Product Maintenance | How to Install Your Espresso Machine

Transcript

Hey, folks. It's Steve from Prima Coffee here. Today, we're going to take a look at pre-installation requirements for commercial and prosumer espresso machines. So, let's say you're a cafe owner and you're getting ready for your brand new linea PB, or some other similarly sized commercial espresso machine, or you're a home espresso enthusiast and you're getting ready to install a Slayer Single Group, or another similarly large plumbed-in espresso machine. You want to make sure that you are getting your space ready to install those machines especially if you're plumbing them in. So, we're going to take a look at some of those requirements and make sure that you are taking the right steps to make sure that that machine is installed correctly and properly with the right plumbing and electrical requirements, and that your machine will have the right space and plumbing setup essentially for ensuring that everything runs properly.

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So, I've got a whole big counter top here, it's completely blank. This is actually a service tech station. So this is a great example of what a good setup will look like for a commercial espresso machine. I've got a nice big counter top, so I can fit all kinds of different espresso machines of commercial size, so two, three, four groups even, and I've got a lot of room to push everything around, as well as access our electrical and plumbing below. One thing I'll start off by saying is you want to make sure that your counter top has holes drilled, accessible to whatever's underneath the counter. So, I have right here, this is a hole saw bit, this is a two and a half inch bit, two and a half to three inches is pretty common. You might even go up to four depending on how many lines, either inlet main lines to your machine, drain lines out of the machine, and power cables need to be run through the same hole.

Generally, you might want to split up plumbing into one hole and electrical to another, and also make sure that you're taking a look at the machine spec sheets or manuals ahead of time to know how you need to route your plumbing and your electrical. Often, the manufacturers will give you recommendations for where to drill holes, what the dimensions from edge to edge of the machine will be, and you know, the overall footprint requirements are. So, make sure you take a look at those to help you prepare for how to lay everything out on your counter. So, we already have a two and a half inch hole drilled through here, so let's take a look underneath. On the left side here we have power. Again, this is a tech station, so we actually have two 220 volt outlets underneath that are accessible. And then over here we have our plumbing, we have our main line in as well as our drain pipe out.

So, I'm going to start by taking a look at electrical. Again, you want to make sure that you're looking at those manuals, understanding power requirements, and getting the right outlets installed for your needs. So, we have two 220 volt outlets here, but we actually have two different receptacles. One of them is a 30 amp receptacle with a twist lock which is the one that we're going to use for the machine that we're installing today. But again, make sure that you're using the right receptacle for the plug that comes with your machine, buying the right plug for your machine if it doesn't come with a plug, and providing the right power which includes voltage and amperage to supply the machine. That's something you'll probably want to consult with a technician about as well. But do keep in mind that you have to have the right power supplied for the machine ahead of time.

Over here, the mains and plumbing are a little bit simpler, the requirements are a little bit less stringent. We want to make sure that we are supplying enough water to suit the requirements of the machine. So, for example, the Slayer machine that we're going to install today has a mains requirement of 1.5 gallons per minute at least. So, 1.5 to 2 is a good place to start. You just want to make sure that you have enough flow through your mains hose to the machine to supply the pump to prevent any damage from happening during its use. Now, the white plumbing, the PVC pipe coming out of the wall is our drain. Now, that is assembled as a P trap which is going to allow water to flow down through the drain while preventing gases and other sewer backup from coming back up. So, that's also a very important requirement. However, as you notice, it's an open drain, so the trap is extremely important because we don't have a sealed drain system here. We're just going to drop the drain hose included with the espresso machine into that drain to allow water to drain as needed.

So again, plumbing is a little bit simpler. You just need to make sure that your water flow requirements are met and that you have a trap on your drain with suitable length to accommodate whatever drain hoses you are planning to use. So, I can't stress enough, again, look at that product manual, understand what the requirements are, and make sure that you are well-supplied and prepared for that installation. Once it comes time to install, we generally recommend using a service technician, somebody who's experienced in installing machines. We don't recommend that novice users try to install these machines on their own. There's a good chance of damage, especially with commercial machines, if you aren't installing things correctly. And you want to make sure that that machine has a good long life, is reliable, it's giving you the coffee you need, and especially in a commercial environment, it's there to serve drinks to your customers, so you can, you know, make your profit, get your revenue.

