Stokerlog Version 6


 
OK guys, here is version 6.7: http://amir-views.com/downloads/SetupV67.msi

Would be great if a few people tried it. Fixes are minor:

1. Program no longer crashes in Windows 7 if you lack administrator privileges.

2. The above bug where changing the target temp, did not update the green bad on the graph.

ETA fix takes more work and a lot more testing so I will address it at a later date.
 
Downloaded 6.7 Friday, ran an overnight brisket cook (WSM 22.5, two briskets around 9 lbs each), everything worked well. Didn't pay a lot of attention to the target temp. Running Windows 7, no problems.

I used the keep warm, which worked as designed. Only issue with keep warm is a stoker issue, I think. When the pit temp comes down, so does the meat temp. I think this is heat transfer through the body of the temp probe from the pit temp. I had the meat target set at 190. When the pit temp dropped from 225 down to 190, the meat temp dropped to 187.
 
Thanks Mitch.

A simple fix for the temp drop might be to simply add a few degrees to the target temp when keep warm triggers. Wonder how high it needs to be to maintain the meat temp....
 
I think the temp drop is indicated, not actual. With the tip of the probe in the center of the meat, if anything it should continue to climb for a while, although very slowly and not by much. The trick might be to somehow insulate the part of the temp probe that's not in the meat, so it's not skewing the reading.
 
Installing StokerLog67 got me an error pop-up on Windows 7: "Could not create key: HKEY_USERS32\S-1-5-21-....\Software\Classes. Verify that you have sufficient access to that key, or contact your support personnel."
 
Amir,
I installed the latest version. I noticed 1 thing, when it returns from Autolid, the alarms are not getting set back on.

Other than that seemed to work great for this cook.

Oh, one other thing (not new to this version) at one point in Version 5 I was able to move the notes, drag them to up and down on the graph, I am not sure where this changed, but I miss the ability to do this. I add quite a few notes to my graphs and now they stack up on top of each other.
 
Amir,
Towards the end of my cook I lost power to the stoker and the Stokerlog locked up tight. It hung my machine so bad that I had to actually go to task manager and kill the process, ending Task wouldn't even work.

Playing around later I found that if you just shutdown the Stoker without disconnecting Stokerlog replicates this issue everytime.
 
Bob, I have done that routinely and never had a machine lockup. Stokerlog hangs to be sure (it is on my TODO list to have it give up eventually), but the machine will not lock up.

Lock ups occur in drivers or the operating system. Stokerlog has no component in either. It talks to stoker the same as your browser would to a server on the Internet. To the extent your computer doesn't die if a remote web server goes down, it should not fail in that manner when stoker goes down.

So do this test. Run stokerlog in a small window and confirm that other apps in your machine still work even when stokerlog hangs.

If your machine does hang, it points to more serious issues in your PC than stokerlog.
 
Sorry Amir you are absolutely correct, the machine doesn't hang, it is Stokerlog that is hanging. Bad info on my part.

It hung my machine so bad...
Click to expand...
Stokerlog hung so bad End Task wouldn't work


wsmsmile8gm.gif
 
So now that we've gotten over my 'Misinformation' or lack of ability to type / say what is actually happening
icon_smile.gif


Pretty bad for a guy that writes up Software bugs on a daily basis.

I had an idea for an enhancement.
As stated in the past, I am fanatical when it comes to adding notes to my graph. One thing I was thinking would be kinda cool was if Twitter is enabled then when a note is added to the graph a tweet would be sent including the note along with updated Time and temps.

Just a thought.
 
Amir,

I downloaded your stoker log and seem to like it, but can you please explain to me how the keep warm function works? I also do not understand what the fuel usage is?
 
can you please explain to me how the keep warm function works?
Click to expand...
Stokerlog will monitor the food target temp. Once it reaches, it will lower the pit probe target to essentially match it. I think it sets it to a couple of degrees higher as having it the same didn't seem to work as well the one time I tested it.

I also do not understand what the fuel usage is?
Click to expand...
It is a simple percentage of time the blower is on versus off. Idea is that the more the fan blows, the faster the fuel burns, and hence the term. It is probably a better measure of how hard the stoker is working to maintain the temp.
 
I had an idea for an enhancement.
As stated in the past, I am fanatical when it comes to adding notes to my graph. One thing I was thinking would be kinda cool was if Twitter is enabled then when a note is added to the graph a tweet would be sent including the note along with updated Time and temps.

Just a thought.
Click to expand...
That is a good suggestion and pretty easy to do. I will add it to the list.
 
Tony:

If you're using the keep warm function, you have to check the box first, then also click the dot next to the blower that shows up after turning on keep warm. As I tend to not read the directions, I didn't realize you needed to do both, and wondered why the temp didn't come down.
 
Originally posted by Amir:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">I had an idea for an enhancement.
As stated in the past, I am fanatical when it comes to adding notes to my graph. One thing I was thinking would be kinda cool was if Twitter is enabled then when a note is added to the graph a tweet would be sent including the note along with updated Time and temps.

Just a thought.
Click to expand...
That is a good suggestion and pretty easy to do. I will add it to the list. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Posting an image of the graph to twitpic would be slick. I show off my Stokerlog graph after every BBQ.
 
Another good suggestion
icon_smile.gif
. Not being a twitter user, I didn't realize they had added picture support. The interface seems simple enough. if it doesn't have the quirk in normal twits which cost me a day of debugging, I will get it in there soon.

So thanks for the suggestion.
 
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