Merry Christmas! Looks like Santa and I have something in common then. I find the servo doesn't do anything on my wood-fired smoker.
I'm starting to think the same thing. I used to get great cooks with just a fan on my 18" WSM, but for some reason decided to delve into this whole Fan/Damper Fandango. I may have to get back to the roots, and try the fan only again, to see how it regulates.
I'll be sure to post the results.
DavidNP said:I wanted to ask what advantage a damper/servo has over a blower fan(which can provide low cfms)? Is it agreed upon by most that the damper/servo is the best through comparisons at controlling their temps? I know a fan can blow ashes and such, but wouldn't a closed fan system be better at controlling temps on a windy day?
Wouldn't any sort of wind make a damper/servo control very hard to control....the amount of air getting into the bbq 'randomly' would really confuse the PID inside of HM?
I do damper only on my Primo XL and get consistent temps. I think the Heatermeter does a fine job dealing with wind, and such at least in my experience. If anything I would argue a fan would be more susceptible to wind as even at 0% if there is no damper the wind will blow right in the fan, with a fan+damper or damper only approach 0% truly is 0% (on the controlled vent anyway).
From my thinking a fan is really most beneficial when it comes to getting up to temp or ramping temp up very quickly.
Before I built my heatermeter I would babysit the primo and still keep pretty solid temps just working the vent. I just figured I'd go with something simple and only worry about the vent (although how simple my vent control set up is may be debatable.
Just my .02
Ain't nothing like the real thing... I've never heard the roto damper doesn't work, I guess the "open-scorch" version isn't so great according to the "creator"s comments above.
...I'm sure both fan only or fan&servo work....I'm just wondering if using a servo/damper is 'proven' to be a better solution....
Ain't nothing like the real thing... I've never heard the roto damper doesn't work, I guess the "open-scorch" version isn't so great according to the "creator"s comments above.
I agree I think all of these methods will work and have shown to work quite well. Not sure it would be really feasible to "prove" any method better than another as tuning and other factors come into play. I'd say they each have their own benefits for various scenarios. For me personally it was pretty trivial to create linkage to connect a servo to the factory damper on my primo and it gave me the benefit of something that for my purposes is more "integrated". The end result I am planning is a setup where the heater meter is fully integrated into the primo area of a built in outdoor kitchen. This will likely involve having the screen and controls remote from the actual heatermeter "brains" and back mounted into something fixed.
For someone with a WSM or other grill that might be moved around more regularly something removable makes a ton more sense.
My theory that a damper only control would be more wind resistant than a fan only control with a gravity managed damper in the fan was based on the idea that wind (from the fan) is literally what moves the damper in those fan only systems. By definition it has to be susceptible to it by my thinking. Again, in practice it may not be that big of a deal given that the top vent is typically clamped down much tighter.
I'm super impressed with the enginuity of things like the roto-damper and have no doubt they perform incredibly well for my purposes it just seems like more complication than necessary. Also I suck at metal fabrication so building an adapter to attach to the primo is harder for me than using parts I have on hand to make linkage to control the factory vent. I'm also biased as I do a fair number of robotics projects and have all that crap on hand anyway.
To each their own and from my perspective I love seeing all the solutions posted here, always gives me new ideas for various things to try