Post your live HeaterMeter Cooks


 
Just firing it up at. Www.Mybbq.me:8084
Going to fire up two smokers to get 9 racks of baby back , 20 lbs of chicken quarters and a couple fatties. Since I don't temp probe the ribs I'm gonna use one probe from my maverick in my HM as a mock pit probe in the second smoker so I can keep an eye on the temp. Still have to adjust manually but at least I can keep track of it. First pit is getting up to temp now
 
This post is a two part post, or even maybe three? I just put a 5lb butt on for tomorrow. I'm testing the new "Ramp Mode" function where the setpoint ramps down as the food comes up. Ramp mode should kick in at 180 and take it up to 200.
http://home.capnbry.net:5150/

Everything was looking great. The HeaterMeter had been outside now for over two months just running all the time until I brought it inside to do the Ramp Mode testing on the stove. Everything checked out, put it back outside, and it ran for about an hour before it stopped responding. Opened it up and it was dripping with condensation. I mean water literally poured out. Even the grill table where I put it down was wet like someone had put an ice cold beer on it for an hour. I ended up having to swap out the SD card with another to get it to boot again. Inside is 77F 45% humidity, outside is 75F 95% humidity, so it is strange just how much water this thing has pulled out of thin air.
 
First smoke with HeaterMeter built by Tony L-Iowa. Installed in a Smokin-It Model #3. 2 10 pound pork butts brined around 13 hours.
Will ramp up to 175 for 2 hours then to 225 until butts are at 195.

www.boskoe.com:8000
 
I have 4 racks of ribs in my 18.5" WSM - 2 on the lower, 2 on the upper...using the Best Ribs in the Universe recipe. I do have a probe stuck in one of the rib racks, but I think that the probe got cooked....it was reading 900 degrees before.

I have the pit probe on the upper grate and the lower probe on...well...the lower grate.

The built-in WSM temp probe on the lid agrees with the top grate probe - that was surprising.


http://kpfeif.hopto.org:8069
 
6.5lb Butt on mini WSM. Using a ping pong valve. It's a bit up and down; maybe some PID tuning?
smoker.noip.me:250

o56lxs.jpg
 
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Gotta love the efficiency of a ceramic cooker. Your BGE did all the work, since your fan never really came on for more than a couple of seconds at a time.
 
Best free cooker I ever won ;-)

Won it 2 summer's ago in a 7-11 contest (convenience store here in FL). Loved it ever since, I'm definitely in the cult now.

Steve_M said:
Gotta love the efficiency of a ceramic cooker. Your BGE did all the work, since your fan never really came on for more than a couple of seconds at a time.
Click to expand...
 
This is a story of starting a cook after a long day and not realizing I had my PID settings wrong, despite looking at them several times and thinking "huh, I'm sure this will sort itself out".

Live cook is at: https://bbq.ww0.ca/



After adjusting the I value from 0.01 to 0.003



 
haha Steve, I've said the same thing before. I'm sure it will level out. Nope! You forgot you disabled the blower completely in this build for testing.

Just makin' some ribs and doing some HeaterMeter development. Who can guess what feature is getting implemented?
http://home.capnbry.net:5150/
 
No, you're wrong! PID autotuning still sucks.

What I did do was removed the "Fan on at max only" setting and replaced it with a "on above" setting which will no doubt spawn many a question as to what it does, which you may answer. I added this because you're always so helpful with everyone around here and I know you've been wanting it for a long time now. I was against it because I think a checkbox is simpler to grasp than a number, but wanted to say thanks for all that you do for the project. The blower will now only run if the PID output is above the "fan on above" setting" and will run proportionally at (PID - OnAbove) / max percent. E.g. on above=50%, PID output=75%, max fan speed=33%, you get (75%-50%) / 33% or 25% of the 33% max fan speed = 8% blower speed.

I'm going to make a post about the snapshot and update the docs but let me know if that's not how you want it to work, because it is your feature, Ralph!

Snapshot (includes AVR firmware 20150907B): http://capnbry.net/linkmeter/snapshots/bcm2708/
 
OK, you surprised me there! Yes, I've been wanting this feature for a really long time and I think it will work out great with the servo damper systems.
Thanks for the compliment and for spending the time to add this in, and I promise I will answer the questions about it... LOL I think it should be pretty easy to understand and explain though, the fan will come on at the % you choose and ramp up from there (rather than coming on at MAX only)
Updating now and will report back quickly...
It's been an exciting time lately with the new features rolling out... first ramp and hold and now this... you're on a roll! Thanks for all your hard work.
 
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Yeah the past two weeks I've only worked like 50-55 hours so it feels like I am on vacation! Looks like the code might need a little work though because it activates at the right point but doesn't ramp up to the max speed at 100%. That's what I get for trying to code while doing 2 other things! Anyway, we'll get it right before the weekend.
 
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