Descaling is probably a good start, especially if it's never been done. I have a bII and have had very little scale but that's because of the water supply. All of the components are exposed to heat and the higher they are in the machine the hotter they get. I could have probably left off the pid after I replaced my controller but decided since I already had it I might as well install it. After I installed the controller I noticed that while steaming the pump would come on. Before I replaced it that had stopped happening but I hadn't noticed because typically I was only making one latte each time the machine powered up. When it first powered up the pump always ran longer than I thought it should. Mine turns on and off 3 times a day for breakfast,lunch, and dinner. Each time it restarted there was enough water added to the steam boiler to work. You may have more than one problem but descaling is a good start. Herman
On Mon, Mar 21, 2016 at 2:31 PM, Eric Christoffersen <[email protected]> wrote: > Found this page: > > > https://www.seattlecoffeegear.com/assets/files/silvia-pid-operation-manual.pdf > > Discussing use of pid with silvia. It talks about the meanings of the > different constants. This section: > > *Fine tuning the PID Constants * > > The parameters for the PID controller have been optimized for Rancilio > Silvia > > with extensive testing. For most users, there is no need to fine tune the > machine. > > For some machines, the temperature might oscillate 2 degrees occasionally. > The > > recovery time might increase to 3-4 minutes when it is cold. These > differences > > are not critical to most users because it might take that much time to > prepare the > > next shot. As the machine warms up, the performance will improve. A warmed > up > > machine could take less than 40 seconds to recover after pulling a shot. > We > > found the most noticeable performance differences were between new machines > > and some old, poorly maintained machines. This is believed to be due to > internal > > scale build-up in older machines which slows the response time. If you are > > technically adept and willing to read through the controller instruction > manual, > > below are some hints that may help you fine tune the controller. Should > you ever > > want to set the controller to its original state, Table 2 lists the > default settings that > > come with the controller. > > Could scale cause my symptoms? It could be there is voltage when pid is > activated but the burst is too short to be read by my cheapo dmm? > > I think - before throwing another $120 pid at it I think I'm going to > try raising 'I', and also open up boiler for a proper descaling. > > -- > 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 https://groups.google.com/group/brewtus. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- 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 https://groups.google.com/group/brewtus. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
