What type of spice grinder works?

For grinding spices, I agree that a mortar and pestle is the easiest tool for home use, Not to mention its versatility in Its abilities with other products too. Saves space, nothing to plug in an easily cleaned.

Myself, I use manual grinders. I have two, both with ceramic burrs. One is a hand cranked Japanese coffee grinder which I think you can still buy from the Food52 Shop. Recently I picked up a Kuhn Rikon grinder at Sur La Table. The latter has a lever action which I like because my right thumb is kind of wonky.

With respect to differing opinions, milling coffee and grinding spices are two different operations requiring, or at least best served by, two different machines. For grinding spices, the Krups is what I see used most often, it's cheap and if you're satisfied with how you've been doing things, you might just want to buy a new one.

To me, it is important that the grinder mechanism be removable and dishwasher safe for easy cleaning. Within the last few years I've had experience with the old Cuisenart spice grinder, the KitchenAid and now the new Cuisenart version. They all work pretty much the same -- which is to say, they both do a good job as long as there is a sufficient amount of spice to be ground. In a home setting, that can be a bit of a problem sometimes and I turn to a porcelain mortar and pestle if I need to pulverize just a few allspice berries or cloves. The electric grinders quickly turn larger amounts to dust.

To add up for spice grinder advice. We only have one used for both coffee and spices. Because I learned a trick for cleaning a spice grinder.

After using it for spices, even Indian spices, Clean it by grinding a tablespoon of raw rice, a tsp of baking soda. It'll bounce around and eventually make a paste in the grinder. Rinse and repeat cleaning under the blades (a pipe cleaner is good for that, or paper towel rolled up to remove the paste from blades)..until all the all spice smell is gone. Usually just two application of rice/soda works for me and drying and rinsing between applications and it's good as new. Ready for coffee or spices.

Results: we only have one electric spice grinder that does double duty with no carry over flavors for coffee.

First...is the 'smoke' actually a burned electrical smoke. with the eletrical smell.
When using a spice grinder sometimes you'll get fine particles of spices coming out in a 'smoke like cloud'. Especially if your using salt to make fine popcorn salt, or sugar to make powdered sugar which will make white 'smoke' from the dust, or just any spice ground to dust. Or even Garam masala.

That dust cloud can be easily mistaken for 'smoke'. So rethink and try again to be sure your grinder is 'toast' and needs to go into a landfill. My spice grinder which is Krupps also grinds stuff to a fine dust which can be perceived as 'smoke' if it's ground into 'dust'. Which is a good thing for popcorn salt with dried lime zest. (sneeze).