Sometimes, when we use our espresso machine (turning it on or off), the clock on our oven resets and loses its time. This is pretty annoying, but I’m also worried that we’ll eventually do real damage to the oven clock/controls. (The oven is entirely gas, with only the clock and controls powered by 110v).
This seems to happen about 1 out of every 16 times, or maybe less often, but becaue my wife and I are addicted, it’s often enough. The machine has also tripped the GFCI socket that it is plugged into, but only once in a blue moon. Clearly the machine is doing something that isn’t quite kosher. It’s an older Italian model.
My main question is, what can I do about it? Is there some way to isolate the machine so that I don’t have to worry about it messing with the oven? Unfortunately there is nowhere else / no other circuit to plug it in. Would a UPS help?
You probably have an overloaded circuit. The espresso machine may be causing the voltage to drop enough to trip the digital clock.
Did the owners manual suggest plugging the espresso machine into it’s own circuit? Most microwave ovens require their own circuit. By code, refrigerators are on a circuit by themselves. You could try plugging the espresso machine into a different outlet that is on a different circuit from the range.
You could plug in an analog clock (the kind with hands). They aren’t effected by short drops in power.
Best solution would be to get a new circuit wired in the kitchen for the espresso machine.
Doubtful.
It’s much more likely to be EMI caused by the motor or heater controls in the Espresso machine. I’d try an X-10 interference filter and see if that fixes the problem.
An espresso machine has to have a way to press the water through the coffee or else it’s not really an espresso machine! Either it’s a lever-style one where your arm power does it, or it has some sort of pump. On home machines it’s usually a “vibration pump” which are funky little solenoid-based devices.
I used to work on these and the issue we would see with home machines blowing breakers intermittently was usually when they had a max 12 amp (or so) machine plugged into a 10 amp circuit. The heating element alone wouldn’t draw enough amps to blow the breaker, but if the element and the pump were on at the same time it would. Since you usually wait for the boiler to heat up all the way before you pull a shot, this usually didn’t happen, so it would be a very intermittent problem. I’m not sure if that would really jive with this situation here, since the circuit isn’t blowing and it does it when you’re turning it on and off, but it might be something to think about.
i would agree with voltage drop. some digital clocks are much more vulnerable to loosing time with a voltage drop. when i have a house wide voltage drop some loose it and some don’t, my oven clock always does.
My compressor causes my EC2 programmer to reset every time it comes on. The EC2 is powered from a nice isolated power supply. This same compressor caused several hard drives to exhibit copy failures. Once again, the power supply was not the culprit. I’d bet money ($5 OK?) that it’s not a voltage sag causing the clock to reset.
