Hacking the Starbucks Barista Digital Italia Espresso Machine

The Starbucks Barista Digital Italia Espresso Machine is a marvel of coffee technology … when it works. Unfortunately all this technology is easily thwarted when a small plastic tab on the inside of the door breaks. The system then thinks that the door is not closed (when it is) and no coffee is allowed to be made.

Below are the hacks implemented to make the beast function properly. Note though that I did not actually implement the hacks; I merely documented them.

That’s a butter knife stuck inside the door so that the close door sensor knows the door is actually closed.

The end of a broken plastic fork taped (with electrical tape mind you) to the end of the broken door tab.

The things humans will do for coffee. :)

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53 Responses to Hacking the Starbucks Barista Digital Italia Espresso Machine

  1. mike m says:

    a bump from a earlier post, but I got this machine and this seems like what I am getting. I’ve played around with the two knobs inside of the grinder: one with plus and minus and one with 0 to 18. i tried all kinds of settings, but it’s coming out all weak and watered down. right now i’ve got it on 0 and the maximum + setting. that seems the best i can do. any advice?

  2. Diane says:

    The grinder thing seems to be an epidemic. My grinder is also claiming empty. I too have adjusted the buttons back an forth. Now, nothing seems to work. Has anyone out there taken their machine apart and looked inside?

  3. hooha says:

    Need to Prime Message – Replaced pump on my own. Work(ed) awesome.

    Grinder message – Totally cleaned out the path from the hopper to the brew group. There’s a chute from the hopper that had about 50% blocked from caked grounds. Also, remove the brew group and there’s a spring loaded hatch that you can hold open and clean from the bottom up.

    The machine ran yesterday and ran out of water mid brew, but the pump kept running. Now the thing is vapor locked like crazy and I just get the NTP message. My guess that repeatedly running the pump dray to try to prime is going to burn the thing out . . . again. Wish I had another machine.

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