Dual Element upgrade help

[one8tvw]

Dont post much here, but do lurk often. I was wondering if anyone is in the South Jersey/Philly Suburbs area that can give me a hand adding the second element and getting this PID tuned up. Beer/meat or money for your troubles can be had. I am a mechanic not an electrician, so I'm not trying to screw anything up. Thanks in advance.

[rexster]

If you do a search in the forum for PID and second element you will find everything you want to know about doing this.

[Habanero Smoker]

Hi one8tvw;

Welcome to the forum.

The wiring is not that difficult, and you should be able to complete it on your own. Below is a fairly detailed link for adding a second element to the digital.

Additional Heating Element Modification

If you don't already have high temperature wire, the easiest source is Allied Kenco

[tskeeter]

One8tvw,  a couple of suggestions as you go about this modification.  I've found a carbide coated "rod" saw blade for a hacksaw to work well for notching the ceramic heating element holder.  Files, Dremel milling bits, etc. didn't work so well for me.  Seems I paid less than $5 for the rod saw at Home Depot.  For making holes in the heat shield to accept the second heating element I've tried a few different techniques.  Drill bits caught on the light sheet metal and twisted stuff up pretty good.  A hole punch didn't like tougher than it looks sheet metal.  By the time I'd beat a hole through, I'd broken the spot welds.  What really worked well was a step drill.  The hole was clean and neat, with a small flange curling to the inside of the hole.  No broken welds or twisted up reflector.

In a slightly different version of this modification, the forum member didn't pull the new wires all the way back to plug on the back of the smoker cabinet.  He simply crimped ring terminals on either end of a piece of high temp wire a couple of inches or so long,  One end was connected to the stud on the original heating element and the other end to the stud on the new, second, heating element.  He's not reported any problems over the past couple of years, so the wiring in the Bradley seems to be adequate for operating both elements.  (Note that the wire between the plug on the smoker cabinet and the original heating element contains a fusible link.  If the dual element mod was pulling too much power over the single conductor, the link would be failing.)  The best part of this approach is you don't have to remove the back of the smoker cabinet to install wiring.