Lelit Bianca - Internal Tour

Find me at coffeetime.freeflarum.com/ Find me on Review Website coffeeequipmentreviews.wordpr... If you want to find me or generally get some help...I'm at this little forum, it's actually called Coffeetime www.tapatalk.com/groups/vesuv...

[@edrijver]

Fantastic video. Very informative from both a (potential) buyer perspective as well as an enthousiast of construction and "how things work". Thank you sir!

[@DaveCorbey]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@russellrutledge1663]

Great video! Very informative and reinforces the purchase for me. Thanks, Dave!

[@multioptipupiloptomy]

Thanks Dave for an excellent and informative video! :)

[@nomcetrajceski6071]

Very informative video. Thank you!

[@cbeenhackker]

Thank you for posting! Very informative!

[@DaveCorbey]

Glad it was helpful!

[@lexxi-wv5yh]

Thank you so much

[@DaveCorbey]

You're most welcome

[@DaveCorbey]

I have not loaded the most up to date software but try pressing and holding the minus symbol for 3 seconds or so and see if an e appears or disappears in the LCC a little e might mean the steam boiler is off? Also check the temperature of the steam boiler by pressing + a few times.

[@origamidoc]

Super helpful, Dave. Great overview. Just like your model, my level probe has 3 wires exiting - one white and 2 red. I can barely make them out under the left-most tubing in your video. I was replacing the vacuum breaker valve and somehow dislodged the end of the red wire, and now I can’t figure out where it goes. Any ideas? Does it go to the Gicar “brain”?

[@davidgready2671]

Thank you for the video. I've been looking for information on the Gicar control box, i've looked in Lelit's parts diagram but couldn't find any information on it. I am interested to learn about the 220V to 110V (and vice versa) conversion, Lelit listed the Solenoid valves, heating elements and pump motor but nothing was mentioned with regards to the control box or any power supply directed to the main consumers (heating elements, motor, solenoid valves), could they have missed it or is it the same part for both models? Thanks.

[@DaveCorbey]

Different components for 230v vs 110v would be, control box, pump. Heating elements, solenoids You might also need to check the wire guage for heating elements an mains supply is OK

[@thomasliu4545]

Fantastic tour, sir! One question: how do they solve the temperature offset between the boiler and the brew head? I know on Mara X they put temp probe right on the syphon back route which should be more accurate, but on Bianca the probe seems to be inside the boiler.

[@DaveCorbey]

The Bianca is a dual boiler machine and works differently to a heat exchanger machine like the MaraX. The brew boiler is completely independent of the service (steam) boiler. The offset is still used but as a calculated value to allow for the temperature drop across the system (MaraX does a similar thing) and display the actual brew temperature you will get at the coffee. Dual Boilers have no compromise between steaming and brewing and unlike MaraX if you pull a shot and come back 2, 5 10 minutes later, you can pull another shot at the right temperature. On MaraX, if you do nothing for 5 minutes, you have to wait another 10 for the system to stabilise again.

[@13soniC3]

very informative video! Since you're quite the expert on the Bianca, maybe if you find the time to answer, you could help me. I have my own Lelit Bianca for a bit over half a year. Just last week the machine started to lightly whistle while heating up (from 0 and also from "stand by"). As soon as the Bianca reaches it's temperature it stopps whistling - also if I engange the lever during the heating up process the whistling goes away and doesn't come back while heating up. Most of the time I only use the coffee boiler. So it whistles while heating up the coffee boiler... I only used filtered water (always below 100ppm and a total hardness

[@DaveCorbey]

Sounds like there is air entering the brew boiler on cool down instead of more being sucked from the tabk as the water volume contracts on cooling. When you lift the lever you instantly fill brew boiler so no more sound of escaping air. It could be from 2 places, expansion valve or top group valve. At 100ppm you won't be scale free, so try a light brew boiler only descale... See if it helps.

[@MrNadEM]

do u recomand to buy it is it sold ?

[@ping_me1vp]

How does it compare to lelit Elizabeth v3?

[@chanmitchell1997]

Fantastic video Dave, this convinced me to buy a bianca. Now, I have said bianca and pulled my first shot on it. Absolutely amazing, wonderfully sweet and the best mouthfeel I've had from a shot yet (coming from a breville infuser). However, I noticed that after leaving it on for an hour, the steam boiler did not go up in pressure at all. I left it for a little while longer and made sure that the hot water/steam valves were both closed. I noticed that the small metal nub behind the exhaust valve of the E61 group had a bit of steam escaping from it every so often, enough to cause condensation in the area. Is this normal? I couldn't seem to find any comments about that small nub on the article you wrote, I'm curious what it's purpose is since it doesn't list it's function in the manual. Thank you!

