# New Fracino Piccino - Now Available in Stainless Steel



## Grounds_for_divorce (Jun 28, 2012)

Fracino have recently remodeled their ever popular Piccino domestic coffee machine. After listening to feedback from users, Fracino have scrapped the twin set rocker switches with separate LED lights in favour of a single touch pad. They have also added an additional light that indicates when the boiler is filling. All of which makes the machine more user friendly.

In addition to those developments, they have also made the model available in full solid stainless steel, which is available to buy from *NO ADVERTISING WITHOUT PERMISSION*


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## RoloD (Oct 13, 2010)

Is a touch pad an improvement on a rocker switch? I don't know, but I do wish Fracino could hire a good designer. They make great machines, but they just look awful - all those unneccessary curves, fussy, sort of retro-by-mistake. If they could make machines that looked like the Italian machines - Rocket in particular - (and I don't see any reason why not) they could take over the world.


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## Monkey_Devil (Jul 11, 2011)

boo to spam, but Yay for a boiler fill switch will now allow temperature surfing! PID would be better though.


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## jimbow (Oct 13, 2011)

Unfortunately, a boiler fill light will only indicate when the pump is filling the steam boiler (autofill) and not when the heating element is on for the brew boiler as needed for temperature surfing


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## Monkey_Devil (Jul 11, 2011)

Ah, my brain went silly, processed it as boiler heating light


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## scrubadub (Dec 9, 2011)

What advantage does seeing when the steam boiler is filling give you? I would have thought there would be more user feedback have been about the lack boiler heating light.

I've just ordered one of these machines from a different site to the spam above and it's coming from the Fracino factory as I ordered a custom colour. I'm wondering if I'll end up with one of these. I only found out about the lack of boiler heating light after ordering, so initially this looked promising as I misread it the same way. Not sure I like the look of the touchpad buttons much so if there's no boiler light on these I'll keep my fingers crossed for an older one.

I did have a thought about the boiler light though - would one of those plug in power consumption meters from Maplin work? The reading would change when the heating element turned on and off.


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## jimbow (Oct 13, 2011)

It probably might but bear in mind there are two boilers independently heated - you can tell when the steam boiler is heating though because the steam pressure gauge will be rising - there may even be a boiler heating light for the steam boiler.


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## scrubadub (Dec 9, 2011)

Cheers Jimbow. I think I read on here somewhere that there is a steam boiler light so hopefully it's possible to tell which is boiler is heating. I have one of those meters from Maplin already so I'll give it a try when the machine arrives.


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## Toucan (Aug 16, 2012)

Would it be possible to wire an ammeter with the power supply to the boiler?


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## jimbow (Oct 13, 2011)

scrubadub said:


> ...
> 
> I've just ordered one of these machines from a different site to the spam above and it's coming from the Fracino factory as I ordered a custom colour.
> 
> ...


What colour did you go for?


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## beachouse (Aug 14, 2012)

Grounds_for_divorce said:


> Fracino have recently remodeled their ever popular Piccino domestic coffee machine. After listening to feedback from users, Fracino have scrapped the twin set rocker switches with separate LED lights in favour of a single touch pad. They have also added an additional light that indicates when the boiler is filling. All of which makes the machine more user friendly.


Another filling light? It already has one fill light (which is useless as you can hear it filling). The steam boiler heat light is vaguely useful but I've never had any problems with steam. In my opinion they should really ditch the fill lights and add a brew boiler @ temp light.

I've been contemplating re-wiring the fill light to tell me if the brew element is on or off.

Pulled mine apart when I first got it as the pump had jumped off it's mount (quick fix). Should have got the soldering iron out then but hadn't really used the machine much.


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## jacksg (Jul 18, 2012)

beachouse said:


> Another filling light? It already has one fill light (which is useless as you can hear it filling). The steam boiler heat light is vaguely useful but I've never had any problems with steam. In my opinion they should really ditch the fill lights and add a brew boiler @ temp light.
> 
> I've been contemplating re-wiring the fill light to tell me if the brew element is on or off.
> 
> Pulled mine apart when I first got it as the pump had jumped off it's mount (quick fix). Should have got the soldering iron out then but hadn't really used the machine much.


Just wondering if you ever did this rewiring / was it simple?!


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