Air Popper Dying Prematurely???

[Tinola]

So I bought a Gene Cafe Roaster which will arrive next week maybe. However, as I was roasting earlier, my Air popper died. Has anyone experienced air poppers dying pretty quickly? I've only done about 10-15 roasts total...
Wish it lasted more than 15 roasts, but w/e...

[BozemanEric]

Congrats, I love my Gene.

[mikesbeans]

Electrical appliances typically have thin gauge power cords that tend to run warm at the plug end.  You can verify this by touching the plug after the appliance has been running for a few minutes.  Warm or sometimes  hot plugs mean the appliance is 'power starved' - it's not getting enough current to run at peak performance,  will have a reduced life span, and the heating element will run a few degrees cooler.  If the plug is indeed warm to the touch, then replace the power cord with a 14gauge power tool cord available from Amazon.com. 
Keep in mind that the OEM cord gauge is barely thick enough to pass basic 'UL' standards, let alone properly power an appliance.  I've noticed that many poppers come with only a 16gauge cord powering a 1400watt unit!  If you do decide to upgrade the power cord, you will more than likely reach first pop sooner, and the popper may also last longer.
 
Hope this helps.

[donn]

I missed the OP, and it's now ancient history, but just as a general observation, I have not found air poppers to be the most reliable coffee roasters ever designed.  Not surprising, they're cheap household appliances designed to operate for a shorter and I believe cooler application.  Some have worked a pretty long time, but you never know.

They usually have some kind of thermal cut-off so they don't burn the house down, and that may fail (or work, depending on your perspective) in coffee roasting service.  That's easy enough to fix.  It might be a metal strip or something in the circuit that you need to crimp shut, or a component that you'll disconnect (with early Popcorn Pumpers it's a rewire job like that, if I remember right.)

I've also had the element coils fail, and I have not had much luck fixing that.  Likewise fan motors.

Anyway, the ones I've had were fairly simple devices, no harm in unscrewing them and looking around in there.