Comp questions

dean,
here goes
1- i have never had a breakdown with my fec (or my sm150 for that matter)
2- i have absolute faith in it and to be honest i sleep right next to it in our trailer every friday. it has never given me one mins concern to do so.
3- for power we use honda eu3000is generators but i know people who use marine baterries and 400w inverters with no problems.
4- where we live it is very humid and as a matter of fact it has rained everyday for the past 6 weeks but since we always vacuum out the hopper and firepot that is no problem.
5- using trager pellets i wasn't able to hold the temp i wanted on smoke setting so i switched to bbqrs delite pellets with good results. i know people who swear by fast eddy's pellets so just experiment around to find the pellets that lets you cook the best.
6- my fec is 1 year old and is used hard every weekend cooking for the farmers market and has never given me a moments pause
7- cookshacks service is great!!!
hope this helps you some
8- the health dept loves the nsf sticker. i love being able to get some sleep
jack

I have had problems, but you'll not see me giving up my FEC100! I'm going to start using my generator more though (even with provided electricity). Just to get consistent power. I always plug in my FE right away on Friday, if I have a problem I know Tony at Cookshack can talk me thru a repair (been there done that!)

Welcome Dean.

6 contests this year, running 2 FEC100's.

100% reliability when I run on my marine batteries and inverters. Batts are $60 and the Inverters from Lowe's were about $30.

60% or less when using supplied power. Their generator ran out of gas at 3am at one contest and it wouldn't restart. At another contest, too many people who didn't order power plugged into the generator and kept popping the circuit breaker.

As far as equipment, I had one igniter go out (before the contest) so I just manually started the pellets with one of those wax chunks. I would recommend learning the specifics incase you had a problem. I always start both of them several hours before I need them, just to make sure they start. I also have a spare board, but that hasn't failed.

As an aside, my two run really well on the inverters, actually better because the power appears to be "cleaner" than normal electricity.

Hope that helps.

Smokin'

Thanks you for your help. Now that you have answered some of my questions about reliability, i have been reading other posts and have confused myself about temps with the FE. Do some pellets burn hotter than others? If so, why? If I want the FE to cook at 250 for 14 hours can that be accomplished? Also, what is the difference top to bottom? Thanks for being paitence.

Smokin' has a great chart that maps the temp differentials in the FE cooking chamber.

Yes, different pellets burn differently due to a couple of factors. Compression amount in the pellet machine is one and the btu content of the wood is the other main factor. I cook consistently at 235 (at the 250 setting) with apple blend pellets for as long as I want to cook.

quote:

Originally posted by SmokinOkie:
Welcome Dean.<br /><br />6 contests this year, running 2 FEC100's.<br /><br />100% reliability when I run on my marine batteries and inverters. Batts are $60 and the Inverters from Lowe's were about $30.

Been doing a lot of reading about inverters and batteries. All the inverters I've seen that are suggested (pure sine) seem to be about $250. I'm curious which brand you're using from Lowe's and I'm assuming it's a modified sine for that money??

I'd feel better having a recommendation from someone that's having success rather then buying something, simply to return it when it doesn't work.

Thanks!

Like Smokin says,we use the $50 + battery from Sam's and a $30 invertor.

Just our experience,but I guess we weren't smart enough to use the higher priced ones.

They have been working for almost three years.

Tom-Fl

That's a thread from a couple of years ago. There are several threads about sine wave, etc. I never had any issue on my digital readout.

I don't know about the IQ needs.

In my trailer, I went with a inverter/charger. I'll have to find that thread and show you. It's a higher dollar automatic unit that I love. I got it based on recommendations here.

Well getting my FEC up to speed and running on batteries is something I need to get on before my next comp in case the house power is shaky. Of course, spending as little to do this is optimum.

I'll look into it and post my findings with exact models/prices that worked.

I got my inverters from Sam's Club. They were on clearance and I paid $15 for them....

Take a look at this post:
http://forum.cookshack.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/550103888...711013834#1711013834

The unit has a built in transfer switch, so you can use the power from the event site, but when it gets too low, or the breaker gets tripped, it will switch over to the inverter and use the battery. When the power comes back on, it will convert back to the line service. I use this as my safety net for competitions. This is a sine-wave inverter that works with my FEC-100, it does not have the IQ4 controller, so I do not know if you need the sine-wave inverter, but it is a cleaner signal, so it will not hurt anything.