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10 replies

wanna be pellethead?

FM Former Member
Hi, my name is Greg and I'm a possible future pellethead. Stuart was gracious enough to loan us a FEC100 for a catering job, of course he is hoping we'll buy it (which makes 2 of us, one more to convince Wink). After a quick lesson we hauled it home and this morning fired it up. I had to move off a GFI outlet but other than that it was chugging along with 5 turkeys in it. Started at 180° for 2.5 hours then to 250°. About 5 hours in put thermos in a couple turkeys and learned the next lesson. Doors that open to the side instead of up can burn the crap out of your elbow Eeker Turkeys will be done soon and I'll let it cool down, clean it, and load it with pork butts, so far so good!
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FM Former Member
Max, I promise he will see that cooker again. (We only live 40 miles from Ponca City so we do several of the same competitions each year Smiler)
On the other hand, my wife going out to check things at 3:30am and finding the FEC shut down isn't going to help my cause. It had tripped the GFI again after running for 7 hours with no problem.
FM Former Member
The early morning glitch can probably be attributed to operator error. I restarted it when she found it off, then went back out a little later to check and the temp was 108°. Not a good thing with 18 butts needing to be ready for lunch Mad In my defense I will remind everyone that this was my first time with a pellet pooper. Did a little troubleshooting and came to the conclusion that the GFI was tripped by the heating element coming on trying to light imaginary pellets. So after I put more pellets in it things were marvy Red Face On the plus side, we took it with us and used it to keep the meat hot until we needed it on the serving line and my wife liked that part.
Y yellow-03Member
There have been other posts about tripped GFI circuits. It could be several things besides the cooker itself, including loose connections somewhere in the circuit, moisture somewhere in the circuit, or even something as simple as a wire hanging down some place it shouldn't behind the IQ4 front panel. One poster simply updated their GFI to a new one and solved their problem.

Both my FEC-100 and my Traeger Lil Tex are sitting on a GFI protected circuit... so it does work that way. Don't lose hope.

I love my FEC-100! Made beef jerky and chuckies on Saturday... usually at least something once or twice a week.
FM Former Member
I read a bunch of the posts on the GFIs yesterday. It tripped in the shed (2 yrs old) and on my trailer (new this spring) and my 500 watt inverter.
So anyway, I'm getting ready to clean it and think, why not? Took the side cover off and noticed the 2 white wires going into the fan housing were a little frayed. To make a long story short, some electrical tape seems to have taken care of the GFI problem.
FM Former Member
quote:
Originally posted by SmokinOkie:
GFI means a grounding problem, usually it's the Ignitor. Glad you found the problem.

After looking at the schematics, they do indeed appear to be the wires for the ignitor and the housing I referred to is the end of the burn box. It had rubbed enough insulation off the wires to cause it to trip.

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