A neighbor said that it quit dispensing water, and her husband had spent 3 hours trying all the fixes on Googled sites. I did the same thing a while back, and blowing out the water lines from the water tanked worked for me. Not for them. OK, they were going to through it away, so looked like something that would be interesting to tear apart. Wow, I see why no service shop would ever want to work on one. Impossible to open the big covers with out breaking the case. Inside everything inside was stuffed in and around everything else.
In the end, usable parts:

~50 SS screws for plastic
2 12VDC solenoid valves
1 12VDV water pump
1 12VDC air pump
1 rocker power switch
1 120VAC-14.5VAC transformer
3 check valves
1 thermistor
bunch of silicone tubing
bunch of wire
4 PCB boards, but not much reusable there
Oh, there is a DIP 6PSI pressure bridge transducer (PFN-07PG)
And most interesting, the main water dispensing reservoir.

Apparently the way it works is the water is pumped from the tank to fill the heated reservoir to a point that it touches one of 5 electrodes. The electrodes set the cup volume to be dispensed. Then the air pump forces the hot water out through the K-Cup full of coffee grounds and into your mug. When the water level drops to the point of no longer touching the bottom electrode, the water stops.

Ken

 

Lots of cool parts. The aggravating thing is you cannot get replacement boards for them and that's a frequent failure mode. All those cool pumps, valves and sensors end up in the trash.

 

Can the electrode length be adjusted?
Or is it fixed?

 

The electrodes are molded into the plastic top of the heating reservoir. They are fixed.

In the end I bench tested the valves and pumps. It looks like the air pump had gotten coffee in it and was stuck. I didn't know it was an air pump. Stuck a tube on it and forced some water down the tube. It suddenly loosened up and blew water in my face. :O Not sure if it was due the her husband working on it or not, but it would explain not dispensing hot water. That pump was buried in the machine.

Ken

 

Interesting. Thanks for posting this.