Fire Out Again

Man David, so sorry to hear about this. It would upset me also.

A couple questions....

Are you using the comps electricity to run the FEC?

Is your fire pot Stainless Steel or the cast iron one?

What are using for exhaust setup?

quote:

Originally posted by cal:
Man David, so sorry to hear about this. It would upset me also.

A couple questions....

Are you using the comps electricity to run the FEC?

Is your fire pot Stainless Steel or the cast iron one?

What are using for exhaust setup?

Using my own generator. My motorhome has a built in gen with a surge system built in.

Fire pot is SS

Exhaust ( when I use it) is a simplicity elbow I turn away from direct wind.

I think the temp swings too high when I have it set to 190 and it burns out before the probe cools down fast enough to start the auger to feed ample pellets.

Also BBQR's pellets

Since you are monitoring the temps, at what point of the cook is it going out on you?

Are you transporting it empty of pellets?

Fired smoker on arrival and baked a couple of potatoes at 300 then shut down for about 5 hours. Barely any ash so I didn't need to wipe out pot.

Restarted at 8pm set to 194 for 9 hrs then ramp to 250 at that point. Put meat on at 9pm and according to stoker graph. The FEC didn't recover from a 25 degree upswing and the constant down swing hit 120 at 1:50am I checked about 1:55 (From Bed) got up and found a firepot full to the top of pelletts..

After I bare handed emptied the pot at the bottom were a few embers imbedded in the ash but it seems that because of the swing the cooker started dumping pellets on the small existing fire that it smothered it out.

I really think I have either a bad probe or or the bad controller board.

I noticed that while my stoker would have a 6 degree rise or drop in pit temp (Placed adjacent to factory probe) within about a 15-20 second window, the FEC panel temp indicator would remain the same or move only 2 degrees an then it would make a sudded 6-10 change in temp indication.

This tells me its either a bad probe. (Cheap Fix) or a bad controller circuit.

I'm told that the new controller that requires a new front SS panel has some mods that show auger speed that will help to tell the state of operation .

Pellets in the hopper during transport have no bearing on this issue.... I'm going to leave that at the kindergarden level of user...........

Have you recently removed the fire pot and vacuumed out the air chamber? Once mind had quite a bit of ash in it.

Another thing I have found on mine is it needs the fire pot to fit tightly or this messes with the air flow enough to make a difference. I ended up putting hose clamps around the fire pot on the left side to clamp it down tight. Although the gap was small, by closing it, it reduced my pellet usage quite a bit and my temp stayed at set point better.

Just some ideas. Been down that frustrated road myself but now that it's working I love it so don't give up!

Yes I have taken it out and I often blow the firepot holes back out thru the duct. It fits the channel flush. I think I have a component and not a design issue.

To spend $1,000+ on a comp and have the most reliable cooker on the market fail twice is somewhat of a dissapointment at the $4,000 price tag.

First time I brought up the swing I got an ALL CAPS REPLY from Mr FEC himself blaming it on pellets. At which point I thought F(^*)^)k Him...

David,
I feel your pain! I too had major issues with the fire going out or firepot flame up tripping the hi temp shut off switch (the fire went out, the pot filled with pellets and then an ember lights the whole thing). I bought a Maverick ET-732 with hi and lo temp alarm. It's $46 on an E-Bay site linked on the thermometer forum. Tony at Cookshack worked with me until I got the bugs worked out. It has worked flawlessly since then. I still use the 732 on overnight cooks so I can sleep better. Hang in there!

My fire pot has gone out twice at comps and both times I was using off brand pellets running an apple/pecan mix with the cast iron pot. David, are you using a 100% flavor wood? I theorized that with the low btu's it would over feed pellets which somehow would smother the fire by feeding pellets when the high fan wasn't on. When I switched to a 70/30 blend all was good. Currently I'm running with a SS pot and use either Cookshack 70/30 hickory or 100% hickory. I have also used Green Mountain pellets without issues. I have yet to try the SS pot with 100% flavor wood pellets.

I am waiting on my SS pot to get here so I can change it over, I have had a few issues on my new FEC-100 also.

That being said, I will continue to use it with the BBQ Guru ProCom4 to monitor it and let me know if the temp starts to drop.

All cookers can have issues, I was cooking a Turkey on my BGE Sunday and with my stoker I could not get the temp up over 300, and I have had the egg up to 650 plus doing steaks before.

I had cleaned it out before the cook, so all I can think is that I had some bad lump.

David have you spoken with Tony @ CS about this? I know there have been a lot of discussions about losing fire in the FEC. I'd probably go half berserk to lose a fire overnight at a comp.

I've run my 100 for 3 years now with never losing a fire...including many overnight cooks. I've always used the CS/FE hickory or mesquite pellets. My 100 has the 46 control board and the steel pot. Just putting that out there...know it doesn't lessen your frustration.

I'd chat with Bill. His knowledge base would promt me to think he can find an answer/fix for you.

Good luck!

quote:

Tony at Cookshack worked with me until I got the bugs worked out. It has worked flawlessly since then.

Joe M would it be possible for you to share with us the bugs you had and how you fixed them?

quote:

Originally posted by PorkPie:

quote:

Tony at Cookshack worked with me until I got the bugs worked out. It has worked flawlessly since then.

Joe M would it be possible for you to share with us the bugs you had and how you fixed them?

Check the other threads first. I believe he's documented his problems and fixes there.

I just want to keep this one on David's issues so we can find that one out first.

David, I'm with the guys. Call CS today and get new parts if you think that's the issue.

uh, yeah, ok.

I couldn't find a thread from JoeM regarding the fixes... Maybe we need a "search guru" to find it for us....

Me either, seems like an attempt to just throw a wet blanket on the whole issue.

quote:

Originally posted by Nordy:
I couldn't find a thread from JoeM regarding the fixes... Maybe we need a "search guru" to find it for us....

Search guru heere

Go to anyone's Profile, there is a link "view all posts by this person". I didn't look through all 5 pages, but you can start here



http://forum.cookshack.com/eve...tType=1&u=2522938217

Talked to Bill at Cookshack today. He seemed to understand the environment and situation.

He is sending me a complete controller unit and temp prove with the new SS housing at no charge.

I think this will fix my problem. It may be a blanket fix, but that it good enough for me.

I have always found Bill at CS to be an awesome person to work with! I hope the new parts fix your problem.

Although I have not had any flame outs with my new(er) FEC100, I will say that it does not work like my 2008 FEC100 (fe46 model). The newer FEC's run louder, the fan blows alot more often, pellet ash blows around everywhere, and it runs on average about 10 degrees below the set temp. It's still a great smoker, but I wish they were still making the fe46 model.

Edit: I forgot that I have had 1 flameout with the newer FEC100.

Got the new controller in yesterday. I installed it and just fired up the cooker to see if I had hooked everything up correctly. I set it to cook at 194 and after about 45 minutes it settled into the 190-200 range.

Today I cooked a couple of racks working on new flavor profiles and I'll be damned if everytime I looked at the temp display it was dead on 274! By the way, 274 is what I had it set on. It seems that part of my assumptions and Bill from Cookshack's were correct.

The FEC100 held a good temp and while i didn't stoker map the cook I believe my problems are fixed!

Now I can't blame bad contest scored on the Swinging Fire Out cooker!

quote:

Originally posted by David:
Now I can't blame bad contest scored on the Swinging Fire Out cooker!

Yeah, but I'd watch out for them dang judges...LOL!

Glad to hear everything is working well!