[@DaveCorbey]

There are 2 things that are piped to, and vent from that part. The expansion valve and the vacuum breaker. The former will drip a few mil after a shot as clod water, introduced by the pump in the brew system expands. The vacuum breaker closes when the steam boiler gets close to 100C....if it hisses from that area constantly it might mean the vacuum breaker is failing to seal (unlikely in a new machine). Are you sure the steam boiler is switched on, do you get steam from the steam wand because it's unclear whether you do or not.

[@chanmitchell1997]

@@DaveCorbey Thanks for the response Dave! I don't get steam from the boiler, I made sure the boiler was on and set to a proper temperature. I'm going to reattempt it here in a bit now that it's the morning. I can only hope I'm a dumb newbie and its not the machine!

[@DaveCorbey]

@@chanmitchell1997 It could be it's going into an eco mode and lowering the actual temp of the steam boiler, try turning eco mode off.

[@chanmitchell1997]

@@DaveCorbey Thanks for the advice Dave. Unfortunately the valve is constantly hissing and the boiler will not exceed 99C.

[@DaveCorbey]

@@chanmitchell1997 If you have the steam boiler set to 125C or something like that and it won't go above 99C as shown on the display, somethings not right and it would explain whey the vacuum breaker isn't seating well. I would contact the retailer

[@hariswiranata9894]

Thanks for video. I have question if u dont mind. My bianca starts to sound bit harder, and suddenly the gauge bar on grup head only reach 2 bar, and at same time the water debit runs only few ( not much as used to). So when i try brew, bar only reach 2, and the espresso start to drip at 20's up with almost no crema (bcs the pressure is low and the water debit also few) What is the problem and how to fix it? Thanks

[@DaveCorbey]

Could the problem be limescale...if you have owned it a while in a hard water area, this can be a common problem.

[@alexeyserov2628]

Hello from cold Russia Dave! Thank you for your video! Can I ask you a question?

[@DaveCorbey]

Go ahead!

[@alexeyserov2628]

@@DaveCorbey Hello Dave! They responded in time! I was lucky enough to purchase Lelit bianca back in February, before all these monstrous events associated with the war in Ukraine. And now, after four months of use, I have a question. The lever on the group began to turn more tightly than it was at the beginning of work. Can you tell me how to take care of the group? Or, if it's not difficult, please send the link if you have it. Probably the time has come and you need to disassemble it and lubricate and clean it? How is it better to do it and why? And the machine is excellent, I am very satisfied! Thanks

[@69russki]

How does the build of the lelit machines, esp the bianca, compare to other prosumer machines - ecm, la marzocco, rocket, slayer?

[@DaveCorbey]

I think it's quite subjective, in their price range they are hard to beat. Very good value for money.

[@Banpunv]

I was wondering the same thing because on the fence between the Bianca and ecm synch. The internals on the ecm appears to be a lot cleaner and easier to access.

[@DaveCorbey]

@@Banpunv All machines are built to a price....so it's not an easy question to answer. The only correct answer is what's important to you and meets your key requirements for aesthetics, quality, function and budget. Then go for that....I can only show you what they do, how they work and what's inside...to help you make that decision. It's also important to mention that not all my reviews contain all the good nuggets of information e.g. The LCC is a very powerful little piece of Kit and I really do go into it on the Elizabeth review, as the LCC is used in the Bianca as well, you should also read the LCC part of the Elizabeth review!

[@nocnymarek7645]

@@Banpunv Exactly! Lot of typical italian chaos inside

[@nocnymarek7645]

@@DaveCorbey Has the Elizabeth and Bianca frame or everything is attached to bottom and front/side panels? Personally I find Profitec/ecm machines more rigid, more 'like a tank' built. Small price difference is worth to pay for less trouble in future and mire durability.

[@alexf7956]

My machine started making funny noises and with excessive steam. Opened it up and found the tube off the expansion valve had come off. What would cause that and would that have caused the steaming issue?

[@DaveCorbey]

If you genuinely mean the expansion valve,...perhaps it just fell off, as there is really no pressure in that side of the system. Excessive steam would be either from the vacuum breaker or safety valve. It's best you post on our non commercial forum where you will get some decent help. Expect to have to make a video showing the problem and be prepared to remove the outer case, or at least the top of the machine. coffeetime.freeflarum.com

[@ek9772]

Why place the rotary pump below the steam boiler? Is the rotary pump not more likely to fail first rather than the boiler? If the pump fails, then the boiler has to be removed to access the pump and motor.

[@DaveCorbey]

You can access the pump just fine without removing the boiler.

[@danmetzler7687]

The bottom of the case is the coolest part (sometimes by a significant margin) which improves pump longevity.