There we go, coffeemaker failed again. This is becoming a regularly occurring situation that I don't particularly enjoy. I came home in the evening and Elizabeth informed me that the brewing unit got stuck and didn't want to move any more.

There we go, coffeemaker failed again. This is becoming a regularly occurring situation that I don't particularly enjoy. I came home in the evening and Elizabeth informed me that the brewing unit got stuck and didn't want to move any more.

This obviously sounded like a lot of work. First I took the entire machine apart to verify whether I was dealing with a mechanical or an electronics-related problem. Turned out that the mechanics of the gearbox, responsible for the brewing group, was OK. But the motor of the brewing group seemed to move surprisingly slowly. Since the motor only received 7 V instead of the expected 33 V, it was an electronics-related problem. The next step was then the saeco-support forum. There I found the hint to replace the power-transistor TIP33C, responsible for the operation of the gear motor. Also, the suggestion was to replace a 33V Zener diode at the same time. I bought the necessary components from Conrad electronics (A BD245C as a standard replacement version for the TIP33C) and went back to work. Saeco has made a beautiful machine. Whenever I work on the coffee maker I am in complete awe of the many thought-through details. Also in this case: When I removed the electronics, I recognized that the sensitive parts of the circuit board had been covered with a plastic layer to prevent damage from water spills. Very well done. Just a pain to repair. Anyway: me, my dremel tool,  and my faithful soldering iron were able to remove the transistor from the cooling block and unsolder the diode and the transistor. I then replaced them with the parts from Conrad. This was also a good time to clean and re-grease the brewing group. Everything put back together and - there was coffee. Again, the coffe maker was fixed, this time with parts for ~ EUR 3.50 (plus ~ 4 hours of my time for the troubleshooting, the greasing of the brewing group, and the soldering job).