Dave's Smokefire EX6 Experiences


 
Love the probe port, been thinking about that since I assembled mine. I had a flame out overnight and when I opened the hopper you couldn’t even see a problem, I touched the pellets and they fell down into a void underneath.
 
Love the probe port, been thinking about that since I assembled mine. I had a flame out overnight and when I opened the hopper you couldn’t even see a problem, I touched the pellets and they fell down into a void underneath.

Thanks. I thought it turned out good and looks OEM. Speak of your flameout, I just bought $50 worth of electronics off of Amazon to test out an idea I have about the hopper. It might work or it might fail magnificently, but I'll be able to geek out, which is worth way more than $50 to me. lol.

More to come when I get the parts tomorrow.
 
Really enjoying this thread. Thanks much for the mods list.

My EX6 is scheduled for delivery this Friday. Ordered the wheels & Nomex which should arrive today. If the fan moves a lot of air, I can see how sealing could affect the air intake but it would be nice to seal the door.

Regarding the pellet hopper, is it be possible to replace the existing hinges with ones that would allow the top to fold back down against the hopper body? Would be easier to load the pellets.
 
Yeah, take it easy with the Nomex for now. :)

I don't know - I didn't look at the hopper lid all that closely. I'll have to check out the hinges. What I wish it has was another 20 degrees of opening and then a little skirt to direct the pellets into the hopper if you missed. It takes care not to spill any pellets.
 
Thanks. I thought it turned out good and looks OEM. Speak of your flameout, I just bought $50 worth of electronics off of Amazon to test out an idea I have about the hopper. It might work or it might fail magnificently, but I'll be able to geek out, which is worth way more than $50 to me. lol.

More to come when I get the parts tomorrow.

Very anxious to see what you’re up to, I have an idea to try to if I keep mine. It’s the fire hazard that scares me.
 
Speak of your flameout, I just bought $50 worth of electronics off of Amazon to test out an idea I have about the hopper. It might work or it might fail magnificently, but I'll be able to geek out, which is worth way more than $50 to me. lol.

More to come when I get the parts tomorrow.

Let me guess.... a small vibratory motor & timer?
 
Let me guess.... a small vibratory motor & timer?

Ding, ding.

120V AC -> 12V DC power supply, digital cycle timer and an encapsulated 12V vibrating motor. I figured 15 seconds of vibrating action after 15 or so minutes might do the trick. I do have a larger vibrating motor I use when I'm making concrete countertops, so I might introduce it to the EX6 to see what happens. :)

If it does work, I'll see if I can key off of something internal to signal the timer to activate, so that way if the power is on but it's not actually running, it wouldn't vibrate the hopper.
 
<insert your own vibrator joke here...in your own mind, please>

Just got off the phone with my brother the Traeger owner and he says Traeger owners get the same condition...as if a hole has been bored down through the pellets in the bin and the auger can't pick up any pellets.

This poor fellow had it happen to him. He didn't follow procedure and blew the door off his Traeger...and caught on video.

 
<insert your own vibrator joke here...in your own mind, please>

Just got off the phone with my brother the Traeger owner and he says Traeger owners get the same condition...as if a hole has been bored down through the pellet bin and the auger can't pick up any pellets.

I've had this happen on pretty much every pellet smoker I've owned, so it is not unique to Weber. They're later to the party and didn't solve it though which is kind of disappointing. Maybe I'll create a pellet pooper vibrator accessory which will solve all pellet feeding issues. No more flame outs, guaranteed!!!!!!. If Billy Mays was still alive, that's the guy I'd want doing my commercial for this new invention. It would be epic. lol
 
<snickers at our fearless leader....>

Seriously.... any flowing particulates that funnel into a hopper run the same risk of bridging. It's a decidedly non-zero risk in grain bins. People can die by drowning if they just get into a bin without proper gear, when the bridging collapses under their additional weight.

Chris, that gent you've referred to..... my brother had a project running with Michigan State and the DoE for grain dryer efficiencies in the late 70s & early 80s. He built a wood chip burner that burned so clean it vented directly into the grain bin without using a heat exchanger. In the bottom of the burner, a pile of chips fed by an auger below smoldered to make producer gas, which rose into the 2nd stage burner above for fully complete combustion. I'd suspect something similar happened to that gent, effectively making the same sort of combustible vapors, leading to <MartinTheMartian>an earth shattering KABOOM!</MartinTheMartian>
 
VOLTAGES...

Just in case anyone is wondering, here are the voltages for the FAN and Glow Plug:

FAN: 24 Volts DC
Glow Plug: 12 Volts DC
 
Reminds me of that movie back draft. As far as the hopper feed, how about a mechanism like paint ball guns have in the ball hopper.
 
When I was at work I was thinking about the Timberline 1300 I have and some pellet feed issues. It had a safety guard installed inside of the hopper and was kind of a problem. I removed it and don't recall having another issue with it. When I got home I decided to take a look in the EX6 hopper assembly. What I found was a small guard assembly made of stainless steel wire, which was installed over the top of the auger feed hole.

It's attached with three 1/4" screws. I removed the screws one at a time and took the guard out. I did it with around a 1/2 full hopper by sliding the pellets up the ramp. I'm going to run it under a higher heat cook, thus increasing the pellet feed rate. I want to see if a void forms. I did confirm just at startup, a void does form.

One other thing I've noticed is that my EX6 doesn't seem to like to start up the first time after being cleaned. Any time I clean the fire pot going forward, I'm going to drop some pellets in there to see if it helps. It always starts up on the second attempt.
 
Humor me for a moment while I share my opinion about smoke output. One area where I think the Smokefire will prove to be pretty strong in is hot and fast cooking. What I mean is cooking at 275ish degrees, versus the more typical 225ish degrees. I've been paying close attention to the smoke output of the EX6 at higher temperatures. For example, it's presently set to 325 degrees and says it's hit the desired set point. At this set point, pretty much all of my other pellet smokers do or would have ran with little to no visible smoke. The EX6 puts out more smoke at 325 degrees (clean blue) than my Timberline 1300 does at like 200 degrees. This could be a big deal for pellet smoking and while Weber has not released their smoke enhancing mode, I don't see why it would be needed. I would like to be able to run at around 150 degrees for doing things like jerky, but this thing is a smoking making monster. The baby back ribs I made the other day were outstanding in terms of smoke flavor and I don't think I've used the word outstanding to describe that on a pellet smoker ever before.
 

 

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