Brand new v2 making da da da da noise

Taking Care of the Bullet R1 Bullet R1 Troubleshooting
1

Hi all,

I just got my new bullet, and to say that I was excited is an understatement.

I read the manual and started my first seasoning roast and had a few beans drop out the front, as well as a few beans get caught between the drum and the space before the door opening.

I researched these issues here and found that quite a number of people experienced this in their seasoning roasts so I continued on.

Then, there was a loud da da da da da noise that concerned me.

The machine made this noise intermittently, several times and shook the table the roaster was sitting on.

I was scared something very serious was wrong, so I went into cool-down where the noise continued. Be

I checked my drum placement and it appeared ok, so went through the troubleshooting guide.

An example that matched the issue is listed, however, it is for the model previous, as mine has the ‘spring’ that is supposed to keep the belt sufficiently tight.

I also turned the machine on without beans and noticed the drum not rotating (skipping) while making this noise - as if it is slipping on the belt.

My question is, does this sound like a loose belt to you, and if so, given the version I have, should I still be making that adjustment if the spring is not doing it’s job properly?

Or, is there something else I can look for?

Thanks so much!

Dave.

2

Hi Dave-

Sounds like the drum was jammed. The belt makes a loud noise if it slips. And beans can escape when the drum isn’t all the way forward. Which dealer did you order from? Probably best to start by contacting them.

Once beans fall out, there can be one (that’s all it takes!) or more between the front of the drum and the face plate (plus broken bits) which will allow more to slip out. The drum design allows some spring-loaded movement (mine was new in Jan 2019 and there have been changes but I believe this is still correct).

Sounds like you went thru the belt adjustments covered in the manual but you might want to look on the Aillio support site for info on removing/replacing the drum- that will cover how to set the number of spacers to install on the drum shaft (Aillio may restrict who has access to that info/video- I’ve not seen it). IIRC that adjustment requires a metric caliper. The post I read should be findable here on R.W with a search. Spacer adjustment is easy: lift one off or add one (you have spares in the tool kit) on the front of the drum shaft. A single spacer can make a significant difference. Too much space between the front of the drum and the faceplate can allow beans to get jammed and I suppose stop the drum. My experience has been noise and having a bean get wedged and push the drum back. The faceplate bulged forward with each drum rotation. I can imagine if the bean is hard enough it might actually stop the drum… dunno. But if it does the belt will slip and make the noise you describe.

Talk it over with your dealer before you panic. I speculate it will be a small adjustment.

Bruce

3

G’day @bab - thank you for the thoughtful reply.

I got the roaster from a local dealer here in Melbourne, Australia - Coffee-a-roma.
I will speak to them tomorrow, but they made a special order for me as this isn’t something they normally stock, so I don’t think they have much experience or expertise.

The metric calliper is no problem here (as we are obviously metric), but the instructions are certainly something I’d like to have a good read through before taking apart the brand new roaster even further :slight_smile:

Thanks again for your advice and I’ll speak with both the dealer and Aillio tomorrow (Monday) and hope they put my mind at ease with a simple fix.

Thanks so much for the help once again - and I’ll let you know how I go.

Cheers,

Dave.

4

Ok, so I spent half an hour or so on a Google meet with the team at aillio, and we managed to solve the issue.

We ran through a few steps.

Turns out there was a bean stuck between the barrel and the outer sheath that was causing it to catch.

Did a roast that was successful straight after, so I hopefully won’t run into that issue again.

Thanks for the help!

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5

Sounds right on the money. So did they suggest how the bean got into that out-of-the-way location? Any damage to the insulation?

Bruce

6

Unfortunately no, they didn’t have a suggestion for that.
I had everything set up correctly as well, so might boil down to bad luck for my first roast.
No damage that we could see, so I suppose time will tell.
I’ll let you know how my roasts turn out. :slight_smile:

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7

Very good. Hope you get some good coffee out of this!

Bruce

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8

WIth my new Bullet I almost always find 1 to 4 beans between the drum and the front plate after each roast. Is that normal? It seems like it shouldn’t be normal, but then I also didn’t expect a massive amount of chaff to come out of the front either and it does for every roast.

9

beans wedged between the drum and faceplate happens a lot. This can be because the drum isn’t seated correctly against the faceplate or, it needs a shim adding or the roaster isn’t level or the beans aren’t of an equal size and just find there way there. Just get something heatproof to move them side to side or flick them out. Chaff coming from the front is pretty normal too.

enjoy the coffee. Have fun

10

Pretty good indication the spacing between the drum & face plate is too great. If a bean is small enough and gets pinned in that gap it will either create a grinding sound as the drum rotates or alternately it will open the spacing between the spring loaded drum & face plate a little more allowing smaller beans to drop into the gap. The drum is spring loaded by necessity- without that ability to move that tiny amount the drum would jam if a bean were caught which would possibly damage the cog belt or the motor. You can adjust that spacing a small amount…

In the tool kit you received with the Bullet there should be a set of 2 or 3 spacers (they aren’t intended as washers; the mfg tolerances are much tighter than a washer). These spacers are intended to be placed on the front end of the drum shaft to fine tune the spacing between the drum and the face plate. That spacing was set at the factory to a specific value but that value doesn’t necessarily work for all beans.

Since you’re getting beans in the space at the front of the drum, you can try reducing that space a tiny amount (we’re talking thousandths of a mm) by either replacing a thicker spacer with a thin one or alternately if there is already a thin spacer in place on the end of the drum you can try removing a single thin spacer (save the spacers! you’ll need them another time). Sorry- I can’t find the note here that has the thickness dimensions for the 2 spacers. This tiny spacing difference can be all that’s required to stop the drum grabbing a bean and dropping it into the chaff exit as the drum moves back a tiny amount.

I just went thru a similar adjustment on my Bullet yesterday. I have just replaced the temp probe. When I had it back together I had a scraping sound as I started the roaster. That scraping sound with a cold roaster isn’t new and used to disappear by the end of Preheat. But after the probe replacement it persisted even after the drum shaft came up to temperature. In my case I was able to add one thin spacer and all was good. But importantly I didn’t have any beans catch in the gap between drum and face plate during the roast.

If this doesn’t resolve the issue you’ll need to contact Support for assistance getting the spacing set. And I imagine there is/are videos on vimeo.com. No audio on those I’ve seen but the videography is good and there is text dubbed in.

Bruce

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