Auger Not Turning

[ChuckO]

Welp, got the lovely E7 (motor failure) error tonight. 18 months of ownership and two parts already failing. Losing faith in this cooker.

Weber will work with you if you’re willing to work with Weber. I commend their customer service. You do have to be willing to do some wrenching. I actually enjoyed tinkering on mine as much as cooking on it. I would have kept it had not been moving. I couldn’t sell it, so I put it up here, free to a member. I hope he’s got it working good

 

[Bruno]

the SmokeFire is a fascinating beast! So many things done right, a few hiccups.

It’s been crazy raining so I wanted to fire it up to make sure it was ready for tomorrow.

Sure enough it went right to 275 and ran like a champ.

One glow plug the entire time. The last time I updated it seemed to run better than ever so I haven’t been following up on any new updates.

Putting a 5 lb breast in tomorrow for some Texas Style Turkey. I’ve had pretty amazing results with this so hopefully it all goes well. I’ll miss my SmokeFire when it finally kicks the can.

 

[Bob Erdman]

What a time for that to go, bummer. Hope it didn't interfere with your dinner plans. I did a pre flight check on my SF, and gave it a good cleaning yesterday. 24lb bird going in this am.

Happy Thanksgiving.

 

[JimK]

What a time for that to go, bummer. Hope it didn't interfere with your dinner plans. I did a pre flight check on my SF, and gave it a good cleaning yesterday. 24lb bird going in this am.

Happy Thanksgiving.

It did, unfortunately. Ate a little later than planned, but was able to reverse sear my Tri Tip on the Genesis. One burner on low and she held solid at 250F for over an hour while the TT came up to temp. Then a nice sear at about 650F to finish. It was delicious, but lacked that kiss of smoke that I had been looking forward to. Glad I wasn't planning on doing the Thanksgiving turkey on it today.

Weber will work with you if you’re willing to work with Weber. I commend their customer service. You do have to be willing to do some wrenching. I actually enjoyed tinkering on mine as much as cooking on it. I would have kept it had not been moving. I couldn’t sell it, so I put it up here, free to a member. I hope he’s got it working good

Yep, they were pretty good to work with when the auger nut/bolt went. I'm just frustrated, as I thought at that time "might as well put a new motor on, since I've got it out". Now I have to go through the process again. And I'm concerned that the replacement parts will only last another 18 months, at which point, I'll be out of warranty and out of luck.

 

[JimK]

Well, put the new motor in today and now the screen is not staying on. I fired it up for a test run at 400F. Looked at the app when it was at 390. Several minutes later, still no notification that it had reached the target temp. Opened the app and it said the grill was offline. Went outside to look. The fan was running and it was on the startup screen. So, I entered the 400F target again and hit start, at which point the screen started powering on and off. I'm dying over here! Seems the MO is replace a part, then another one goes out almost instantly.

 

[LMichaels]

Well, put the new motor in today and now the screen is not staying on. I fired it up for a test run at 400F. Looked at the app when it was at 390. Several minutes later, still no notification that it had reached the target temp. Opened the app and it said the grill was offline. Went outside to look. The fan was running and it was on the startup screen. So, I entered the 400F target again and hit start, at which point the screen started powering on and off. I'm dying over here! Seems the MO is replace a part, then another one goes out almost instantly.

Wow, sorry to hear this. Hope you can get resolution soon. Maybe you can do with Weber like that YouTube guy did and ask them to replace it with a Searwood. Seems those are doing the job quite well

 

[ChuckO]

The auger may or maynot have been the problem, I'm leaning towards the Glowplug. If you have a spared (and you should with the SF) try swapping out the Glowplug. Give the burnpot a good clean and take another shot at it

 

[LMichaels]

Weird. Why would glow plug cause auger to not turn. IDK about the SF but on both my grills the auger will run prior to the plug turning on.

 

[ChuckO]

Weird. Why would glow plug cause auger to not turn. IDK about the SF but on both my grills the auger will run prior to the plug turning on.

Good question / point: I should have said if there's unburned pellets in the burn pot, which I suspect as I have been down this road a time or two

 

[JimK]

The auger may or maynot have been the problem, I'm leaning towards the Glowplug. If you have a spared (and you should with the SF) try swapping out the Glowplug. Give the burnpot a good clean and take another shot at it

The auger was definitely the first problem - the bolt sheared off. About a month after I replaced the bolt and auger, the motor failed. Now I'm dealing with what appears to be a power or motherboard issue. Notified Weber at 2:30ET yesterday and they haven't responded, which is strange - they usually acknowledge receipt pretty quickly.

