Knock on wood but have had very few problems with brewtus - however gotta say that I love reading the stuff this group does. very techie and very hands on. Thanks for all the input and help - (but hopefully not for a long time!)
On Wed, Nov 27, 2013 at 5:05 AM, wsmckenz <[email protected]> wrote: > So I'm completely stuck on getting my temp sensor removed. I tried top > file all the gunk from around edges, and a 2 ft breaker bar, but no luck. > My question is, how powerful an impact wrench do I need? Does it need to be > an air gun, or can I use one of those Ryobis they sell at Home Depot for a > 100 bucks? > > On Monday, July 16, 2012 12:35:00 AM UTC-5, Eric Christoffersen wrote: >> >> Hi All, >> >> About 3 weeks ago my 8 year old brewtus 2 stopped heating up. Pid showed >> room temp. Checked the usual: no steam leaking from reverse pressure relief >> valve, the overtemp switches on top of boilers were untripped and had >> continuity. I couldn't see anything wrong. >> >> Called WLL, they said it could be a heating element and told me how to >> diagnose. Sure enough the brew boiler heating element had 200ohms of >> resistance, shows continuity with multitester. The steam boiler heating >> element had many thousands/no continuity. >> >> Called back to order heating element. After taking my order tech >> helpfully suggested I could swich the bottom two wires on the pstat which >> causes heating priority to go to brew boiler (brew boiler previously didn't >> get hot because prioritized steam boiler never warmed.) This would keep me >> in the coffee until I could replace the steam boiler's heating element. >> >> Wow. Super helpful tech. Quick with answers and nice. >> >> Over the years I've had a fair bit of experience with the brewtus' >> insides: >> - Many rebuilds of reverse pressure relief valve (high temp o-ring >> replaced every two years) >> - On off switch (brittle and broke) >> - Original controller died replaced with pid/new temp sensor >> - PStat (leaked steam, then broke) >> - Both overtemp sensors (plastic rotted) >> - Replaced OPV (mine was old bad original one and couldn't adjust brew >> pressure to be low enough, got the nice new one with brass screw, highly >> recommended) >> >> Overall I gotta say this wasn't the hardest job. Most involved was >> putting in the pid kit. Total time was maybe 4 hours, not including the >> drive to service station, but including all the extra futzing like building >> new insulation. >> >> I'm not going to walk through the whole thing but offer some suggestions: >> 1) Don't even try to get the heating element out with your puny tools. >> Forget the 4 foot breaker bar. I have a huge vice and a big wrench and I >> couldn't make it budge. Finally I went to a local service station >> and borrowed their air gun with correct socket. Clamp boiler in a vice and >> the element comes out in about 10 seconds with no hassle or damage. >> Unbelievable how effective the air gun's rattle action is. >> 2) If your machine is old like mine each fittng will be stuck and come >> loose with a clank or creak. Be sure and have a variety of open wrenches >> available. You'll use at least 5 different sizes. Hopefully you have some >> with small heads because some fittings are are difficult to reach. Be SURE >> to support whatever the fitting is screwed into with another wrench. Come >> on, invest in some good tools. Get a FULL set of high quality open ended >> wrenches, a good phillips, some hex sockets and a socket wrench. With good >> tools this job is make much easier. Keep the adjustable wrenches away from >> the brass, too easy to damage the fittings (assuming you can even reach). >> Some of the craftsman are nice. >> 3) Have a big roll of teflon tape handy for reassembly. There's lots of >> fittings to wrap when you reassemble. Stuff works great to seal and aids >> disassembly. Everything I've previously reassembled with teflon comes >> straight out, so do it for next time. >> 4) The steam boiler is hard to remove. Not sure the right way but I took >> out the brew boiler so that I had room to unwind the steam boiler from a >> pipe that goes in its base. >> 5) The steam boiler has many fittings and two are for its heat exchanger. >> My heat exchanger was full of scale. Tons of it. Rest of machine was very >> clean. Took 20/30 minutes to clean all that scale out. I used a screw >> driver to break up the pieces then filled the boiler and shook it to pour >> out the flakes. Got it all out. >> 6) When washing the steam boiler the thin fiberglass insulation all >> broken up and washed away. Had to make a new blanky for the steam boiler. I >> used some wool felt I had around. We'll see how that lasts. Machine is >> certainly quieter now. >> 7) The busted element looked fine. Nothing wrong except no continuity so >> broken inside somehow. >> 8) Machine will brew with no heat in steam boiler, but has trouble >> holding temp for a shot. Takes a while to heatup. Not good. Very happy to >> have steam boiler back to provide hot refill to brew boiler. >> 9) Wrap all the threads on the boiler with teflon before you put the >> boilers back into the machine. >> 10) Almost all my plastic spade connector covers are yellow and super >> brittle. They shattered on touch. I built new covers using outdoor rated >> heat shrink electrical tubing. Local electronic store sells it for $3 for 4 >> feet. The wires to the steam boiler's heating elemet also looked like >> they'd seen heat and water. I covered them with heat shrink too. >> 11) When restarting machine remember to refill both boilers by running >> pump. Do it before machine has a chance to get hot. Keep water handy to >> refill water tank while this is happening.Fortunately my tubing and pump >> still had prime so worked great. Took a few minutes before water came out >> of brew head. >> >> Started machine up, noticed it takes longer to heat up when steam boiler >> has priority. Worked first time, pulled a shot of vivace and all was well >> again. Oh, and machine seems lots quieter with the large felt blanket on >> the steam boiler. >> >> Cheers, >> Eric >> >> > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Brewtus" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/brewtus. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Brewtus" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/brewtus. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
