# New member! Rancilio z11 omicron



## Csdrcallum (Feb 24, 2017)

Hi all. Nice to find a forum with fellow coffee machine lovers.

Not sure if im posting in the correct place....I recently purchased a rancilio z11 omicron.

The problem I have with it is I'm not getting water from the left hand group head. The right hand one works fine.

Today I took off the group head and cleaned it all out. Seemed fine.

Still no water. I have realised after taking the feed pipe off the back of the tank for the left hand grouphead that no water is coming though!! The right hand one pumps water direct from the tank as soon as I press a shot button.

Does anyone know how the tank works on this machine? I can see its filled with water through the overpressure hole bit for some reason the feed coming off the tank for the left hand group head is totally blocked. I even tried hooking up my compressor onto it with 150psi and giving it a quick blast but it refused to find water in the tank and just created pressure.

Please help as I love this old machine. It just needs some love.


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## espressotechno (Apr 11, 2011)

It's probably a blockage in one, or both, of the left hand heat exchanger pipes....hard water scale is the most likely culprit.

Before removing these 2 pipes, you'll need to drain the tank.

The remove the pipes & soak them overnight in descaler acid. You may as well remove & dismantle the left grouphead & soak it in descaler acid also. The group solenoid valve may also need descaling....

Re-assemble, using teflon tape in the compression joints, & retest......


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## espressotechno (Apr 11, 2011)

Oops ! Latenight error !

You don't have to drain the boiler, as the heat exchanger water is not fed from the boiler.

Just remove the pipes.....when a dollop of water will come out of the bottom connection.

Also remove the injector pipe from the bottom fitting on the boiler (where the heat exchanger pipe bolts on) & descale it.....

Clean out the connoctions on the boiler - they will have some scale in them.


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## Csdrcallum (Feb 24, 2017)

Thanks for your reply. I have removed the bottom injector type thing from the lower of the tank on the left side... looked a bit green with scale bit not too bad. I have traced the lack of water back to something that looks to be a timer solenoid type thing post injector but for the left hand side grouphead. I removed the pipe pre 'solenoid thing' and when I press a shot I get a squit of water out of the removed pipe. But then if remove the pipe end after the 'solenoid thing' I don't get water.

There is a small led on the 'solenoid thing that lights up bit doesn't flash in a similar way to the one for the right hand grouphead when a shot of water is released.

I'll try to upload a photo of thing solenoid thing if I can. I have no idea what it is.


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## Csdrcallum (Feb 24, 2017)




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## Csdrcallum (Feb 24, 2017)

this is a photo of the solenoid thing i was talking about. as you can see i have removed the outlet pipe in the photo. no water comes out of this when a shot is pressed. but water goes into it. the orange led light onto has a different character to the one on the right hand side that seems to work. it illuminated but doesn't flash/blink fast like the one on the right hand side when a shot is pressed


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## espressotechno (Apr 11, 2011)

That's a flowmeter: The inlet & outlet holes on it are quite narrow, so it's worth undoing the copper pipes & inspecting for scale blockages....

Again, dunk in dscaler acid. It may be necessary to remove these pipes completely & soak them in descaler.

Remove the flowmeter lid & look for scale impeding the plastic wheel - it must spin freely.

If the machine has come from a hard water area, then it may be more cost-effective to have a local espresso engineer service it & run descaler through both heat exchanger circuits. He should be able to do this without taking the machine apart (!).

If it is now going to live in a hard water area, then you need to talk to him about a suitable water softener system.


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