I was thinking about pre heating the cabinet without the auber controller, the once its just below step 1 temp connect the auber, put my food in and start the steps.
Is this ok? Any other ideas? I would just rather have the auber not have to oscillate and work so hard on the first step with my food in there. Not to mention our ambient temperature is about 30deg F (Canada).
I think it is a lot of effort that doesn't provide much benefit.
How fast does the auber typically take to reach setpoint of day 150deg if the ambient is low? That is my main concern is the ambient....its winter time and when we used the smoker without the auber it took about half hour to reach 150....i don't want my food to be in during that long duration.
It will take the same time. The PID does nothing as far as speeding up the time to temp or recovery times. What the PID does is control the temp swings. Your Bradley works like your oven. You set the temp and the heater turns on until you reach the set temp. Once the set temp is reached then it shuts off. Since the heater is still hot, the temp over swings the set temp by say 20*. once the oven cools past the set point, the heater turns on. By the time the heater gets hot, the temp "under" swings the set temp by say 20*. The PID learns the heat loss/gain of your smoker. So instead of running the heater until it hits the set temp, it starts cycling the heater prior to reaching the temp. Therefore it doesn't overshoot the set temp by much. Same for when it starts losing heat.