Upgrading An Old Espresso Machine

Recently, [Samuel Leeuwenburg] got his paws on a Francis! Francis! X1 (yes, that’s the name) espresso machine. This is the espresso machine that is mostly famous for having been in a lot of big TV shows in the 1990s. In the early 2000s, the X1 even became a pretty good espresso machine after the manufacturer did some more tinkering with it, including changing the boiler material, upgrading the pump, etc.

In the case of the second-hand, but rarely used, machine that [Samuel] got, the machine still looked pretty good, but its performance was pretty abysmal. After popping the machine open the boiler turned out to be pretty much full of scale. Rather than just cleaning it, the boiler was upgraded to a brass version for better heat retention and other perks.

More after the break…

The best part of this relatively simple machine is probably that it has been reverse-engineered, making modding it very easy. After some thinking, [Samuel] decided to pull the very basic controller PCB and replace it with something capable of tighter temperature control. This turned into a custom PCB featuring the obligatory Raspberry Pi Pico along with a MAX3185 for water temperature measurement. The Pico had to be programmed to handle heater control duty.  There’s even an HTTP API on the WiFi-enabled Pico board.

Unfortunately, the all-metal enclosure also makes for a perfect Faraday cage, putting an end to remote automation dreams for now, at least. With the machine buttoned up, [Samuel] remembered that the primary task of an espresso machine is to make espresso, which it is now, fortunately, even more capable of than before the surgery, and which requires you to be present at the machine anyway.

Thanks to [Milo] for the tip.