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Sage/Breville Barista Express - no pressure reading

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barista express sage pressure gauge sage
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11K views 3 replies 2 participants last post by  Yochow  
Y
#1 ·
Brand new to the world of coffee machines, grinding beans and pulling shots, so please forgive me if I'm talking utter crap and/ or there is already a post about this, but I'm struggling to find it.

***
TLDR:
I believe that the line leading to pressure guage is blocked. The pipe itself doesn't look blocked

Any advice?
***

Any-hoo.
I got my first machine a few days ago, a relatively looked after used Sage BE.

I gave it good clean and a clear water back flush cycle on arival, as I did not have any cleaning tablets or descaler.

All was working fine, or at least it was working as I had expected, but yesterday, after getting cleaning tablets and performing a proper back flush with tablet, the pressure guage starter to become unresponsive.

I can hear the pump ramping up and the tone change as it goes under load, but the guage barely moves, even with the (no hole) cleaning disk.

My coffees have a crema, so I think it is still reaching ok pressures, but the guage just doesn't move .

I've opened the bugger up, and had a poke about, and I've determined that the guage is ok, because I've disconnected the pipe from the guage, ran a single shot with the cleaning disc in, and there was no water from the pipe.

I assume there would be water pushed into that line to feed the guage, but perhaps I'm wrong.

In any case, the pipe itself has no blockages that I can see, and when attempting to blow/suck water towards the boiler/water heater unit, it feels blocked.

Any advice outside of buying a new machine?


Thank in advanced.
 
Y
#3 ·
Thank you very much for your advice, I'll source a solenoid assembly and keep it on standby and keep investigating.

I'm tempted to detatch the pipe from the back of the guage, sit it vertically and squirt a dribble of neet descaler down it, then let it sit for a few minutes. And try blowing the crud out through the group head.

I'm not sure where the inlet is for it on the group head, but I'll probably take the shower screen off incase it's under there and the screen blocks the scale/coffee coming out of the hole when I try to blow it out.


Again, thank you for the reply.
I'll post how it goes, incase it happens to anyone else.
 
Y
#4 ·
Update to the situation.

Pressure guage itself was fine, solenoids were fine.

Group head water dispenser (exploded view document part 2.2) had a blockage.
Image

Now fixed.


Purchased a salvaged water dispenser off ebay, along with a new 250mm long 4mm pipe from catering spares direct.


* Details*

The water from coming into the dispenser splits into two paths.

One goes straight down and out of the dispenser to make the coffee, the other goes to the pressure guage.

This second channel was blocked inside the unit and no water was coming out of the port the blue arrow is pointing at in the above picture.

The metal collar of the pipe that leads to the pressure guage had corroded itself to that port too.

Not the easiest repair, but the machine is pretty simple in its construction, which is a blessing.

To remove the dispenser, you have to remove a fair few parts, because the screws that hold it in place are not accessible from above.
 
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