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I bought my smoker in July and today I lit it up after being dormant for 3 weeks (been on a diet that I'm still on but I'm trying whole chickens now instead of beef or pork). It started by tripping the outlet after a minute or so of use and then started tripping various breakers the outlets I tried it on were hooked to. Finally, I got it to stay on after running it to various spots in the house (trial and error.)

3 hours in, the fire went out and it never lit up again. It's trying to light the fire as I can hear the blower going and feel the air moving in the unit. The pellets are even dropping down the chute but the heating area is cold as can be. I dug out the ash (it was clean when I started it up today by the way) and found hardened chunks of what looked like coal in the burner area. It was full of wood too since it was feeding a non-existent flame.

I cleaned it out completely again, replugged everything in, and tried about 5 times (unplugging each time.) Every time it started up the fan and auger, and fed pellets down to the fire pit but it never lit up. I've read that the heating elements can go out on these things so I will be calling customer service tomorrow morning. I am a bit disappointed that it has this kind of a problem after only owning it for 2 months. I'm hoping the customer service lives up to its name tomorrow and rectifies the problem.

I'll post what I find out or have to go through tomorrow when I get in touch with them. I will say that I've absolutely enjoyed the unit to date and have cooked in it over a dozen times since buying it without a single problem. The only "problems" I've had with the unit are that the exhaust pipe was slightly dented (I guess from moving) and the power cord under the electronics console is not sealed to the bottom of the unit (the little silver ring that screws in was dangling under the control box.) Hopefully my problem can and will be fixed rather quickly. Wish me luck!

Thanks,
Gamer Outfit
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The ground issue is usually caused by an ignitor problem (least the ones I know of) so if you're tripping a circuit AND don't have an ignitor, then you're doing the right thing.

you should also have a backup. IF an ignitor goes bad, you can start one manually, you can use gel or a wax start block, both work. That will hold you until you call CS.

No worries, they'll take care of it.

Smokin'
Right now my only problem is installing the ignitor. I don't what kind of pneumatic system they used to screw it on but I have one screw that so far I have not been able to remove (pratically sitting on the screw driver too.) Hopefully that gets out of the way soon enough and then I get to figure out how to connect the wires (they disappear into the electronics cabinet.) Wink
Probably time to learn what all those wires do. The biggest thing to know is IF you disconnect any, know where they go back (depending on how old, the connectors MAY or MAY NOT still have the color)

The temp probe has some wires running from the cabinet to inside the controller (you'll need a jeweler's straight screwdriver to get to it)
I got the screw out. I read on a Google site that you can super heat the area and sometimes that does enough to cause the metal to break it's "lock". I never thought of that considering heat causes expansion in metal, but it worked! A short application of my propane torch later, it loosened.

I talked with Tony at Cookshack and he walked me through the process of connecting the wires. What I wasn't clear on before was that I also had to remove the panel on the side and pull the wires through from the smoking cabinet into the side cabinet. Once that was done it was all easy goings. Like you said, at least now I understand what is in the cabinet and the "magic" is out of the way.

I tested the unit and it fired right up like it used to. Thanks for the support and Cookshack lived up to it's name in that realm as well. Smiler

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