Original Bradley Smoker Question

[Panthur]

Hi guys. Last night i was smoking some sausage and could not get my OBS to go over 160 degrees. I am using Auber PID model WS-1200CPH single probe. It has been working perfect together for last 8 months. It was too late last night to check anything out. I couuld always get it to 225 degrees before, but last night no matter where I set PID it would not go over around 160 though. First thing I think I will try OBS without PID and see how hot it gets. I also have a spare probe for PID, It could possibly be that too ??
Any comments appreciated.  Thanks.

[TedEbear]

It sounds like the 500W heating element went bad.  160*F is about what the puck hotplate would produce.

Plug the tower directly into a wall outlet, turn the temp all the way up and see if the element glows red after a few minutes.

[mikecorn.1]

Ditto.


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[Panthur]

Will do. But i was done with the smoke and trying to bring temp up to finish meat so bisquette burner was off the whole time, and the 500 watt element was red as well. Its strange for sure.

[GusRobin]

was the vent open?

[Panthur]

Vent was half open. So last night I fired it up and did a few tests (with container of water inside instead of full of meat) and set PID at 200 and it reached it no problem. Shut down, cooled down with door open, started up again, set PID at 215 and again, no problems....go figure. Only things doing different is not full of meat ( the meat was all very warm after several hours of being in there so that cant be it ) , and there was a bit of a storm that rolled through while smoking, maybe there was a power glitch or something ? ( I did unplug and retry on the night it acted up and it didnt help at that time ). Hopefully it will all work properly next time I fill 'er up and proceed to smoke.  It is all strange, thats for sure.  Yes, I was relatively sober on the evening in question, LOL. 

[Sailor]

I had a problem with not getting the temp to go up.  What happened is when I moved the OBS somehow I must have brushed the temp slider and it was in the 1/4 on position.  I ramped my PID up and it would not get to temp.  What the heck!  I unplugged and plugged.  When thru the PID program.  I could not understand why it would not get up to temp.  The element was glowing red.  I was losing my mind then I noticed that the slider was on the low side.  I move the slider back to the high side and the PID brought it back to life.   Just sayin that sometimes something simple is the problem.