About five or six years ago, the fan on my roaster failed, and I got a replacement for the whole roaster on an extended warranty (but they never asked me to return the original). Now, for the cost of a fan, I have two functional roasters!

The replacement process is a bit harder than you might expect from the instructions given, but after viewing a video (on the related process of replacing the heater), I understood the problems. First, space in the area by the fan and heater is tight, because the drive mechanism for the roasting chamber comes very close to the fan. I had to unscrew the heater to get the old fan out, and the new fan in (as in the instructions), and there are two other problems to watch out for: two ceramic bearings can fall out, and need to be put back, and the alignment of the guides for the roasting chamber has to be checked and corrected (see the video for replacing the heater). It would be good if another video could be made, for replacing the fan, as this seems to be a fairly common failure.

I was rebuilding other parts of my roaster and inquired about what parts of the roaster are most prone to failure. Dylan with Gene Cafe told me that the blower fan fails often enough over time. I took out my current fan and cleaned it well and reinstalled it. Since I was ordering other parts, I bought this replacement fan as a insurance for when my current fan finally fails. As always, great customer service and a reasonable enough price with fast shipping. Thanks!

My Gene Café blow fan would occasionally get noisy like the fan blade rubbing on something. A restart of the machine would quiet it down. I didn't want a mid-roast failure so I ordered and installed this fan. Installation was easy enough. Back in business!
Steve, the problem of the roast stalling might be the #1 temp sensor. I had to replace that along with the main pcb (the replacement sensor is not compatible with the old pcb). That took care of that problem.

I'm on my second Gene Cafe. I have found they only last seven years. Both times I spent money trying to replace parts. But it's never going to be new so when do you stop? I only roast three 8oz batches every other week so it's not getting abused.

I bought a new heater last summer which helped but then the roasts started to stall. First one at 420, then 450, third higher but never reaching max temp. After a couple of round abouts with support and other tests it looked like the fan was needed. It didn't solve the problem.

While I've only got a little over $100 invested in trying to fix it its probably best to quit while I'm ahead. I loved the Gene when it worked but maybe it's time to move up to a Hottop or something. I've been roasting for over 20 years I probably owe it to myself :-)

Owned a Gene Cafe for just under a year, ran about a hundred roasts so far, and it started making a loud buzzing/vibrating sound. Dylan did a great job diagnosing the fan problem remotely by watching a video clip of my roaster buzzing/vibrating. He kindly sent me a fan under warranty for no charge. I swapped out the old fan with a new fan easily, and now my machine is like new again. Extremely happy, and thank you for great customer service!