I know this topic has been beat to death but I finally blew an element so I thought I had to post. Ironically the original element went olny a few smokes after my dual element mod. It has worked for about seven months without the mod with no problems. I followed the diagrams, measurements, and help in this forum. I am wondering if the two elements being so close together could cause too much heat on one. I know in another post someone said this should not be the case but it seemed to be too ironic that it happened shortly after the mod.
Also, when I completed the mod, the new element would glow very bright as most others have commented on. Now when I check the new element does not glow as bright at all. Could be coated with smoke and other stuff from the smoking.
So I am running on one element and it's very difficult to come up to temp. I am now able to smoke but spoiled by the dual element mod.
I have had the dual element for over a year and no problems. I have helped someone mod theirs and we should have laid off the brews because we wired it wrong. The only thing that happened was that the fuse blew until we rewired it. Works fine ever since. I don't think that anything you do with the mod would blow the element. I think it was a bad batch.
My opinion.
This April will be 2 years since I made the modification, and I have not had any problems with the elements or any other parts of the smoker.
i have been hearing a lot of problems with the dual heaters, while others have not had any, I still prefer a single heater and blower, grant you it may be a lot more work though more even temps through the box for cooking
http://forum.bradleysmoker.com/index.php?topic=17329.0
and i run it with a timer and pid
http://forum.bradleysmoker.com/index.php?topic=17304.0
I believe most of the ones that are having the problems, are ones with newer smokers that seem to have the bad batch of elements.
I am sold on the dual elements. I'm not going back. Just wondering if it's a coincidence or if I am also in the "bad batch" of elements.
I think odds are your original element was from what might have been a bad batch of elements because the dual mod only draws 500 more watts on the AC input of the Bradley and really doesn't affect anything else. That's my two cents!
In the end, all is good. Same story here. Bad element, call Bradley, Bradley makes it right. New element in the mail already. No questions asked.