 

[ChuckO]

The auger was definitely the first problem - the bolt sheared off. About a month after I replaced the bolt and auger, the motor failed. Now I'm dealing with what appears to be a power or motherboard issue. Notified Weber at 2:30ET yesterday and they haven't responded, which is strange - they usually acknowledge receipt pretty quickly.

Are there unburnt pellets in the burn chamber? This is my suspicion: The Auger did in fact fail for obvious reasons (sheered bolt) and as a result, the Glow Plug was damaged due to the absence of pellets to burn, and it (glow plug) now has ultimately failed. If there are unburned pellets in the burn chamber, it would suggest that; The Auger is working, and the Glow Plug is not

That's my 2 cents

 

[JimK]

Are there unburnt pellets in the burn chamber? This is my suspicion: The Auger did in fact fail for obvious reasons (sheered bolt) and as a result, the Glow Plug was damaged due to the absence of pellets to burn, and it (glow plug) now has ultimately failed. If there are unburned pellets in the burn chamber, it would suggest that; The Auger is working, and the Glow Plug is not

That's my 2 cents

I'll have to check the burn pot. The grill initially started up just fine and climbed to nearly 400F yesterday before this problem occurred. That's when I was getting the 'offline' message in the app. The grill was still on, but the settings had been reset and it went crazy when I tried to re-enter the temp and start it back up. Video below is what I was seeing.

 

[LMichaels]

Looking at that, I would not be surprised if you pulled the PCB out, hit all the power solder joints on the PCB with your solder iron and maybe even a little fresh real lead solder, it will work again

 

[Ed P]

When it glitches like that, does it try to reboot, or is it more like the backlght in the display is flickering? Does it glitch from the jump or only after it's been on for awhile?

 

[JimK]

When it glitches like that, does it try to reboot, or is it more like the backlght in the display is flickering? Does it glitch from the jump or only after it's been on for awhile?

It tries to restart. It happened yesterday after the grill had been on for a bit. I had set it to 400F and it was over 350 that last time I got a reading off the app.

 

[ChuckO]

I'll have to check the burn pot. The grill initially started up just fine and climbed to nearly 400F yesterday before this problem occurred. That's when I was getting the 'offline' message in the app. The grill was still on, but the settings had been reset and it went crazy when I tried to re-enter the temp and start it back up. Video below is what I was seeing.

Weber will take care of that (I don’t know what that is though) email them again but instead of attaching the video, send a link to the video. They probably didn’t get your email if you attached the video to it

 

[Don D.]

The flashing through the 1 2 3 4 that are labeling numbers for your probes is supposed to happen after the grill software is updated. I think your stuck in an update. It once happened to me and I needed a new controller

 

[JimK]

I got a call from the pellet grill team today. They said they've only got a handful of documented cases of this happening, and in each, replacing the display took care of it. They're going to overnight a new display. Unfortunately, I spoke with them late in the day so it won't go out until tomorrow. Super helpful though and walked through a handful of other parts to ensure they're working properly and suggested they'd send any other needed parts as well. A+ for customer service, and hopefully, this will be the end of my issues for a long, long time.

 

[timothy]

Interested to see how that works, keep us posted.

 

[ChuckO]

I got a call from the pellet grill team today. They said they've only got a handful of documented cases of this happening, and in each, replacing the display took care of it. They're going to overnight a new display. Unfortunately, I spoke with them late in the day so it won't go out until tomorrow. Super helpful though and walked through a handful of other parts to ensure they're working properly and suggested they'd send any other needed parts as well. A+ for customer service, and hopefully, this will be the end of my issues for a long, long time.

I have / had in all confidence of Weber sticking behind their product. I went many years on my SF, without uncurable issues, all of which Weber stood behind. The only reason I don't still have my SF is because I moved, and I had to make hard decisions of what goes and what stays. I gave my SF to a member here (who has an IT background) I'm confident he'll get several good years out of it, it really is a nice BBQ

My advise is to have a few Glow Plugs in the wings and to have a couple Glow Plug Assemblies in the wings too. Swapping them out (reusing) seemed to cure ills. In all the years, I tossed maybe 4 Glow Plugs and 2 Assemblies.