Exporbar Minore pressure drop

Ronin

Have been having dropping pressure on the brew gauge for a while & got to the point where max I could get adjusting the opv was 8 bar, which wouldn't be a problem except the coffee was crap.

Initial thoughts was dying pump, but only 2.5 years.
AM in his kindness leant me a spare pump to try. Thank you Mr Management.
As it turns out it was not the pump and I spent some time chasing the problem.
Turns out the spring in the opv had compressed to the poing where it was too short, bottoming out the valve = not working properly. Took it to work and stretched the spring, set it to 10 bar blanked off so it should be close on the machine. Worked a treat. Machine now working like a new one and coffee tasting great thanks to some tasty Indo from Jeff at My Cuppa.

I serviced the group head while I had it apart, and checked for scale, not much at all & was surprised. Great learning expierence and happy to have fixed it myself with no expence but time. Good to know how it goes together too

Lacehim

Wow, that's commitment!  I think most of us would have had to buy a new OPV! I do love tinkering though, and find out how things work.  Sometimes I just don't have the tools to fix things.

Ronin

It's actually pretty easy with small springs. On this opv was just removal of the circlip, wind out the adjustable screw, remove the spring, physically stretch it ( I used 2 flat head screwdrivers in the spring, then elbow grease  :thumb:), replace screw and test. I could test it on an oxygen bottle at work tho, I didn't need to replace it to get the pressure close. I just needed to stretch it far enough to get enough adjustment around the correct pressure.