Any improvements in 2015 Bradleys?

[haveagoldenday]

I am using a 3 year old Original 4 shelf Bradley.  I love the ease of electric power, the no worry smoking with automatic puck feeds.  However the quality of the unit is lacking.  The first year, I replaced door twice, heating elements, cracked legs.  I have never been totally satisfied with the slow preheating as well My door now is in need of repair or replacing again.  I am considering a new model, perhaps even going to a competing brand.  Can anyone tell me if the 2015 Bradley models address any of these past problems?  I could even consider going to the bigger stainless steel digital model if someone can tell me if there have been improvements.  If not, does anyone know if Bradley has better models on the drawing board?
Any advice or feedback would be greatly appreciated.

[TedEbear]

I haven't heard of any major changes for 2015. 

I have a Bradley OBS that's about 5 years old.  I had some problems with slow getting up to temp, widely fluctuating chamber temps, a cracked faceplate due to poor design of the front feet placement and a cracked door at the hinges.  I did a little research and I found fixes for all of the above issues and now I'm happy with my Bradley.

Look through the mod section at the link below and see if you want to do a few fixes to yours rather than buying a whole new smoker.

Bradley Accessories - User Modifications

[KyNola]

The new BS611 smoker addressed nearly all of the issues you listed as well as moving the heat control into the smoke generator instead of the old slide control that was located at the bottom of the tower.  The heating element is the same 500 watt element.

As for the stainless steel digital, they no longer make that unit.

[tskeeter]

Wow, you've had some challenges.

I wonder if your OBS was from a period of time when there were some quality problems with a batch or two of heating elements.  I got my digital model shortly after the heating element problems occurred and haven't had any issues with heating elements.

I've had my  six rack digital about three years now, and haven't had any issues with the door or the legs.  Seems to me that the door and leg issues that I've read about are related to the OBS model.  If you prefer not to modify the door/hinges on your OBS, maybe a digital would work better for you.

No doubt about it, a Bradley was designed for low and slow smoking.  Unless you're more patient than I am, the heating can be a challenge under adverse conditions.  For a variety of reasons, I opted to do a dual element mod with a PID.  However, a forum member posted recently about replacing the stock heating element with a 750 watt finned element (installed in the same fashion as the 900 watt mod).  That would boost the heating capacity by about 50% and still keep the electrical load within the design specs of the Bradley wiring and controls.

I gave away a Masterbuilt digital and got a Bradley in order to get the puck feeder.  For me, that was a good decision because, even with the limitations of a Bradley,  it made unattended over night smokes of pork shoulder possible.  How you find a satisfactory solution to your dilemma.