounds like a threat from a Clint Eastwood movie about electricians.

I know just enough to be dangerous so it fits!

Turns out it's the heating element on the steam boiler.

Now.. can I just replace the heating element or will the new one just die again because something caused it to fail?

I'm wondering if all that calcium coated the element and insulated it then when the element broke (there is no electrical connection across it) it dislodged all that calcium we saw. Not sure why we saw it venting out the top though.

Greg

Tailslide wrote:I'm wondering if all that calcium coated the element and insulated it then when the element broke (there is no electrical connection across it) it dislodged all that calcium we saw. Not sure why we saw it venting out the top though.

If you're running it on Calgary water without some sort of softening then you would expect serious scale buildup in the boilers. But there is another likely cause of the cloudy steam boiler water after the element failed, and that would be the release of magnesium oxide insulating material from a ruptured element.

So took it apart and there was a lot of calcium in there and the heating element was shot.. my water filter was not a softening filter. I replaced the heating element and the water filter with an OCS2.

Now, it's been working for a couple weeks but the problem with the hissing valve is back.
Sometimes if I completely drain the hot water tap it will hiss the entire time it is building pressure and not stop.

Do I just need a new valve?