Stoker Food Probes - 5 degrees high when fan is on?


 

Pat McCreight

TVWBB Pro
Does anyone else have this problem? It seems that when the blower is running, the food temp probes report 5 degrees higher than when the blower is off. This is what I'm seeing through Stokerlog.
 
I had this problem when I first got my unit and the 10cfm fan.

It would show up intermittently with everything connected normally and constantly when trying to use extensions between the fan/probes and the Stoker unit.

John swapped out the power supply for the laptop style supply and my problems went away.

I attributed it to not enough current from the power supply for the 10cfm blower which was made worse by the voltage drop in the extensions.

Jeff
 
I've also had the problem. Mine only showed up when i used an extension cable with the y adapter. When i used seperate wires everything was fine. I think the current draw from the fan was causing the problem.

Kenny Davis
 
Yep, if you use an extension cable from the stoker out to a "y" adapter and then split for the temp probes and fan, you'll get this discrepency. Kenny is right in that it is an issue with the current draw the interference it causes when the fan comes on.

I had the same problem. Now I use two seperate cables coming from the Stoker box -- 1 directly to the fan and the other to my "y" adapter for all of the meat probes and the pit probe.
 
I'm running extension cables. So, if I understand correctly, having the blower on 1 cord by itself and the temp and pit probes on another should alleviate the problem?
 
Pat, yes that should take care of your problem. If the Stoker box is further away than the standard wire of the fan or probes, just use seperate extension cables -- where the fan is on its own extension and the probe wires on a different extension (with splitters if needed).
 
Well I ran the temp probes on one extension and just plugged the blower into the stoker. Everything was fine and there were no fluctuations.

I run 3 WSM at comps with the stoker, and I don't want 6 cords. Do you think you could run more than one blower on an extension cable, or does that "overload" it?
 
Pat, I don't think you would see the flunctuations in the temp readings if you ran multiple fans on an extension. But I'm not sure if there would be enough power to run the fans if they all needed to come on at the same time. You could probably build a new cable with a heavier guage wire to provide the current needed.

My only suggestion would be to try this at home sometime before a comp and see what happens. I've learned the hard way, trying new things at comps isn't a good idea.
 
I agree, I have all winter to figure this out.

Ideally, I would run 3 fans on one extension cable, and then one or two more extension cables for the pit probes and temp probes.

While I'm at it, I think I'll extend the length of the pit and temp probes...they are just a couple feet to short.

I'm not familiar with soldering, but I'm handy enough so I should be able to figure it out.
 

 

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