LUCCA A53: Steam Boiler Not Heating

Below you will find troubleshooting steps for when the steam boiler of the LUCCA A53 Mini espresso machine is not heating.

Boiler is turned off: Turn on the steam boiler by tapping the “B” button on the control panel of the machine. You should see the boiler light begin to blink as the machine heats.

Coffee boiler is not fully heated: Machines in 15 amp mode, which is the standard configuration, will heat the coffee boiler first, and then they will heat the steam boiler once the coffee boiler is at temperature. It will take 15-20 minutes for the machine to fully heat. Ensure that the machine has had a proper amount of time to heat up.

GFCI Outlet: If the machine is plugged into a GFCI outlet, it can be indicative of a bad element if the outlet trips as soon as the steam boiler turns on. The steam boiler will turn on after the coffee boiler is fully heated, indicated by the numeric lights on the front of the control panel going solid. If the outlet does not trip when the boiler turns on, move on to the next steps to determine what the issue is. If it does trip the GFCI outlet or the circuit breaker contact us at support@clivecoffee.com

The safety switch is tripped: The safety switch can be located on the top of the boiler, accessible by removing the top panel and pressing down the button shown here.

At this point in troubleshooting you may need to remove the panels:

Lucca A53 Panel Removal

Ensure all wires on boiler are connected: Make sure that the wires for the element legs, the temperature probe, and the safety switch are all plugged in securely.

The safety switch is faulty: Before attempting this be sure to unplug your espresso machine. You can jump the wire over the safety switch directly to the element leg. This will bypass the need for the safety switch and can tell you if the switch itself is bad and not allowing the transfer of power through to the element leg. Plug the machine back in and test for heat.

The element is faulty: Test for resistance across the heating element legs with a multimeter. First unplug the power leads going to the heating element. If your multimeter is not auto-ranging, set the resistance range to the lowest setting (usually 200Ω). A working heating element should test at about ~11.5Ω ±10%. If your heating element tests much higher than that or the resistance is off the charts and/or indicates no continuity, that's a good sign that the element is non-functional.