Yikes. Friday morning I made my usual americano w/ 2 doubles with my 4-month old Vivaldi (which I love), left the machine on, and went to make a latte at noon. When I hit the double button to do a warm-up flush, nothing but the pre-infusion water. When I drew 3-4oz. from the hot water tap, that was fine, but then it began to refill the steam boiler and never did; the pump continually ran until it shut off and gave me the flashing boiler light alarm.
A little more detail... At idle, the manometer reads ~4bar. When I hit the double or single button, the pump runs, the manometer goes to its usual ~9.5bar, but almost immediately the 3 LEDs flash as when it is choked or back-flushing. This is with the steam boiler off; if I turn that on, it immediately tries to refill, but can't.
The first thing I checked was the incoming water. Right after the charcoal filter and softening cartridge, there is good pressure and flow. Tried unplugging the machine, thinking something may have to reset, nada.
I called Chris' which is where I bought this last May. Their tech asked a bunch of questions, and at first thought it might be the screen going into the fill valve. But then realizing the group had no water coming from it, he backed up on the water path and thought it might be the piston, which is part #280 on page 12 here;
http://s1cafe.com/s1v2/V2%20Manuals/RICAMBI%20S1%20NEW.pdfSo I took off the front, back and right side panels, and all the fittings on that valve body and the expansion valve to get at that piston. No signs of any mineral deposits or shavings, or any obstruction. Put everything back together, tested it, same symptoms.
The best thing about this fiasco is that I now understand the path of water, from the inlet to the pump, to the tee and then either to the flowmeter to the group boiler, or the fill valve to the steam boiler. There's still more about the innards that I don't know, but I know a thousand times more now than I did this morning.
By that time Chris' was closing, and now we will continue over-the-phone troubleshooting on Monday.