# No steam, not getting hot Rancilio Silvia PID



## bagpuss (Feb 6, 2015)

Hello,

ages and ages ago I got lazy and started just microwaving milk. (Quicker, less cleaning up...) But last week a guest asked for steamed milk, and it wouldn't work.

I flick the steam switch on, the light comes on, but the temperature doesn't increase. It just remains at brewing temperature.

Any ideas? I've opened it up and taken a look inside. Nothing looks obviously out of place/disconnected. And it works fine otherwise. I'm a bit mystified. And I'd like to get it working, as I'm in a tinkering phase at the moment. As of today, it's sporting a flat shower screen, with a countersunk A4 allen bolt









Thanks!


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## frandavi99 (Jun 8, 2014)

Where abouts did you get the shower screen from? Meant to do mine but forgot about it til reading this.

Sorry I'm no use at troubleshooting machine issues though.


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## NJD1977 (Dec 16, 2014)

If the boiler element works fine for brewing then it can only really be a thermostat issue / PID setting issue.


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## funinacup (Aug 30, 2010)

Steam thermostat probably busted. Think it's a 140 degree one.


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## bagpuss (Feb 6, 2015)

Thanks, that gave me enough to go sniffing around. The original thermostat is redundant with a PID, it just sits there disconnected. Other wires looked okay. But I had a look through the settings on the PID, and it appeared that the steam temperature ones had gone skewiff. The on temperature was at 179C, off was 165C (iirc). I reset them to 139/140C and it seems to be working now. Splendid.

The machine spent a year or so switched off, so maybe something got forgotten.


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## bagpuss (Feb 6, 2015)

frandavi99 said:


> Where abouts did you get the shower screen from?


Bought a couple of spares at Bella Barista. Not before (annoyingly) spending rather too long trying to clean the old one. That was before I discovered that new ones were 2 quid.

That said, checking that just now, I see that there is (naturally) a more expensive alternative. A "Competition Shower Screen for Rancilio Silvia by IMS", for £13. Does anyone know if that's worth having/makes a difference?


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## bagpuss (Feb 6, 2015)

In case anyone else comes looking with a similar problem, I've worked out why it wasn't steaming, why the PID temperature settings were off.

Some months ago, I changed the display to 0.1 degree resolution on the PID (An Auber SYL-1512BT). At the time, I did not then use code 0001 to reset SV, AH1 and AL1, as instructed. It defaulted to AH1 (turn boiler on for steam) being higher than AL1 (turn boiler off for steam), so nothing happened when one asked for steam. Didn't notice for months as I was not using the steamer.


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