Gene Cafe stops midroast

[JulieJayne]

I have only had my Gene Cafe for a few weeks now, but was surprised yesterday that it stopped in the middle of a roast. 7 mins into 15.

The beans were very chaffy. But a sudden stop didn't seem to be a good idea, I had smoke pouring out of everywhere, and was afraid that it would catch fire.

After 5 minutes, it started to respond again and I was able to engage the cooling cycle.

Is this normal, has anyone else had this problem?

[GreenBean]

Hi JulieJayne,

Well it is not normal, I have done over 200 roasts in my Gene and never had a problem with it other than heaters failing but this does not cause a complete stop just stops heating.

You say it stopped, could you describe in more detail what stopped i.e. do you mean no rotation, no heat, no panel display? Or was the display still working?
The Gene displays error codes on the panel for anticipated failures one of these is E2 which indicates a temperature reading more than 255 degrees which it assumes to be a fire.

The manual is not clear on this but I assume it would cut power to everything but the panel to avoid fanning the flames. Could this be what happened?

[oddlight]

I also think this sounds like the over temp cutout operating.

Another possibility is that the heater has gone, which will show an error code (E4 from memory?) after a few minutes and you wouldn't get any heat on subsequent roasts (so easy to diagnose!)

It would only be a problem if it occurs frequently, or when there clearly isn't any chaff blocking the drum exit.

Cheers,

Andy

[JulieJayne]

Thanks for the suggestions, but no they are not the answer.

7-8 minutes into a roast, temperature, was 215, and it stopped! Dead Stop. No rotation, no fan no display. I tried to restart the display, but every time I pressed the on button, it flashed on then off again, with no effect.

After about 5 minutes, the on button responded normally again.

Subsequent roasts of other coffees have proceeded without a hitch. But I am a little scared to put a chaffy coffee in again, in case this happens once more, with more "inflammable" results.

[CakeBoy]

We had it once .... lost all power. No idea why but it has not happened again.

[motoman]

Assuming that you had not forgotten to empty the chaff collector for several roasts on a row I suggest you do another roast with the same coffee in the garden with the chaff collector removed. If it happens again you know that the thermal cutout is shot.

Just looked inside my chaff collector, needs cleaning as the perforated screen is coated with a brown deposit. Long soak in PulyCaff should sort that out.