The La Pavoni after the modification

Modding a La Pavoni Europiccola Espresso machine

I’m switching to English for this post as it will reach a larger audience that way.

The La Pavoni after the modification
The La Pavoni after the modification

If you have a La Pavoni Europiccola from the 1990s or later, it is probably equipped with a combination of a red switch and a green light (see the pictures). The green light is wired in parallel to the heating element and lights up whenever the water is being heated. When the correct pressure for brewing espresso is reached, the green light goes off. The red switch does not light up.

What bothered me was that the only visual way of distinguishing between the two states „switched on and ready“ and „switched off“ was the position of the switch. This is quite easy to overlook.

The La Pavoni Europiccola espresso machine has a few quirks which are regularly being discussed in forums, one of them being that the machine overheats readily if it is left on for an extended amount of time and runs dry, causing the thermofuse or the heating element to break.

So I decided to take the machine apart and investigate whether it would be possible to install a power light inside the red portion of the switch. Upon disassembling the switch, I found that the switch does already contain a small light, but was assembled incorrectly. Also, the switch has an extra connector for the lamp which was not wired to anything. So I set out to change that…

How to connect a power light inside the La Pavoni Europiccola espresso machine Mehr lesen