Hi,
I bought a used cookshack 260 and have had a lot of electrical trouble with it. I've been on the phone with Bill at cookshack but cant reach him because of the weekend. I have A LOT of problems, some of which may be connected, so I'm just going to lay it out as best as I can.
First, the temperature display always shows 100 degrees despite the fact that the over is clearly much much hotter. This leads to the machine being completely unable to regulate its temperature. I've put my own probes into the machine and found it to be running at 350+ while still displaying 100 on the display panel. My GM and I are relatively competent junior electricians, so we've taken it apart and measured the voltage output, as per bill's request, from the temperature probe and it seems to be sending the correct signal to the display. We do have moments when the display will properly show the temperature that should be shown based upon the voltage output of the probe, but the moments are few and far between.
Having seen this, we assumed there was a loose wire connection or perhaps frayed wire somewhere in the chain. We took the top off of the smoker and found that the wiring had been run under the insulation and that parts of the plastic casing had melted slightly. However, no wire was exposed and the wire that came from the probe to the display unit was undamaged. So we moved the wiring to atop the insulation and resealed the machine.
Next, we discovered that the "door close" light that we had always assumed to be non functional was just disconnected. We reconnected the wiring there and cleaned the wiring to the contact surface where the door close sensor was and it began working. I don't know if it holds any relevance at all, but I figured I would include it.
Next, we consulted the oldest wiring diagram we could find- 6.1- which is still newer than our smoker but similar. It appears that the color of the wires coming out of our power cord are differently purposed than the wiring diagram shows- meaning we have the same color wiring, but they're going to different places. I don't know if this is of any importance.
Further, the diagram shows a green ground wire coming from #4 of the relay in the center of the unit. We have a brown wire not attached to the ground but going in to a electric board and into the head unit.
Finally, this morning I came in to find the smoker was beeping and displaying an "over temp" warning. I had put meat in seven hours prior and found it at around 60 degrees with the smoker heating elements off. As far as I can figure, it was unable to regulate its temperature, heated up uncontrollably, and then for whatever reason made its connection and discovered that the temp was far too high and shut itself of.
So. We have a problem that we've tried to work through in a lot of different ways but can't seem to find a solution. The erratic nature of the problem makes it incredibly hard to diagnose.
I'd appreciate any feedback from anyone who has had a similar issue or can help with this one.
Thanks again,
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