Coffee by Rube Goldberg. Right? Who else would concoct such a monstrosity merely to make…well, coffee? The Italians, that’s who. Welcome to the internals of Gepetto, an Andreja Premium Espresso Maker by QuikMill. That’s right, “Gepetto”, because we have a name for everything around our house, given our tendency toward anthropomorphism. Gepetto, an Italian, you may recall was the impoverished woodcarver of Pinocchio. Don’t ask.
Why did I need to open Gepetto for surgery? Because the low water float magnet is no longer actuating the sensor, and so the circuit remains open (closed?), and so the alarm — intermintent Beep! Beep ! Beep! – won’t be quiet. This greatly annoys me, Happy Wife and especially the doggies, and fractures the prayer-like quiet of our morning.
To make sure the problem was in fact the tiny magnet in the float and not the whatchamacallit controller board, I took a big honkin’ wall magnet, one that could suck metal filings to it from one city block away, and moved it gently behind the sensor actuator until, Bingo!, no more alarm. Good, the whatchamacallit board was in fact not fried, and this was good seeing as the New York service man on the phone estimated a replacement was in the neighborhood of $160! One float, by contrast, $10.50. Less shipping. I ordered two. Two, because one float detects low water, and another one detects really low water. To hear the really low water alarm go off — loud, interminable Beeeeeeeeeep! — you’d think there was a fire in the house. Lucy, especially, does not like that alarm.
And so, because our tendency to anthropomorphism extends to pieces & parts, I imagined the two magnets might be in cahoots. That is, one misbehaves, gets replaced, and then the other gets to thinkin’, “I can misbehave, too.” So you have evidence one is bad and you try to do the repair on the cheap and replace just that one magnet. You reassemble Gepetto, put him snugly back on the counter where he lives, plug him in, fill his reservoir with water, switch him on and ….Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!
No. For $10.50, you think, this can be avoided.
Two magnetic floats due in the mail today. ~$28 w/shipping. What a country.