ECM Mechanika slim losing power
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So I had an ECM mechanika slim with an odd fault come to me a little while ago.
It would get to temperature and pressure and then sometimes just randomly stop heating.
The usual suspects for a fault like this would normally be the anti-vac valve or the pressure switch but I quickly ruled those out which lead me to start digging a little deeper.
After pulling up a wiring diagram, I noticed that the solid state relay was in line with the element so I pulled out my meters and started testing the voltage drop across the relay.
At first, the heating light was on on the front of the coffee machine which means the machine was attempting to engage the element but the signal was being lost somewhere down the line.
When I plugged my meters in, I noticed that I was getting a 5v DC signal voltage into the SSR but the input indicator light on the SSR itself was not coming on and the SSR was not activating (I was reading 240v out of the load side, meaning that the SSR was not switching the 240v).
I turned the machine off and on again and this time I noticed I was getting the same 5v signal into the SSR but this time the light was on and I was I was getting low voltage on the on the load side, this meant that now the SSR was switching as it should and the element started heating.
I kept measuring and found after the machine came up to temperature, the input signal clicked off (as expected) and the machine stopped heating but as the machine cooled, the input signal clicked back on and I was getting 5v to the control side again but the SSR did not kick back into action, so this is when I realised that the SSR was in fact faulty.
SO TLDR: I replaced the SSR and the machine came back into life again and started working exactly as it should.
Here's me figuring this all out, hopefully it's helpful to someone else out there:
-Heather