Down the Road


 
John Sully

John Sully

TVWBB Fan
Just a thought that woke me up ..... someday when the electronic parts are longer available for my EX-6 can I make some mods and use charcoal.
 
All I could think of when I read the title was the old Flatt and Scruggs song!
The way I look at most electronic products is, if “The Man” can put a meter on it he can (and will) charge you for the “privilege”
I know the charcoal industry makes you buy that but, it’s an upfront cost. End ridiculous tangent!😜
 
Timothy F. Lewis said:
All I could think of when I read the title was the old Flatt and Scruggs song!
The way I look at most electronic products is, if “The Man” can put a meter on it he can (and will) charge you for the “privilege”
I know the charcoal industry makes you buy that but, it’s an upfront cost. End ridiculous tangent!😜
Click to expand...
Well that is some of the "issue" with the Weber product(s). (A few others I suspect) but the huge bulk of pellet grills are quite generic and things like igniters, fan and auger motors, burn pots, hoppers and so on can nearly 100% be retrofitted with something generic
 
LMichaels said:
Well that is some of the "issue" with the Weber product(s). (A few others I suspect) but the huge bulk of pellet grills are quite generic and things like igniters, fan and auger motors, burn pots, hoppers and so on can nearly 100% be retrofitted with something generic
Click to expand...
Which makes having a well made grill a good thing. If there's no rust and all metal is in good shape, like Larry said, the parts are readily available. Might lose our on wifi or Bluetooth...but you'll still have a well functioning pellet grill. Might even be able to add wifi functionality.
 
John Sully said:
Just a thought that woke me up ..... someday when the electronic parts are longer available for my EX-6 can I make some mods and use charcoal.
Click to expand...

A pellet grill really has two essential needs:
- push coal into the burn pot at a predefined rate
- run a fan

Secondary needs:
- light the burn pot
- run a shutdown cycle

Nice-to-Haves:
- temp control
- wifi
- smoke boost

If someone handed me an electronically broken smokefire but otherwise good working unit I think I could adapt an aftermarket PID controller and have it going without much effort.
 
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DanHoo said:
A pellet grill really has two essential needs:
- push coal into the burn pot at a predefined rate
- run a fan

Secondary needs:
- light the burn pot
- run a shutdown cycle

Nice-to-Haves:
- temp control
- wifi
- smoke boost

I someone handed me an electronically broken smokefire but otherwise good working unit I think I could adapt an aftermarket PID controller and have it going without much effort.
Click to expand...
Agreed. Also think that aftermarket wifi controllers are a bit scarce now but I'm sure that won't be the case 6-12 months from now.
 
DanHoo said:
A pellet grill really has two essential needs:
- push coal into the burn pot at a predefined rate
- run a fan

Secondary needs:
- light the burn pot
- run a shutdown cycle

Nice-to-Haves:
- temp control
- wifi
- smoke boost

I someone handed me an electronically broken smokefire but otherwise good working unit I think I could adapt an aftermarket PID controller and have it going without much effort.
Click to expand...
Or, at the risk of repeating myself, use something manual… WSM etc.
I’ll go away now.
 
DanHoo said:
If someone handed me an electronically broken smokefire but otherwise good working unit I think I could adapt an aftermarket PID controller
Click to expand...
The only fly in that ointment I see with SF (likely the SW as well) and I think a few other mfgr ones, is the use of DC stepper motors for the fan(s) and the auger, along with low voltage glow plugs (IIRC 12V or 24V). CI am sure it could be "rigged" but with a good ol' plain generic one it's mostly simple plug and play. Even generic RTD probes. For giggles I bought a generic off Amazon and tried it in both the Z and the MM and it worked fine.
 
LMichaels said:
The only fly in that ointment I see with SF (likely the SW as well) and I think a few other mfgr ones, is the use of DC stepper motors for the fan(s) and the auger, along with low voltage glow plugs (IIRC 12V or 24V). CI am sure it could be "rigged" but with a good ol' plain generic one it's mostly simple plug and play. Even generic RTD probes. For giggles I bought a generic off Amazon and tried it in both the Z and the MM and it worked fine.
Click to expand...
You don't miss much, Sir.
 
Yep Jay. One of my things with why I got the grills I did was not only that they presented great value, but they were generic enough that should their respective companies not support them I had other ways to keep them from becoming boat anchors
 
This makes me wonder: how bored would we be if we couldn't talk about electronics occasionally in our specialized cooking experience, lol?
 
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