I bought an Alp in July of last year (from Sweet Maria's, of course!) 
and have been having more and more problems over the last few months.
Right from the box, the machine wouldn't "hold" a specified roasting 
setting and sometimes would roast right past it. But then, since I 
simply always set my Alp to 15 and stopped it manually at fast second 
crack, it didn't really matter.
Other problems crept up. I would set the machine to "15", press the 
roast button, and the setting would go right back to 8. That would 
also sometimes happen after the roast ended.
But more annoying problems started appearing. Despite the fact that I 
was meticulously cleaning the Alp after each roast (with Urnex), 
roasts are taking longer and longer. Even worse, over the last month, 
I've had the machine twice roast to the full 15 setting (20:05 
minutes) and only barely be in first crack, meaning I had to re-roast 
the beans.
I've just contacted Swissmar about these problems (I had enough after 
I just had that second "really cold" roast today). Has anyone else 
seen those symptoms? Thanks,
             Renaud
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My nearly 3 year old Alp went flakey on me, but in a different way.  The
drum motor would sometimes fail to reverse and dump the beans.  And on
occasion it would start up again after the roast had completed and the
machine was sitting idle.  And there was one time when the damper never
opened after the roast had completed.  
I contacted Swissmar and after some haggling, they replaced the unit.  The
new one is fine.  
If yours is under warranty it should be fine.  If it is out of warranty, I
do not think they have settled on a firm policy about replacements.  They
do not currently repair them or supply parts, although they are supposedly
setting up a repair facility.  
Paul Goelz
Rochester Hills, MI
pgoelz at eaglequest dot com
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When I was looking at Alps about this time last year there seemed to be a lot of
probs of the type you've seen after a few months of use.  I'm told all probs were
resolved with the modifications made for version 3, so I bought one (240v so
unfortunately I couldn't buy from Tom).  Of course it's too early to say every
thing is resolved but we'll see.  From a.c it looks like returns on earlier
versions were common so I doubt Smissmar will give too much grief (as long as
it's still under warranty).
Alan
 --- Renaud Dreyer  wrote: > I bought an Alp in July
of last year (from Sweet Maria's, of course!) 
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My Alp is coming up on 2 years old and (knock on bean) it's still running
strong.  I also maintain and clean mine regularly, but when the electronics
go south, what else can you do but go for a replacement.  I'm assuming the
problems you're experiencing are not related to insufficient power or
open-roasting in sub 60 degree weather.  The Urnex and an old toothbrush are
certainly must-have products and make cleaning so much easier.  I try to be
careful with the amount of Urnex and where I put it so that it doesn't get
the chance to seep into places it shouldn't be located.  When I first began
using the Alp, I was doing a full cleaning about every 10 roasts.  I've
learned to trim that back to every 4-5 roasts and the work effort has been
significantly reduced.  Also learned to clean the bean/chaff tray after each
use before residue becomes "baked-on".
Is SwissMar going for a whole unit replacement or a repair of your unit?  If
they do the whole unit swap, at least you'll get the new improved version
(assuming it harbors no new design problems).  They're really
long-in-the-tooth for needing a repair strategy/process for post-warranty
failures.  But frankly, I'd buy another one if it meant going without the
Alp in my roasting tools.
Coffenut  :^)

Andy Schekter posted something on alt.coffee about a similar problem that 
he was having where he got stalled roasts. Turned out that a thermosensor 
of some sort was the problem.  You could try emailing him 
at  schecter to see if this is the same problem.
-Greg
At 07:18 PM 2/19/2002 -0800, you wrote:
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Thanks for the info, Alan, Paul, coffeenut and Greg. I saw Andy 
Shecter's post about the temperature limiter, it sounds like the 
problame I'm having. I've e-mailed Anthony Lemme and left a messsage 
at Swissmar, hopefully they'll get back to me soon.
It's too bad because I really love this machine. Being able to do 1/2 
lb at once means I only have to roast 4 times a week (I'm the only 
local coffee drinker) and the coffee tastes wonderful, sweet with 
lots of body in my espresso machine. Thanks,
              Renaud
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