Mods started, couple of questions...

[TedEbear]

Phil,

Very, very nice.  You did a good job and I hope your wife appreciates all of your hard work.   ;D

[beefmann]

very nice

[MidKnightRider]

She is getting a great gift.
Did you do the front feet mod also?

[Mr Walleye]

Nicely done Phil!  8)

Mike

[squirtthecat]

Fantastic!

[KyNola]

WOW! What a professionally done job.  One more mod for you to think about.  Add a rail system that allows you to convert from  a 4 rack to an 8 rack.  The additional rails go 2 inches above each rail that are currently in your Bradley.

You do great work.  Amazingly impressive.

[smoker pete]

Beautiful job.  Nice work.  You should go into business selling an upgraded unit with a built in PID  ;D ;D

[RFT]

Great job.   Glad the brackets worked for ya.  Great gift for the wife also.   


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Sam3]

Bringing up an old post here, but could you tell me how you made the mounting brackets for the heating element?

[phild]

Hi,

Actually RFT and I were doing the mods at about the same time.   He mentioned he was making some brackets and I said, make me a pair too and he did :)   Very kind of him.

However, they looked like mild steel, a rectangle about 3 inches by 2 inches bent over in the middle, such that each leg was about 1.5 x 2.  I wish I had taken pix.

I sat them over the sides of the original reflector, drilled a couple of holes in the sides and bolted them to the reflector with stainless nuts and bolts.

So now I had a couple of flaps extending 1.5" into the reflector.  I drilled a 1/4" hole in these to match the element and attached the element with a stainless bolts and wing nuts.

I used the original wires with larger rings on the end.

Hope that helps
Phil

ETA:  I remounted the reflector with the new element exactly the same way as it came off.   The only mods were the L shaped brackets, the holes drilled and the new rings at the end of the wires.   I also found that the original screws holding the insulators to the back were loose, so I tightened those.

[Sam3]

Thanks Phil. That was very helpful! 
I saw the brackets and was going to wing it, but figured I'd ask anyway.

I know what to do now. I'll snap some pics when I get my element and fan installed!

[sonate]

Thanks Phil. That was very helpful! 
I saw the brackets and was going to wing it, but figured I'd ask anyway.

I know what to do now. I'll snap some pics when I get my element and fan installed!

After all this time, how has the heating element held up. I'm presently doing the same basic mod and with the Tempco CSF00131, I want to make one suggestion about orienting the element so that the center heating element allows convection upward through the heatsinks, in other words, simply rotate the element 90 degrees along its long axis. When you look down at it, you should see the narrow part of the rectangular heating element.  Of course, if the sufficient fan circulation does indeed reach the bottom of the element as you have it mounted, that would in itself provide airflow and make the orientation less critical but this is doubtful, though I'm sure it does help immensely evening out the compartment temperatures.

The Tempco heater can reach 1200 deg so putting both the heater and a fan with a blower wheel within a vented enclosure will ensure the high volume of air flow the heating element needs to prevent it from glowing cherry red. A glowing heater for the half hour or so required to come up to temp will dramatically shorten the heating element life.

You will likely find that the existing wiring is woefully inadequacy and will burn through the insulation after the first light use. You need to get lead wires which are designed to withstand the high temp and ceramic covers for the exposed element AC hookup or run the risk of something inadvertently falling on them and shorting them.  You can find both at Omega.





Absolutely nice clean work you did.  Greg