Fans - why so expensive?


 

Kevin J

TVWBB Member
So I need a Pit Viper 10cfm fan, but for the life of me, can't figure out why they are so much money! I mean, $68 for the fan + another $15 for the mount? I'm at $100 after shipping just for a packaged up silly fan and mount. Kind of burns me, if you can't tell. I'll pay for the electronics, but the fan unit are just dumb, non-complicated mechanics.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Kevin J:
So I need a Pit Viper 10cfm fan, but for the life of me, can't figure out why they are so much money! I mean, $68 for the fan + another $15 for the mount? I'm at $100 after shipping just for a packaged up silly fan and mount. Kind of burns me, if you can't tell. I'll pay for the electronics, but the fan unit are just dumb, non-complicated mechanics. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
The name blanks me at the moment, but there's a computer fan that has a very low cfm that I think would work just fine. I have several of them in a box somewhere in the basement.
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I'll try to find them and post it for you.
 
The thing that gets me is that these fans are not for outdoor use. I think it even says this on the Stokers.

Uh, where else am I supposed to use it.

But I agree, the price is a bit much.
 
Technically they are "blowers" not exactly fans but pretty close. The blower part itself is pretty cheap:

http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail&name=P9756-ND

However, the Guru guys have made a stainless steel housing around it which includes a machined heat sink with cooling fins and an adjustable damper. You could get by with any 12 volt blower but you'd need a way to mount it such that it doesn't melt when your smoker is at 300 degrees.

-rob
 
businesses exist to make money right? ... when I think about it it doesn't seem like a rip off to me ... it's not like they will sell ten million of these things and can profit a sliver above cost per unit and still make oodles of cash ... need a reasonable profit per unit or what's the point of being in business?
 
I agree with Shawn for the most part. What I don't agree on is how much they are charging for a real simple device. The fan and probe are commodities for the most part. We've proven the logic is pretty much simple for a basic smoke. Depending on your fan CFM you have the ability to greatly swing things.

I think I need to get in touch with the e-kit guys to make a simple kit for everyone -- not sure. I satisfied my requirements for the most part.

-rob
 
I guess I thought about the total cost of the system they were offering and said it at least that valuable to me and turned out it was alot more.

I know for many of us its a hobby not a business and maybe taking the time to tinker a homemade solution is part of the fun but I expect with as much as I use my Digiq Guru in bad weather I'm surprised I havent lost a fan to this point (did have snow caked on it on one of my last cooks though) so its not weatherproof and I do my best to keep rain off of it but so far its weathered some pretty rough conditions.

It's more than a fan. It's part of an engineered system in its third almost fourth generation of development that they continue to improve upon. You have the fan and the stainless steel supports to it then the damper assembly and the mount for the WSM.


Its great we have companies that support our hobby...I hope they all make it through these tough economic times .... even if I too grumble a bit at what my toys cost from time to time.
 
I actually do agree with Shawn, but like RobM, I just feel like this particular fan/blower assembly, even with the sheet metal work and low volume production is just plain overpriced. That said, I placed my order last night since the overall package is worth it to me.
 
Personally, I would have gone with a Stoker setup. Their box is light years ahead of Guru's stuff. Even better then the yet-to-be-released "Cyber QII".

-rob
 
I'll look forward to seeing a feature comparison once the new Guru model is released...I like the guru and couldn't afford the multi smoker setup on the stoker that intreigued me when I was in the market for an automatic temprature control when I bought my Guru. But I havent in any regrets about my Guru DigiQ II purchase or the great support I've recieved.

I will try to keep an open mind until we find some good comparrisons between the two.

How does someone know that something is light years better before its even out ????
 
It just costs a lot to run a business is all I'm saying, and profit is after all expenses are paid: wages, advertising, telecoms, internet presence (website, online store etc), accounting, taxes, materials, packaging, legal fees, R&D, IT, user support, warranty claims ... on and on and on.

when you combine all of that with low sales volume price per unit has to be high

I think I griped intially about how much I forked over for my smoking jacket but when I think about all of the above plus how well it's held up I don't feel ripped off. I think it's cool the company exists at all to make these great toys for us
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.

It's all good, I'll be quiet now.
 
How does someone know that something is light years better before its even out ????

I've seen pictures of it and made a few assumptions but this I know:

- It can only control 2 pits at once. Stoker = no limit.
- There is only 1 food probe per pit. Stoker = no limit.
- It has a USB connector to a computer. Stoker = Ethernet

Based on the third observation you can assume the way it communicates to the host computer is proprietary. They could open it up using an API but I doubt that will happen anytime soon.

The Stoker has an onboard web server which opens it up for third party development. There is already some very sophisticated programs written for it and the firmware developer is currently implementing a TCP/IP API for further development.

All this and a base Stoker is $60 less than a base CyberQII.

I can't wait to see a true demo/manual of it. Should be interesting.

-rob

BTW - I have a Guru Competitor as well. I got it before the Stoker was out. Works well for what it is - but that's all it is.
 
I really don't care how you spend your money but the fact is that the stoker properly wired with StokerLog running on a PC is far more functional then the Guru products. Some might think that having all this functionality is overkill and for those people the Guru products are there for you.

We compete in the KCBS circuit and if there's anything that helps us automate the cooking process we are going to use it.

In the end, it's the cook and not the cooker but these days you'll see the teams that are on top using the best products they can find. If you want a level playing field you'll seek out the best products as well.

-rob
 
Hey Rob,

When you compete, how many stoker blowers do you use?

I compete with 3, but I have not used Stokerlog at comps yet. I'm reluctant to pay the extra $$ for electricity (run stoker off battery pack) and have not tested the application with 3 blowers going.

Just curious how you use it and your experience with multiple blowers on stokerlog in general.

I'm seriously considering dragging the laptop out this year.
 
Hi Pat,

Last year was our first with the Stoker. I was unaware of StokerLog up until a few months back and never used it in the comps. Last year we ran the Caldera with the Stoker and the WSM with a Guru Competitor. I knew the Stoker could handle more than 1 pit but I had the Guru anyway so why not use it?

This year I will be using the Stoker for both pits. I got a 10 CFM and a 5 CFM blower. I'm not sure if I'm using the WSM or the BGE but the Caldera will be out with us.

I have never been at a contest that didn't provide electricity so that's never an issue. I will be running StokerLog on a laptop connected to the stoker with a crossover cable. This way you don't need a hub to connect the two.

It will be the first time I had 2 pits running at the same time so I don't know what to expect. It's reported to work so I just trust it will. If it don't I always have the Guru and the DIY guru I just made.

You going to Lake Placid? That's about the furthest west we go.

-rob
 
Yeah, it's hit or miss around here with electricity. Always available, but sometimes you have to pay up to $50 for it. I don't mind $15 or so, but $50 is a stretch when all I'm running is a stoker and radio!

I'm planning on doing 6 competitions this year - 4 in IL and 2 in WI.

Regarding the laptop - can I connect a wireless bridge to the stoker and just hit the IP address of the bridge instead of using a cable?
 
I don't think a bridge actually has an IP address. I don't know how you'd set that up but someone must have done it before.

In any case you are going to need to setup static IP addresses on both the laptop and the stoker for them to communicate. I'm not sure how one would do this on a WiFi NIC. It's usually set by the DNS server on your WiFi router but in this case you would not have a WiFi router - just a bridge.

This topic requires further investigation.

-rob


-rob
 

 

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