just smoked some ribs for nearly 4 hours and never could get the smoker temp over 125°....they're now in foil packets with apple juice in the oven at 250° and Amazon is shipping a new element for $17....guess I now know how high the temp will get with the smoke generator alone....this should come in handy for low temp smoking of fish....
you should also check all your external connections between your smoke generator and tower, you may have a loose connection
As beefman pointed out, you may have a loose connection.
The below link will help you troubleshoot.
Bradley FAQ's (http://www.susanminor.org/forums/showthread.php?481-Bradley-Smoker-FAQ-s&p=748#post748)
Before you toss the old element out remove a wire from one end and check the resistance across the element. A working element will read around 27-32 ohms. If it is close to that then there's a loose connection somewhere else.
I did check the connections when temperature failed to rise above 125°, and I will check the element's resistance before I discard it....my diagnosis is (of course) a guess, but since the connections are good and the indicator light on the front of the smoker brightens and dims with temp adjustment (I also guessed that the light was on the same pot as the element), a bad element seems probable.
Quote from: mrmoe on November 08, 2013, 05:22:46 AM
I did check the connections when temperature failed to rise above 125°, and I will check the element's resistance before I discard it....my diagnosis is (of course) a guess, but since the connections are good and the indicator light on the front of the smoker brightens and dims with temp adjustment (I also guessed that the light was on the same pot as the element), a bad element seems probable.
A couple of things come to mind with this info, one when you checked connections did you unplug and re-plug or just give a push on the plugs. Mine required a pretty serious push to fully seat a couple of the connections much more than plugging into say a computer with similar connections. The other thought relates to the wall connection you are plugged into, if it has a lot of load on it you won't get full power on your element which seems possible when you talk about the power indicator dimming when you adjust the temp. I am able to run mine off of a single circuit plug that happens to be close to the service feed coming into the house and I have yet to feel the need to upgrade to a 900 watt element. Just my thoughts to add to the discussion, I could easily be dead wrong.
If your indicator light works, and dims and brightens as you move the temperature slider, then it is very likely that you have a bad element. From looking at the date you joined, you may have purchased a smoker with a faulty element.
...a new heat element was delivered in today's mail - you got to love amazon....took only a few minutes to put it in, plug the smoker in and observe that it works!....luckily, as an old auto mechanic, I had a pouch of ignition wrenches....its wires are held on with 9/32" nuts.
Glad to see you up and running again.
Did you do a resistance check on the old element?