Kristopher Senior Member Joined: 26 Apr 2012 Posts: 1 Location: Chicago, IL Expertise: I love coffee
Posted Thu Apr 26, 2012, 10:54am Subject: Adopting a broken machine - how to repair?
Recently, our office espresso machine, a Krups XP5080, died. (we fortunately upgraded to a Gaggia – an amazing difference!) The Krups machine was having a problem starting up; after pressing the power button, it would begin to flash as it normally would when the thermoblock heats up. Instead of switching from warm-up to ready, it would shut itself down. Knowing there could be an easy fix and not wanting to see a $300 machine go in the dumpster, I offered to rescue it and repair it if possible. If I can get it working it’ll be an improvement over my home machine, but if not it’ll still be a fun learning experience.
When I get it home and take the cover off, I find that the “dead” problem is intermittent: Sometimes it would just do the flashy light thing and then turn off, other times there would be a faint “click” and sure enough, the thermoblock would start to heat up. During a trial run I was able to preheat the portafilter and fill a cup, but the machine never recovered from its second heat-up.
The symptoms seem to point to either a thermoblock sensor issue, or an electronics signal issue. If it’s a sensor issue like a bad TStat I can probably fix it but if it’s in the electronics I may be out of luck. On the other hand, I’m not a fan of the semi-automatic machines to begin with, so maybe this is an opportunity to override the circuit board with a series of shiny metal switches….Franken-spresso, anyone?
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