I want some coffee!

Honeywell CS10XE swamp cooler I used the Honeywell swamp cooler for the first time a few days ago and have to say it worked really well. Aside from a whine about how the original buyer prep'ed and packed the unit for return to Amazon, the cooler worked flawlessly. In fact, I think if you were to stay in the blast of the cooler for long it would get very uncomfortable. On roasting day (23 Aug) the outside temps ranged from about 85°F to as high as 95°F. Inside the shop, though, the temp never got above 86°F. And that high was probably cockpit error as I'll explain below. Outside humidity was about 35% (higher than usual; we had just had a really good T-storm a couple days before) and the humidity in the shop ranged from a high of 50% to a bounce off 39% (see last paragraph). Humidity was probably near the top of the most effective range for a swamp cooler, but indeed it worked. I set it up as I had planned- door wide open, cooler blowing toward the rear. The air moveme...

... but you can fool me pretty easy. My Aillio Bullet R1 roaster has a device built into the front plate that allows the operator to take a look at the beans during the roast. It's a little tubular scoop that can catch a few beans as they crash around inside the drum. Gives the operator a chance to see the bean color and get a whiff of how the roast is progressing, It's called a 'tryer' and it's pretty slick. Recently I've been playing with drum speed. Drum speed wasn't adjustable when I first got the Bullet (it should have been). When I upgraded the power board to V2 (and the control board as well; my Bullet is now a V2 Bullet) I suddenly had control of drum speed. At the suggestion of one Bullet owner, Glen Junkert, I started using a lower drum speed at the start of the roast (D4) as part of something Glen calls a 'heat soak' prior to increasing the power to get to roast temperatures. Midway thru the roast I start increasing drum speed as the roast...

It works! When I was an engineer working at Lockheed, I learned that there are good reasons management didn't want engineers touching tools. The techs were good at their job and I wasn't. So when it comes time to modify electronics I prefer to leave that to the competent hands of those who are good at it. That was over 25 years ago. Now when something needs fixing it's usually up to me to get it done. But I sweat bullets till I know I didn't screw up the work. In this case it went well. Boot-up is a little different as already mentioned, and I now have control of drum speed. Most importantly I had no alarm sound while I was roasting which is a huge relief. Operation is outwardly the same as before but there are subtleties in control behavior that suggest I may have more responsive control of the roast. So I gave it a try. This is the first of only 2 roasts before the temps in the shop were over 90°F ( yuk! ). I tried several different things that demonstrated I need to ...

Up and running! Except for doing a trial roast or two, I just finished upgrading to the V2 power board and replacing the control module (current production design; different connections than my vintage 1/2019 Bullet). USPS managed to deliver the replacement cable 2 days early ( thank you USPS! ) and I installed it the same afternoon. The replacement cable Julio sent, specific to the current control board, fit as it should. Once the mods were installed I applied power and (after an unexpectedly long boot cycle) the Bullet was up and is running (I think!). Lots of new sounds. The exhaust fan starts out just about screaming it's spinning so fast (almost scarey!). Then after 3 or 4 seconds it settles down to what I have come to expect. That scarey start-up sound made me think to calibrate the exhaust fan before anything else. Easy-peasey: go through firmware set-up to step 6, then simultaneously press both the "+" & "-" buttons of the Fan control. That launches ...

This is the old V1 power board. Looking kind of dingy from smoke inhalation. It's the result of putting the power board in the exhaust path of the cooling tray. Most things are pretty well thought out on this roaster, but... really?! Installation of a replacement V2 power board is an upgrade which means I had to buy the new board since the mfr thinks the older design works adequately. It went pretty well. The new board went in without trouble except for removing/reattaching the legs of the roaster. A PITA trying to reach 2 of the 4 screws on each leg-pair. Those 2 screws on each pair are installed at an angle without sufficient clearance to rotate an Allen wrench. But a little patience ( hah! that'll be the day!) and I managed to get everything back together. The control panel was another story. All the installation instructions are for upgrading a V1 or V1.5 roaster. Those instructions assume a control panel assembly of that same vintage. I am replacing the control panel PCB ...

Repair and upgrade parts for my roaster have arrived. Sweet Maria's, with direction from Aillio in Taiwan, sent a new V2 power board with a tiny replacement board that is installed in the rear of the roaster. Plus a replacement control panel board assembly to hopefully deal with the comm issue that generates a recurring alarm with no error code visible. Now I need some documentation that tells me how to proceed. Control panel first then test? or power board first then test? Both at the same time? It's a question of the interdependence of the new power board and the controller+firmware combo (if there is any). It will be a relief to have this running properly again. For the last 2-3 months I've had to cross my fingers that I'd get thru each roast without power setting going to zero. PITA! And while I'm whining, some cooler weather would be nice. Yet another day in the 100's. Yuk. Julio, who is the Bullet guy at Sweet Maria's, sent me a sample roast of some...

I bought my Aillio Bullet R1 roaster in January 2019. It was designated V1.5 instead of V2 because it was delivered with the infrared temperature sensor and the same power board used on V1 Bullets. Aillio had a design replacement but it was stalled in production for whatever reason. I planned to upgrade from V1.5 to V2 by replacing the power board when it became available. Great plan but... By April 2019 they started delivering Bullets with the new power board in both 120 VAC and 240 VAC versions. But then they found production issues after a few hours of roasting use. I had been in touch with Julio at Sweet Maria's (Sweet Maria's was my source for the Bullet) and he said the 240 VAC model seemed ok, but it might be too soon to upgrade my 120 VAC Bullet since some of those boards were having a problem: "You're better off with what you have". Aillio gave user's a heads-up on their Community site back in Oct 2019 that apparently some components for the 120 VAC ...

... and a lot more fun! During 2018 I noticed sales info on the Sweet Maria's web site about a relatively new roaster made in Taiwan called the Bullet. It's made by Aillio in Taiwan in small batches to tightly controlled specs. Pricey but it could handle a batch size of 300 g to 1 kg of greens (about 0.7 lbs to about 2.2 lbs). What is unique about these roasters is that the drum is heated inductively (like a residential inductive cook top). That would go a long way to improve response time to desired heat changes. The issue was (is!) that  roasters are scarce as hen's teeth. And at $2,600 they were about the price of a small travel trailer. Since thermal lag and batch capacity is an issue with the HotTop, and because the inductive heating and thermal capacity of the Bullet would address that, I was interested. When the announcement came at the beginning of 2019 that Sweet Maria's was about to receive a batch of Bullets, I figured there wasn't much chance...