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First - Thanks, Pags for the Amazon's Maverick sale alert. I recently killed my Taylor digital remote, and need a replacement.

Second - After reading all of the negative reviews about the same design and operational flaws of the ET-73 I became skeptical. Having a very low aggravation threshold, I knew it wasn't for me. I did what RibDog mentioned, and went with the ET-732. It appears that the 732 corrects most, if not all, of the issues that reviewers had with the 73. Found it on another site for $59.95 with free shipping.
i'll have to testify on the huge improvement of the 732 over the 73.

my pair of 73 won't synch with the reciever units when more than about 3 feet away.

the 732 has been rock solid on locking on and synching, and it even works thru the night. i no longer worry about loosing synch in the middle of the night and coming down to a cold pit. (although using a SM066 eliminates that worry with the exception of a power glitch)
quote:
Originally posted by JC123:
but what are the issues ?


I've never used, or even seen an ET-73 or 732, but the reviews I read had multiple comments or complaints about the following:

- The power switch for the 73 is located inside the battery compartment. Every time you want to turn the unit on or off you need to remove the belt clip and battery compartment cover. On the 732 the power switch is external.
- The advertised maximum range for the 73 is 100 ft with most users reporting actual maximums much less than that (15 ft-30 ft). For the 732 the advertise maximum is 300 ft.
- The 73 does not alert you when your out of range or have lost a signal. It just displays the last received temperature. The 732 has an alert.
- The quality of construction of the transmitter, receiver, probes, and probe wires of the 732 is considered to be much is much sturdier than the 73.
- The probes on the 73 are heat resistant to 300F. For the 732, it's 716F.
- The 73 does not have an up/down temp setting, only up. The preset temp is 176F. If you want a lower setting, you need to cycle all the way past the maximum and start upwards from the minimum. The 732 has an up/down temp setting.
- Some commented that the 73 devoured battery's. Along the lines of having to replace a new set of Duracell's midway through an extended cook of 15-18 hours.

While some of the items mentioned above might be trivial, most to me are not.That's why I was willing to pay the extra $16 for the 732.
having used the -7 for quite a while I only give it an OK, as the signal does drop frequently regardless of distance from transmitter. I like the 2 meat probes, which the -732 does not have as the -732 probes are one for the meat and one for the oven; it would be nice if both were for meat probes.

the switches for the -7 are located on the back of both the transmitter and receiver, and readily accesible tho' tiny. No complaints on quality of contruction of the -7 and have no problems with battery life. The settings on the -7 allow selection of different meats like veal, pork poultry, etc. and each one has it's preset temp. The temp setting can easily be adjusted both up and down if you don't like the preset. I often use just the transmitter part of the -73 with the two probes; but then I can easily arrange things to see the readouts thru a window if need be.
Last edited by tnq
well i took the good info from dls and ribdog and sent my two 73 back . i already have a bunch of therms and probes that dont work good and dont need no more .

but im looking at this stoker thing for my fec .
my son sayd that it hooks up to the wireless network here at his house and i can see whats going on from anywhere . says it comes with however many probes you want to see the pit temp and everything .

does anybody have one of these stoker things ? are they any good ?
thank you tom

i understand what you say but this stoker does not drive the fec as it does on a green egg or a weber .

the box would just be for temp info in the pit and all of the meats that you are doing . i am tired of buying probes and thermometers time and time again .
this stoker looks more like a real instrument that hooks up on the house network and can show up right here on this computer or a cell phone and can have as many probes as you need .

this is just for wireless pit info and the fec just goes along like it always does .

it costs 215 dollars and extra for probes but i got ziplock bags full of busted up thermometers that prolly costs more than that you know ? you prolly got more than me ha !
Actually,like many comp cooks,I rely on Taylors.

Over more than a decade,maybe two have gone away-mostly operator error.

I have carried a maverick in the cook kit,but only used it a couple teams to watch total loss of power in the pit.I figure most regular probes are made by the same chinese prisoners and are interchangable.

We carry five,freshly checked units on each cook trip and typically one goes South by the time we get there.

Nice to stop in a box store and pick one up,if one gets run over,dropped in hot dishwater,lost,loaned, in the other vehicle,etc.$15 is cheap,1000 miles from home. Smiler
I have had issues with my temp probes going wacky. Finally realized what I think I was doing wrong. Most probes can's stand much moisture in them where the wire inserts into the actual probe. I finally realized this and now take some heat shrink material that you use on wiring and put that around them before I start using them. Haven't had one go bad since.
quote:
Originally posted by mbailey:
I finally realized this and now take some heat shrink material that you use on wiring and put that around them before I start using them. Haven't had one go bad since.

Huh... That's a great idea, hadn't thought of that. Several of mine are off by a good 20-30 degrees because of stupidity. AKA, putting them in the dishwasher. Might try to resurrect them using jka's method.
I'm certainly not happy with my 732...

First unit arrived and did not work at all. Luckily, the store gave me a replacement.

Second unit worked well on 2-3 smokes last year. This weekend was my first smoke this year. It worked for about 4 hours and then went wacky. The meat probe started reading 250F. It still hasn't recovered.

Maverick wants $17 plus probably $5-10 shipping for a new probe. Does that seem fair? Shouldn't a probe last longer than that?

Is my situation unigue?
Should I get the replacement probe or should I replace the whole unit??
JC123, I don't replace the heat shrink material every time.

I snagged an Oregon Scientific AW 131 (red) probe a while back and really like it. I have used it on over 50 cooks in our FEC 100 and I also use it to monitor our fryer oil temp in our concession trailer. So far so good on this one. Found it on sale for $39.95 but they usually retail for around $60.

They also have an AW129 (silver) which is priced a little lower but I haven't tried one yet.

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