I have an original Bradley that's about three years old and has always performed admirably. Last night, however, as I was about to smoke some salmon that I had marinated and dried, I checked the unit beforehand (as I always do) and found that the briquette pusher was not operating. I could hear the motor, but nothing was happening. I did a cleaning with some compressed air and re-did all the plugs and it worked! Well, at least once. Then it stopped. So I took the smoke generator off the smoker and shook out some wood flakes, and realized how much was inside the generator. I opened it up, and sure enough, there was enough wood shavings to make a box of briquettes, so I cleaned all of that out, made sure all the electrical connections were ok, then plugged it in. Nothing. Not even a sound. So I went back in and rechecked the connections, etc., and put the salmon in the fridge as it was now too late to get it down that evening. I kept referring to this forum and mention of the "articulated arm? came up repeatedly, so this morning (with some sunlight) I was able to see the arm and even move it, though it was very stiff--and I was afraid of breaking it (or something). Lastly, I wanted to check the fuse. Unfortunately, the fuse cap would not budge, and the plastic stripped very quickly with a phillips screwdriver. I tried a few remedies, but all I got was a busted fuse cap. I decided to leave well enough alone (the fuse was still in place and lights were coming on, so I figured it was working, and if I took the fuse out, I may not have been able to get the cap to stay on again). Soooooooo.....with the unit open again, I reached beneath the motor and felt the arm while with the other hand I moved the actually slider until I managed to get the two "in sync." Something clicked and the slider/pusher shot back to the full open position. I plugged it in, pressed the button, and the slider moved to close. I was victorious, or so I thought. Shortly after starting the smoking, I noticed that there was no smoke coming out anymore. And I could hear the motor trying to work, but it was obvious the slider/pusher was not going back far enough. I took out most of the pucks and that did the trick--it let a new one drop and pushed it. So I put the pucks back in the funnel and when I checked again, same thing as before: no smoke. Removed pucks, pressed button, and the pusher worked fine. So what I am wondering is what's going on here. I have never had a problem with a full funnel of pucks, but now I am afraid to put in more than three at a time. This smoke generator says MADE IN CHINA, which apparently is an issue when it comes to parts (or so I read in a post). Is my only solution to buy a whole new generator or is there something I can do to "power up" that motor and get it running like it used to, so I can turn my back on a full funnel and not have to worry (which has been one of the MANY blessings of the Bradley). Any opinions, suggestions, comments, etc are welcome. Thanks!
Both Bradley and YardandPool have Bradley parts.
www.yardandpool.com
If you Call Bradley on Monday, they will help you with finding out the best solution.
You might want to give this a shot. Now that you have cleaned out the smoke gen of all the wood crumbs, you might try to spray every place the arm pivots with WD-40 and clean the microswitch with alcohol on a cotton swab.
From your description, it sounds like there may be some type of blockage in the tracks that the slider is riding on. Or the track may need to be realigned.
I found that using a "wet" lubricant just attracts sawdust particles. I use a small amount of graphite powder on all moving parts, except the slider.
In the future could you use a few paragraph to break up you statements. My eyes need a little more "white" space. ;D
A question of how many pucks could a puck pusher push if a puck pusher could push pucks? (no I'm not drunk - just struck me) ;D
I am with Habs on this one re-read a couple sentences a couple of times.
It does sound like the there may be something wedged in the track or somewhere causing the slider/blade to bind.