Oven quit heating.

JohnM70 · July 09, 2016, 09:28:15 AM

I was smoking 28 lbs. of pork shoulder (3) last week and low and behold about 7 hours into the smoke the oven stopped working. I quickly moved the shoulder into our double oven and continued cooking.
I examined the smoker from the receptacle (ground fault) to the heating element (1100W). the PID was putting out 119.5AC the connection to the cabinet was receiving the same voltage. The heating element was not getting anything. I removed the back and check the connection from inside the receptacle and it was receiving 119.5 AC.
My guess is that the Thermal Resistor (TR) (diode) had tripped, blown, etc.
Now, when I installed the 1100W heating element I replaced the existing wire with 14-gauge oven wire, but I did not replace the TR. The unit has been running/cooking for the last 18 months. I am wondering if the TR just got tired and let go.
I know the oven was designed for 500W elements but smokers have installed an additional 500W element or 900W element.
I am going to remove the TR and see if I can find a replacement with a little more tolerance.
All comments are welcome especially if someone has had the same experience.
Also, I will contact Bradley and see what they have to say.

Gafala · July 09, 2016, 11:08:14 AM

Replace your TR is ok but stay with the same one it was designed for the Bradley, you should never need to go over 225deg as the Bradley is a slow cooker not a house oven. I have done the mods and never had to go over 200degs.

JohnM70 · July 09, 2016, 01:30:47 PM

Thanks Gafala, I don't remember needed to exceed 225 but I do smoke at 220 for a lot of my meats.
John

tskeeter · July 09, 2016, 08:58:48 PM

Wow, that's a load of hog you were working with. I wonder if that really big load of meat created a cold spot near your thermometer so that the heating elements stayed on so long they created a hot spot that tripped your TR. I have seen this happen with my smoker. Hung 20 pounds of summer sausage so it extended several inches below the thermometer. The resulting fat out showed that not having the thermometer below the meat caused readings that were cooler than they should have been. I have to lower that wall mounted thermometer.

JohnM70 · July 10, 2016, 09:52:24 AM

tskeetr, thanks for the comments, I should have posted a picture showing the meat and the position of the temp sensors. I had 3 one for the PID and 2 for the maverick remotes. They were all close relative to their positions in the cabinet. I know 3 maybe overkill but it is interesting to see the temp difference in the cabinet. Normally the temps start out with a wide variation but eventually they sometimes get very close.

JohnM70 · July 17, 2016, 02:11:20 PM

Hi all, well I got my smoker back up and working. I had to replace the thermal resister located under the back panel. Bradley was very responsive to sending the replacement part (I ordered 2.) If you look up my previous post on replacements, you will see that I converted the originial 500W to a 900W element all was well. Then up jumped the devil, I had a cabinet fire and the oven was replaced (the fire was more than likely my fault... so be it). I received a cabinet from Bradley and promptly started my element replacement. Since I noticed that some of the replacements were adding an additional 500W element, for a total of 1000W, and I found a 1100W replacement I said why not! In addition, I replaced original wire (16 gauge non oven wire) with 14-gauge oven wire. The thermal resistor remained the same set to blow at about 315 degrees F. I don't remember how many smokes I did since I replaced the cabinet, close to 20.
I did not think the extra 100W would cause that much of an issue but it may have. I am going to watch things closely and see what happens. Fortunately, all I needed to do was put the port shoulder into the kitchen oven and all was well. Thought some would be interested.
BTW my cabinet goes from 80 degrees to 220 in 40 minutes and recovers from 150 to 220 in 25 minutes+- depending on load.

TMarchand · September 24, 2016, 12:34:53 PM

Thanks for posting. My smoker slowly lost heat the last time I used it. I replaced the fuse today but still no heat. Can I assume this too is a faulty thermal resistor?

Cheers,

Tim

Salmonsmoker · September 24, 2016, 12:41:05 PM

Quote from: TMarchand on September 24, 2016, 12:34:53 PM
Thanks for posting. My smoker slowly lost heat the last time I used it. I replaced the fuse today but still no heat. Can I assume this too is a faulty thermal resistor?

Cheers,

Tim

Slowly losing heat sounds more like your element was giving up the ghost.