Okay. So we've got our machine setup now, and we're going to start installing our electrical and plumbing. I will note first that we're not going to be running our drain lines in this section of the installation, just because this is a temporary setup on a service bench. We are running our drain lines to a separate collection container. However, we do have that P trap, so if we wanted to, we could just run them to the trap and that will be good enough for draining machine. So, if you're planning a permanent installation for a cafe or a home, that's exactly what you would want to do as you run your drain lines to that P trap. Again, we're just not getting into that in this video. The first thing we want to do, though, is we want to run basically the biggest thing through the hole first, this two-inch plug is a NEMA L630 amp plug. It's very large. It's the largest thing that we actually have to run through the hole, so we're going to do it first. And that's basically going to be our installation order is the largest piece of fitting, or plug, or clip, or something like that, anything...the largest object that has to make it through the hole will be pushed through first until we're running the smallest things.

So, this power plug goes through first, followed by our mainline plumbing, and then another piece of electrical cable that's going to run to the pump itself. Okay. So we've run our power through, but we're actually not going to plug it in yet. That's going to be the last thing that we do. Again, we just needed to make sure that this plug, which is the largest thing I have to run through that hole, gets through first so I can actually pass it through. So, we're going to leave this be for now. The next thing that we're going to do is we're actually going to run our main line plumbing in. That's two-braided hoses for this machine. We're going to drop those through the hole and then we're also going to run the power adapter for the pump. Run that all over to this side where my pump is and get it set up. Right. So we've run our main lines, our braided lines from the machine to where they need to be at the pump. I've also run my power cable to the pump and I've gone ahead and just connected that, again, the machine is not powered on. There's no actual electrical power to the machine yet, so that's a safe thing to connect at this point. The other thing you'll notice is, I have my hose connected to my mains at the wall.

Now, this is just a nylon-braided hose and we have a steel-braided hose, or some other type of hose that's actually running to the pump. So, there are different configurations. You want to make sure that you have the right fittings and everything in the right sizing for your connections. So, I actually have an adapter on my pump here which will fit this size, this three-eighths-inch hose connection. So, just make sure that everything, all the fittings and lines that you need are prepared ahead of time before you go ahead and do installation. And definitely, double check that you have the right fittings because, especially with water, you don't want leaks and you don't want to be caught with the wrong size parts and have to go through the headache of running out to a hardware store at the very last minute when you're trying to hook up your machine. So, what we're going to do from here is we're going to actually hook up the lines to the pump. I'm going to need some tools for that, so I have an adjustable wrench and I also have a channel lock wrench. You could just use two adjustable wrenches or use the proper size wrenches for your fittings. Really, there's quite a few tools to do the right job.

I'll also note that obviously my water is not turned on, I have a shut off at the mains at the wall. So, make sure that that's off. Obviously, you don't want a big watery mess, but we will turn that on later. So, the first thing that we're going to do is we're going to hook up the mains right to the pump. Okay. So we have our mains connected to the pump now. Again, the water is turned off at this point. So, the last thing that we have to do here is actually hook up our lines running to the machine. In this case I have two lines, they're color coded. One's going directly to the steam boiler, one is going to the brew boilers. Your machine might have a different configuration, you may only have one braided-line going to the machine. So, just keep that in mind. So, I'm just going to get these hooked up. Again, I'm lucky that they're color-coded, so I'm just going to hook up my yellow hose to my yellow fitting, my green hose to my green fitting. And then we're just going to tighten these down. Make sure they're nice and snug so there are no leaks. Okay. All of my fittings are connected here, so my pump looks like it's good to go, which means I'm about to turn the water on. I want to do one final check, just to make sure all the fittings are tightly closed.

I'll do that, you know, just grab a wrench just kind of test them again, make sure that you're not likely to have any leaks. After that we'll plug in our power. So this is an L630M plug which is also called a twist lock plug. So, you plug it in, and then you twist it about 45 degrees to lock it in place. And then finally, I'll turn my water on, and then we're ready to turn the machine on. All right. So our power is hooked up, we're plugged in. Our mains water is turned on, and I've just switched my machine on. So, if you've gone through these steps and you follow them correctly, your machine should be powered up, it should have water and it should go through an auto fill process. Most machines will do that. So, you're going to let the machine fill itself up with water and then come up to temperature, so you might need to go through some configuration settings. Again, take a look at that manual and figure out what the path is that you need to do to get that machine up and running and get you started making some great coffee. So if you follow these instructions, you should have a beautifully working machine, full of water, getting warmed up and in maybe an hour or two, maybe less depending on the size of the machine, you'll be ready to start making your coffee. Thanks so much for watching.