Heatmeter for pellet wood smoker

Is anyone using a Heatermeter to control a pellet smoker?
I think there would be a pretty big market if there was a set up option for it.

The output function would be changed from a % fan speed to % on during a time interval.
With a pellet PID controller a time interval is chosen by the user, t= 20sec for example and during each time interval the auger is turned on for the % output from the PID calculation; example 25%: auger runs 5 seconds off for 15 seconds.

Has anyone already written or can someone write the code for this?

I wish I could but I don't know how to program.

Thank you
Steve

I think this can be accomplished in the solid state relay mode ie: set min fan speed to 100. This puts the fan output into a 10 second interval, so if the heatermeter says you need 30% fan, it will activate the output for 3 of 10 seconds, every 10 seconds. I don't know how granular you can set it, others with SSR setups might be able to chime in.

Don't most pellet smokers have a thermostat that controls the burn already?

Yes smokers have thermostats of varying quality built in. Some of the very expensive ones come with PID controllers for better temp control. But non have the features of the Heatermeter , 4 thermometers and wifi monitoring and control.

An adjustable time interval. Is needed for smoke quantity control.

So are you looking to control the pellet auger, air flow, or both?

The pellet auger needs to be controlled for sure. Varying the fan speed would. Be a nice bonus.

I wish I had some experience with a pellet smoker, I would be better equipped to help you. Like Steve_M said, you can set the HM blower to Min 100% and Max 100%, this will make it cycle full on/off for brief intervals of time rather than ramping up and down in speed. Then instead of connecting a blower to the HM output you connect a 12V relay, wire up whatever voltage your auger needs (assuming 120VAC?) to the switched end of the relay to drive your auger. That said, the HM wants to see the effect of it's output on the pit temp, so I'm not sure how that would work out cause I don't know if adding additional pellets is going to have direct effect on the temp?
The air flow part is easy, the HM was designed to do that.... So you could possibly run two Heater Meters, one for air and another for the auger, but I'm not sure you would get the result you are looking for with the auger part.

The auger is the primary control it drops pellets into the fire pot where they are burned immediately. The size of the fire increases varies to control temp. The fan is a secondary control. In fact it is most always run fixed speed

Well, then you could give the system I outlined above with the relay a try on your auger I guess... Still don't know how the HM would react to it, but with custom PID settings it would seem you could dial it in perhaps.

I made a control system for a home made pellet smoker a few years ago, and some challenges I noted with pellet systems are:

1) fan needs to be on 100%...since it is at 100%, the fan is not used for temp control but to make sure there is no sooty smutty burn of pellets.

2) The auger motor cannot be driven for long time periods or the burn pot will overfill. Typical auger motor is 2 rpm for a pellet stove, faster drive motor speeds can be used with shorter 'on' duty cycle. A windshield wiper motor or electric window motor has the torque but these are pretty fast like 25 RPM.

3) It takes a relatively long time to burn pellets compared to the [on/off] 'control cycle' of feeding a handful of pellets

4) Starting with all the mechanicals optimized is better than building everything from scratch.

5) the lag time between adding pellets and burning them make PID tuning difficult.

The control system I built for a pellet smoker used a 12v PID controller to drive a repeat cycle timer, which in turn drove the auger motor. The fan ran 100% of the time to keep the pellet pot from smouldering.

The PID controller powered the cycle timer circuit as long as the PID sensed the need for heat. The cycle timer was used to drive the pellet auger for 5-10 seconds (to push pellets) and then wait for a couple of minutes or so, and then repeat the 5-10 second auger drive cycle, then wait again.... as long as it remained powered on.

I have a thread on another BBQ forum with the detailed description of how it worked and the parts I used, but as you say "it ain't no Heatermeter".

I think Heatermeter could absolutely be used for temp monitoring and PID control and the cool web stuff. Have the Heatermeter drive the repeat cycle timer and manually set the " on" and "off" times on the cycle timer for your pellet drive hardware.

Here's a link to the cycle timer I used: http://www.futurekit.com/2009/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=226&Itemid=174

I'd love to see a HM controlled pellet assembly. There's a kit to pellet fire a WSM that looks cool, I'm just spoiled by the HM.

Yup same here, would love to see something since that is my main way of smoking meat. I was lucky that my pellet grill has a stock remote so I just used a Ardiuno Uno and a nrf905 chip to mimic the remote so that I can access it over the internet. But a heatermeter controlled one would be great. But yes you would need something to prime the firepot, start the glow rod, modulate fan speed and control auger.

I think if you put the glow rod and fan on individual switches, you could use the Heatermeter and the Futurekit cycle timer with minimal effort once the feed rate for the pellet drive is established. I am willing to send someone my Futurekit cycle timer board if you have all the other hardware (the pellet smoker and a HM Pi) to give it a try.

I had this idea also, I came across this post and have tried to contact him to get the design files. My hope was to somehow integrate what he did to my HM