My sister-in-law gave us a very nice, but not quite working, espresso machine that she got at the junk store for $5. It’s like a $500 Breville machine, not top of the line or anything but definitely way more than I would have ponied up at retail. But like I said, it didn’t quite work; it would do a hard shutdown after being on for a few minutes, and wouldn’t turn back on until it was unplugged and re-plugged. If I was lucky I could get one shot out of it before it quit.
It was very clearly some kind of thermal limiting problem, but the parts diagram was not particularly complete or clear. After consulting with an acquaintance who knows espresso machines, he found the component that was likely to blame – a thermally actuated switch that protects the pump from overheating. One $1.50 part later (or actually 10 of them, minimum orders and whatnot)…
All I needed to do was replace the little white rectangular electrical component near the middle of the photo and slip it back into its bracket on the pump. After doing the swap I pulled like 3 shots and made a bunch of steam and water with no problems whatsoever. I’m pretty confident I have a working, and rather nice, espreso machine for a total investment of about $20 and 10 minutes of actual hands-on work.
Addendum, fun times with parts procurement
this machine is no longer in production, so I couldn’t order an authorized replacement part. But thermal switches are pretty commodity, so I figured I could just order another thermal switch wiht the same properties. HOWEVER, none of the images on the parts retailer sites showed the specs or the actual printing on the part – only the Breville part number. Eventually I found a part substitution number for the same component on another Breville coffee maker, and the images for the substitute part did clearly show the markings on the switch.
Based on that number, I was able to track down the manufacturer and series of the part. But the particular specs didn’t seem to be available anywere… excpet for a rather sketchy looking supplier on Aliexpress, minimum order 10. I crossed my fingers and pressed the button, and the part got from China to the US in 8 days via economy shipping, somehow. And although the image on Aliexpress suggested that it was a generic component, the parts I received had the actual official manufacturer’s name on the package. Lucky break? Counterfeit? Who’s to know?
Anyway, I love this crap. If you want help finding a weird appliance part, let me know.
