The left side hinge pin of the bean drop door vanished, it came unscrewed and worked its way out of the hinge without me noticing. I looked around for it but couldn’t find it. I rigged a temporary replacement pin and continued on roasting.
About two weeks later I found the pin, LODGED AND LOCKED BETWEEN THE GRINDING BURRS OF MY ESPRESSO GRINDER. Fortunately it was my grinder, unfortunately I had to replace the burrs.
It was one of those, “How could this happen to me” moments.
Happy Roasting!
What a coincidence. I had almost exactly the same thing happen about 6 months ago. One morning I was grinding beans in my Baratza grinder when it came to a grinding (pun intended) halt. Looking inside at the burr I noticed a metallic object. I pulled out a stainless steel screw. I was a bit pissed that this missed detection by the supplier of my green beans. It wasn’t until a couple of days later when I went to roast again that I noticed the bean dump door was a bit wobbly. That’s when I noticed a missing screw !
I had a situation yesterday where my door glass window fell inside the rotating drum when I dropped the beans. Since Aillio chose not to include a power switch on my R1V2, it took a few seconds to get it shutdown. The glass is now in 2 pieces instead of (it broke in half). Sweet Maria’s is sending me a new door assembly under warranty. Thank you SM.
How many roasts do you folks have on those machines? I’m wondering if checking the door hinge screws and the door faceplate screws should be part of scheduled maintenance recommendations?
For reference, I have over 250 roasts on my R2, and just checked all those screws-- none of them were loose in the slightest, but maybe I was just lucky!
Loose screws on Bullets are too common. For me, it was a set screw on the pulley.
I’ve done about 350 roasts. Grateful to not have had any lose screws!
I don’t baby it, by any means, but I do take very good care of my machine. I have it on a regular cleaning schedule, and don’t treat it in any way it wasn’t designed (not trying to imply any of you do, but I have seen some treatment resulting in breakage), and I check to make sure nothing is lose or what have you as I do the cleaning.
It sounded like a lot of work at first, but I have figured out how to do all of this in a relatively quick manner, especially when considering what it would cost me if something were to go wrong.
David