Coffee grinder not working

My burr grinder also stops if the ground spout (where the coffee shoots out) is clogged. I use my grinder for an espresso machine so i always have the setting on the finest and so with the oils and the fine grind it clogs this spout pretty often. I"d check yours out too (ie remove the coffee ground bin and you can see the spout. If it is clogged uplug the machine and take a tooth pick and un clogg it. Don't jam the tooth pick in there to deep you don't want it to get shuved into the grinder wheels.

It took me longer than it should have to figure this out. I blame the lack of coffee. There are TWO problematic safety switches on this model which are wired in series. The first ensures that the ground coffee bin is in place. The second ensures that the whole bean hopper is screwed in properly. I suspect lawyers were involved here.

Check both switches carefully. If both switches appear to mechanically engage but the grinder fails to start the switches may be faulty or the fuse blown. Start by removing the four rubber feet and the screws beneath. Pull off the bottom plate. Slide the circuit board out of the unit and check the small glass fuse soldered to the board with a multimeter. With both bins firmly in place check for continuity between the small gauge red and black wires. If the circuit is open one of the switches is faulty. To bypass simply cut the small gauge red and black wires a couple inches from the circuit board and connect them together.

Enjoy a well deserved cup of coffee.

Suh Dal just fixed my grinder. Thank you so much. Just remove the plastic bin and clean the spout. I used a chopstick instead of a toothpick and it also worked.

Thank you Suh Dal! I just fixed my grinder by following your way. I am glad I check this site when I saw there were 8 answers answers already. So the numbers count.

Mine had a different problem than the rest of these. Mine doesn't run unless you hold down the start button. It runs in sort of a pulsing action when you do hold it down. I noticed in the process of trying to fix it that it runs faster when the slider is pushed as far to the left without going all the way off. I thought I could probably fix this cause it sometimes works properly. However I could not seem to get it to work right. I can continue to use it this way while holding the start button.

Anyway, if you need to take it apart the first thing to do is to pull the four rubber feet out, which reveals four Philips screws, as said in another post. This will get you to the main circuit board and motor. If you need to get into the top section you will need a very long small to medium Philips. Their are four screws deep in the case and another one above the grinds receptacle. There are three short screws I removed that seem only to hold the grind dial on, so you may not need to remove them.

While trying to fix it I found it best to jumper the red and black wires coming from the safety switches to override having to have both the grinds bin and the bean hopper installed.

The motor has both brushes and an outer field coil. I guess it is probably a DC motor, but I wasn't sure.

I spent so much time trying to get the screws out with only a medium length screwdriver, that I was too frustrated to spend any time troubleshooting the circuit board. For now I will just use it as is. If someone has the same problem and succeeds in fixing it perhaps they will post a solution here and I will see it.

I also saw other posts where the motor wouldn't grind when beans were in the hopper. This seems similar to my problem. If you have this problem I would suggest moving the slider as far to the left without it turning off, and hold the start button through the entire grind, that is if you can get it to work.

I had a broken tab on the finished grind reservoir (turn it upside down--the tab juts perpendicularly from the curved side). This presses against a safety switch inside the machine. If the reservoir is not pushed completely in, then no grinding can occur. I removed the machine bottom (4 screws each concealed by a rubber foot and a pain to remove and replace) and pressed the switch permanently closed with some cardboard, although this just might be accomplished without removing the bottom by inserting something into the slot which accepts the tab. My grinder will operate without the reservoir in place, but why would I be silly enough to start it?

Without more info, I'd say that a safety switch isn't being activated to indicate that the lid(s) is/are fully closed.

Check and make sure that you haven't broken a tab off the lid which would allow it to trip that switch, and that debris from the grinding isn't displacing a lid and preventing the grinder from starting.

Aside from that, if the grinder has died, it may have overheated if jammed.

F*ck Cuisinart and this sh*tty grinder. I'llk give my money to another company before wasting another afternoon on this piece of sh*t. Stick to fancy blenders, you tools.

Grrr...I wire both switches together. The main switch was hosed. I ran 2 wires out from the main switch and installed a toggle switch. I was determined to get this over priced hunk of junk working. It works now grrrr.

Very interested how many people interest this grinder.
I can say that it's include myself.

Good luck

Mai

This is an expensive grinder to have a safety switch fail at about the year mark. After troubleshooting, I determined the bottom switch was the culprit. I bypassed it and got my coffee phew!! I took a sharpie and wrote “safety switch bypassed “ on the front of the catch container. Hopefully I’ll not make a mess in my daily sleep deprived attempt to make coffee.

One more vote for the hopper switch. You don't even need to take off the rubber feet and the screws behind them; just take out the five screws and examine the switch, tab, and spring. Use a screwdriver to pop the switch from the two plastic pillars holding it in place. Use a very small piece of electrical tape to tape the switch down. Replace and put the screws back in.

The side effect, as noted, is that the grinder will now run even if the hopper isn't in there, but you'd have to be a fool to do that anyway.

I got this grinder for $5 at a Goodwill a few years ago and it recently stopped working. For me the issue was a ton of corrosion around the start button switch. I found that, with both bins in place I could start the grind by shorting the points of the blue wire and the black wire next to it. I tried permanently shorting them together, but it needs to be a momentary contact.

I clipped the blue and black wires off of the upper switch assembly and ran them out through a small hole drilled in the top of the case, above the sliding switch. It worked by touching the two wires together momentarily, with all bins in place and the slider on anything but Off.

There's low voltage through the wires, not especially dangerous, but I ended up soldering on a spare mechanical keyboard switch which is used to start the grind. The slider doesn't work as a timer any longer, just an off switch, but I've only ever measured in as many beans as I wanted to grind, so this works for me. People will wonder why there is a keyboard key sticking out of the grinder, but to me it's a fun talking point.

After seeing seven answers , I HAD TO spout off. It seems that coffee is a real need and and like any other drug, all you coffee addicts hang together.lol

All of the comments about clearing the grinder out, making sure the safety switches are clear, etc. are great points. I have found 2 times that either the grinder got clogged (my fault) or it refused to turn off (no idea why). In both instances, after I did everything possible (but its me, so I did not turn any screws!), I just unplugged it and walked away. A few hours later it was fine. Maybe there is an electronic reset? who knows? But it worked twice.