Jon Worth Profile picture
Dec 22, 2021 14 tweets 6 min read Read on X
*Result*

I will have a working Gaggia Baby for the sum total of €50.44 🎉

Currently it looks like this!

In the thread: the detail of how to do a repair like this, and why #RightToRepair matters...
First, why do all of this?

I have been the happy owner of a Gaggia Classic for years (it's fab), but need a 2nd coffee machine for somewhere else. The original Gaggia Baby is like a Classic with a plastic case

I bought this for €10, sold as defective, on Kleinanzeigen
Second, what was wrong?

Upon opening the machine (4 screws - easy) it was clear there was some severe corrosion at the *top* of the machine

4 t-shaped plugs connect power to the boiler - one was melted through, 3 seriously corroded
Sourcing direct replacements for these is impossible - nowhere sells them

Coffee forums to the rescue!

This thread kaffee-netz.de/threads/gaggia… suggests replacing them with ceramic (heat resistant) screw joints

€4.99 + €2.70 postage on eBay ebay.de/itm/3021960391…
Those haven't arrived yet, so for tests I stripped the plastic off some regular screw joints - this isn't safe for everyday operation but is OK for tests - it looks like this at the moment (red and purple cables, silver joins)
Third... it still doesn't work!

Doing that resulted in one step forward... the boiler would now warm as it is supposed to when the machine is powered on

But the pump would not pump, and indeed would do *nothing* - no power to the pump?
🤔 But if other contacts were rusted due to liquid leaking from the top, what about the switches of the machine too - also mounted at the top?

Turns out these were corroded - springs holding the contacts in place had corroded away completely
New ones from Komtrade ordered and delivered here within 24 hours! Impressive!

The switches are not identical - needs 1 of each komtra.de/gaggia-ersatzt… and komtra.de/gaggia-ersatzt…

€32.75 including shipping
But what cables go where? I thought of that... marked each cable before disassembling, so as to be able to reassemble it all afterwards...
At the moment I cannot mount the top casing back on it as I still need to exchange the screw joints...

... but with a little care I powered it up to test it.

Pump is fine. Boiler is fine. Water comes through at an adequate pressure and temperature. This is going to be FINE 💪
So that then is how you get a working Gaggia Baby coffee machine for €50.44

Had this problem been with pretty much any other part of the machine getting parts is no problem
This is why #RightToRepair is so important. Gaggia has generally been good with things like this (that's why I like their machines - the older ones in particular)

But it ought to be possible to do this with *any* coffee machine
And I understand that doing this, this way, is not to everyone's tastes, but that's what things like Repair Cafés are for - a repair café could easily do a repair like this, but would not succeed with machines of less repairable makes
Right, so, where's my espresso... ☕️

/ends

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More from @jonworth

Dec 11, 2022
This morning I’m one of the first new regional trains Maubeuge 🇫🇷 - Charleroi Central 🇧🇪 #CrossBorderRail
It was a bit of a #fail at the station. I needed a ticket to Erquelinnes, the first station in Belgium. But prior to today trains from Maubeuge didn’t stop there!

Ticket machine ⛔️
Ask at the ticket office. “Le train ne s’arrête pas à Erquelinnes!” I politely told the SNCF employee that yes, it did stop at Erquelinnes. I explained the situation to the SNCB train manager and he laughed, confirmed it did stop there, and I bought the ticket online!
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Signal failure south of Fulda. Looks like I could miss the event in Mons I’m organising 😭
Delays in my favour. Maybe? S-Bahn to FFM Flughafen. Get a late running ICE to Köln Messe/Deutz there. Then try to blag my way onto a Thalys Köln Hbf to Bruxelles? It’s a long shot but it might work…
ICE 612 Frankfurt Flughafen to Köln Messe/Deutz.

This is why accurate live running data in apps matters. Were this not running 10 min late I’d not have caught it… but live data allowed me to plan a connection that’d otherwise not work
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Dec 1, 2022
Already on the 2nd train of the day: TGV Montbard - Paris. All being well I’ll be in Denmark tonight… but that feels a long way off just now! #EGPCongress #crossborderrail
Across Paris RER Gare de Lyon to Gare du Nord, walk to Gare de l’Est (faster than changing into a Métro to Est) and it’s onto the TGV to Mannheim. So far so good, but I banked on this bit working 🙂 #EGPCongress #CrossBorderRail
Franco-German train service. Very French prices! And no, it’s too early (and expensive) for #beerontrains 😉
Read 16 tweets
Nov 30, 2022
Tomorrow hundreds of delegates - myself included (from 🇫🇷) - will start their trip to @europeangreens congress in København

Most of us will go by 🚆
Many trips will be disrupted as railways are a mess

But there’s nothing about transport on the programme europeangreens.eu/congress2022/p…
I don’t blame @europeangreens for this, short term. They only have on their programme what member parties want.

But there isn’t the fierce debate or intellectual exchange in the Green movement about transport as there is about other issues.
Given CO2 emissions in transport are still rising (unlike in other sectors) that ought to be a matter for urgent attention from Greens.

And hell, the event is in København, a paradise for 🚲. There’d be opportunities to use that as a hook.
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Nov 17, 2022
Talking #9euroTicket at #PassengerFest - slightly frustrating that it’s DB talking about it. Other views are available 😉
“Did behaviour change in the way the government intended?” asks the moderator. Ha. Did the government even *know* what its intention was?
Oh and the DB dude is saying it was too cheap. As he would. Poorer citizens would say otherwise… zeit.de/mobilitaet/202…
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Nov 12, 2022
😭 Germany builds a high speed line through Baden-Württemberg - to speed up Stuttgart-München services

It’s been in planning for *years*

But SNCF’s TGVs used for Paris-Stuttgart-München services haven’t been updated to be compatible with the new line!

swr.de/swraktuell/bad…
Jeez. It could take until 2025 until TGVs are approved for the line.

And the whole effing point of Stuttgart21 - of which this line is a part - was to create a Paris-München high speed corridor!

Really, how can everyone mess up *so badly*?
And to those going “yeah but there are few TGVs anyway” true, but so it goes on and on. International services are the lowest priority - even when *they were the stated rationale for building the line*
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