First cook w/ servo mounted to Weber kettle

Yesterday I did the first cook w/ HM controlling the vent of a weber kettle using a servo only (6h ribs at ~110°C).
Here is the graph (we use °C and 24h time format in Europe :

I prepared the kettle with a minion ring. PID settings were: P = 15, I = 0, D = 0.
@11:15 put the ribs on the grill
@12:20 the setpoint dropped to 25°C due to playing around w/ alarm settings
@16:15 changed the PID settings to P = 15, I = 0,001, D = 20.
@17:10 guess what happened


As requested by Ralph , here is a short video of opening an closing the vent (this was not made during the cook, but afterwards by using the "invert output" option). I did upload the video to photobucket, hope this works.


Next step would be, to build a connection box, as used with the RD3, but I guess sourcing the parts is not so easy from Europe.

Thats pretty damn cool!

@17:10 the coal finished off?

I agree with RalphTrimble btw. That's really impressive!

Andre Sy said:

@17:10 the coal finished off?

Click to expand...

No, Dinner time ;-)

You can manage up to 16h with a minion ring. For the ribs I only laid out half of the ring and there where some unburned briquetes left over.

Hi Thomas,

Sorry to dig up an old thread....

I'm going to try rigging up a heater meter to my 22" kettle and don't want to drill holes for a fan/damper right now. I like the set-up you went with here. What servo did you use? Additionally, what lengths are all of your linkages?

Are you still using the set-up? Are you still liking it? Any enhancements?