I had a bit of a problem about 2 weeks ago with my FE100. I didn't want to make an issue about it because you all that are waiting for your new units may get the wrong idea. I think what happened was a freak but it is possible again that it could happen. That is that the fire went out!!! Yep plum out, dead, no more! Let me tell you what can happen and something about much that I have learned from Eddy about how this thing works.
Now don't get all worried about this, it probably was a freak thing that ole Murphy did after finding where I live. There are a few things that could have occured. Like most computers if you get a nanosecond power glith it is like a gamma ray hits the processor and it goes beserk. Just reset and forget until it happens again in maybe about another 1000 years. Could be while in the idle (smoke) mode, I'll explain the sequence shortly, a gust of wind blew the fire out. Or the sequence is not tuned or adjusted correctly. A real easy fix!
So what happened was sometime during the middle of the cook session, about 2 AM, I woke and glanced at the remote thermometer and it was about 20 degrees cooler than when I looked at it last...panic...grab a jacket and keys to the "Q" trailer, look at the probed thermometer and sure enough, a glance at the digital read out and it is way low, open the door, no fire but I found a pile of unburned pellets building up and overflowing the auger pot as well as smoke bellowing out of the hopper. After the smoke cleared I found the hopper was smoldering meaning that fire got back in there! Hoping for the best I ripped the bottom shelf out and the drip pan and cleaned out the pellets, which I didn't keep, and burning my hands getting hot and charred pellets from the hopper, getting scary huh? Filled it with new pellets and saying a silent prayer as I turned the switch back on...hooray Murphy has left the building! Everything has been normal since then but now I always use a probe testing the air temp with a "down" temp alarm! Remember I am cooking commercially, I may need that meat to be finished by the time I open.
One other thing I need to mention...when this flame out occured it was the very first long burn at 225*F since I had moved the FE100 into the building and installed an 8 foot flue pipe! It used to be outside under a shed. I thought this was probably the problem but am almost convinced it is not!
There are ways to prevent this "back fire" according to Eddy. Apparently when you turn off the machine and it is burning like a blow torch it is possible for fire to creep back to the hopper...no harm is really done but you may want to clean out the charred pellets, I guess, maybe not. To prevent this according to Eddy, and it makes sense, whenever you are ready to turn off the unit take a garden hose with a pistol type nozzle and bury that down as deep as you can into the hopper. Have someone at the water valve end turn....no no no...just kidding. Did I start to getcha? When you get ready to shut her/he down turn the control to "smoke" for about 10 minutes then turn it off! That'll let the pellets burn down while the auger is still active.
Now back to the initial problem, my problem, apparently! If you haven't yet figured out how this thing controls its temperature then let me explain how I was told and how I understand it. I could be a little off base but I don't think so. When you turn the unit on the auger begins to turn and the heating rod turns on. I think it is on for 4 minutes to light the pellets. If while in the middle of a cooking session the power goes off for x amount of time the unit recyles like it has been off and then the rod heats up again. But no harm really done since there is already a fire going. However I think I have noticed maybe a small temp spike but I'm not really sure and I doubt it is noticable to the cooking process. The auger continues to feed the pot until the temperature setting is achieved. At that point the unit goes into the "Smoke" mode! That is that the auger is off for 50 seconds and on for 15 seconds until the temperature drops x amount of degrees and then the auger runs continously again until it reaches the set temp...so on and so forth. I am not sure the values of x or if they are significent. By the way when you initially start the unit dry you almost always may have to turn the control off and back on to get a fire. The 4 minutes the heating rod is on doesn't seem like enough time for the pellets to reach the auger. Twice will always get it though.
I'm getting awlfully windy here! eh?
There is an adjustment if your machine has changed, apparently like mine, why? Don't know for sure...but after playing with electronics since a teen I do know that sometime electronic components can change their value if they don't in fact break. When they change then adjustments are generally needed. When they break...into the garbage if it is digital! The old tube radios and TV's were quite forgiving when components changed and tubes were easily replaceable, not true with todays digital wonders.
There is a small square shaped black block which is an incremental adjustable device right on the back of the temperature controller in the upper left hand corner as you look at the back of the controller at the board. It has an arrow to show you the indexing. Eddy says it should be on the #2 position...I found mine on 3 and it set to his specs on #1! On 3 there was a 75 second off auger time...in the smoke mode, or idle as I call it, it should go out, wind or no wind....just not enough fuel. I think I was on the threshold. The on time always remains 15 seconds when you make the adjustment.
If you ever decide to make this adjustment I advise you first to talk to Eddy or Cook Shack to make sure I haven't left anything out or to make sure that is where your problem may be and that you don't void any warrantees.
Other than that one visit from Murphy I have had absolutely no problem with my rig. But I am still a little gun shy.
Has anyone else had any similar experiences?
Enough!
Peter
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