So this morning she refused to budge....again.
So I opened her up and did a rough cleaning, but....what do you advise now?
A brush? (Steel? Tooth?)
A dremel?
Something else?

What's the best way to get her clean and deserving of being put back together again?

Susan

You can clean threads very well with a regular toothbrush. Isn't it time you replaced yours anyway?

SJM wrote:So this morning she refused to budge....again.Susan

The grinder wouldn't run or the adjustment collar was stuck?

Sounds like the former:

Compak K10 stalling problem

A build up of old grounds wouldn't cause that.

Yup....that was me, and it seems to have behaved in much the same way today.

This time I upended it, vacuumed it, poked it with picks, and it still didn't start on its own, which is why I removed the upper burr set.

It sorted itself last time and I'm gonna have to hope it sorts itself again this time since according to Josh the capacitors are not underpowered or whatever it was we were thinking/hoping/expecting the diagnosis to be.

When you say "refused to budge", what do you mean?

Do you hear the motor hum, but it doesn't turn, or is there a complete silence?

If it's a complete silence then it is not the capacitors. It might be something to do with connectors. Switch, or your kitchen power socket safety switch (that red button) disengage.

If you hear a hum, then try this: turn off the switch. Stick an allen key (6mm?) at the top of the grinder (hopper removed) and turn clockwise. If it doesn't budge, then you know that the mechanism is stuck somehow. You need to do this without beans, of course.

If you turn clockwise and it is stuck, turn the allen key counter clockwise to free the burrs from whatever is holding them. Turn it about half a turn backward, remove the allen key, and turn the machine on. It should move now.

I am saying to try clockwise (direction of grinding) just to verify and know if there is a strong resistance that locks the burrs. Then you need to turn it backward (counter clockwise) to actually release it.

And if you do have the beans in there already, you will not be able to turn it forward anyway. So just turn it backward to release it.

Just don't turn the switch on with the allen key in there.

I'll post a picture in a minute.

SJM wrote:It sorted itself last time and I'm gonna have to hope it sorts itself again this time since according to Josh the capacitors are not underpowered or whatever it was we were thinking/hoping/expecting the diagnosis to be.

So what did Josh think was causing your grinder to stall if he's sure that it wasn't the capacitors?

Thanks LaDan, I will try that the next time if there is a next time. There was definitely the hum that indicates that the machine was getting power; it felt for all the world like there just wasn't enough oomph to get the darned burrs to overcome the load and start spinning.

John, we didn't get to "the" reason, since the K-10 went back to working. Josh hypothesized that one of the connections had gotten loosened and I pushed on all of them without finding any obvious culprit, but again....it's hard to diagnose a disease when there are no symptoms.

I will run this episode by Josh tomorrow.

Susan

If I had an electric motor that would hum but not spin I would definitely be looking at the capacitors. Since they had a known issue during the period when your grinder was produced I'd ask them to send new ones.