Help! Problems with lil tex

[AF5CL]

Just spent the evening swapping out both the temp probe and controller on lil tex traeger smoker. Comin up on 10 years old been a great companion! Went through a series of issues where temp swings of +-100F along with drop in temp ~4 hours in followed by over compensation of pellets and we have a bonfire! Spoke to support several times, pulled the auger out, checked the bushing, still no go. Finally broke down and ordered new controller and probe. First test well within tolerance and its still 90F 10:30PM in Texas!

I use the fireboard 2 for wifi/cloud based tracking, Awesome! Got a brisket going in on Monday, wish me luck! Gonna be good . Never give up your traeger!

Mike

 

[AF5CL]

Well, it went better but still failed .
I have an alert set on my fireboard monitoring the ambient temperature inside the grill to tell me that the temperature is dropping yet again.
I caught it quick enough this time that I was able to clearly see what happened. I pulled the brisket, stowed it into my cooler, still monitoring the temperatures. I switched to shutdown and waited till power off. Carefully removed everything to reveal the fire pot. 2/3rds filled with unburnt pellets! Surrounding the fire pot a fair amount of ash, however not in the pot. I grabbed my shop vac, quickly cleaned out the fire pot and ash. Reassembled, and restarted the smoker, open lid set to smoke, wait till smoke appears, wait an additional 10 min, then close lid, and set back to 225F. Wait till it comes to temperature and put the meat back. Unfortunately I have that down to a science.

Brisket was an absolute success!! Just took longer than desired.

Now, how do we fix this thing? I have replaced fire pot fan, internal temperature probe, and even upgraded to the pro temperature controller. I have also pulled the auger, inspected the bushing, no obvious issues found.

Running out of parts to replace. What would cause the fire to go out about 8 hours into a cook? Clearly pellets made it into the pot, but untouched by fire. Does this sound like the igniter? An issue with the fire pot itself? The drip pan is very slightly warped, I always cover it with heavy aluminum foil with all edges tightly wrapped, no flaps.

How often does the fire pot igniter get triggered during a cook? I've read that it only triggers when set on smoke, but that doesn't make sense because in previous cooks, if I didn't catch the temperature drop quick enough, the pot fills up with pellets fire ignites and I'm left dealing with a mini bonfire!

This failure occurs one or more times every time I smoke something at 225 for 4+ hours. I've been fighting with this around 3 years. Not giving up!!

I have attached a screenshot of the cook showing the temperature drop.

Any ideas?

Thank you,
Mike

 

[Timmy]

I’d pay close attention to the fan, if it’s malfunctioning and slows or stalls the fire will go out.

 

[AF5CL]

I’d pay close attention to the fan, if it’s malfunctioning and slows or stalls the fire will go out.

During normal operation does the fan speed fluctuate at all? If not I may be able to devise a way to detect and report fluctuations and correlate with temperature drops.

 

[AF5CL]

I’d pay close attention to the fan, if it’s malfunctioning and slows or stalls the fire will go out.

I changed the fan a few years ago, but at that time it was not turning at all. What would cause it to slow or stall 6-8 hours into a cook (like clockwork) multiple cooks in a row? At this point I'll just replace it and try another cook. But a theory would be nice.

 

[Timmy]

You start the grill, the grill feeds pellets and lights the hot rod then the fan starts blowing to get the fire hot. When hot enough the rtd send a signal to the hot rod to shut off because the fire is going. When the rtd starts to cool slightly it feeds more pellets and turns on the fan to get the fire hot again.

My theory is that something is shutting or stalling the fan and or air flow,causing the fire to go out and the auger to feed more pellet, overflowing the fire pot.

 

[AF5CL]

Sounds good, I'll focus on that and let you know how it goes.
Thank you

 

[AF5CL]

You start the grill, the grill feeds pellets and lights the hot rod then the fan starts blowing to get the fire hot. When hot enough the rtd send a signal to the hot rod to shut off because the fire is going. When the rtd starts to cool slightly it feeds more pellets and turns on the fan to get the fire hot again.

My theory is that something is shutting or stalling the fan and or air flow,causing the fire to go out and the auger to feed more pellet, overflowing the fire pot.

OK, my smoker is the BBQ07E, for that model does the induction fan run at a fixed speed from startup to shutdown? Or do it moderate fan speed during the cook? I have seen both discussed, maybe the newer ones are different from mine? It would be great to understand that for troubleshooting.

I have a couple of ideas at this point:
1. Possible issue with the cable and connector. Possible vibration causing intermittent failure or fluctuation? A bit of a reach for sure.
2. Some sort of intermittent issue with the fan component itself even though I replaced it already a few years ago.

Thank you,
Mike

 

[AF5CL]

You start the grill, the grill feeds pellets and lights the hot rod then the fan starts blowing to get the fire hot. When hot enough the rtd send a signal to the hot rod to shut off because the fire is going. When the rtd starts to cool slightly it feeds more pellets and turns on the fan to get the fire hot again.

My theory is that something is shutting or stalling the fan and or air flow,causing the fire to go out and the auger to feed more pellet, overflowing the fire pot.

Okay, last night replaced the fan, cleaned the grill, wrapped the drip tray with heavy aluminum foil (like I usually do). At 5:15am I added pellets went through startup (detailed) further up this thread. Started the cook at 225F. I watched the ambient temperature probe of my fireboard 2 for a while ~30 minutes and noticed it seemed to be running cooler then normal. As low as 195F, paranoid I changed it to 250F and went back to sleep. At 7:57am, temperature dropped to 157.4F, then (assumed fire pot out) immediately followed by spike 357.2F (too many pellets in the fire pot). I pulled the meat into cooler, shutdown, vacuumed out, restarted process, but ONE CHANGE, I removed the aluminum foil from the drip tray as a test. Started up set back to 225F and something interesting occurred. Temperature was MUCH closer to desired then I have seen in a long time, as of right now has been holding very close for an additional 6hr 37min.

So, does that mean I was incorrectly wrapping my drip tray? Does someone have photos of a properly wrapped tray?

So far I have about $250 worth of replacement parts in the recent weeks.

The tray is rusty, some stuck on grease from my last cook, it's somewhat wrapped. Would it be bad to use steel wool to clean it up, not looking forward to buying another one.

I'm going to have to run a full 8-10 hour cook to declare success.

Thoughts?

Thank you,

Michael

 

[RustyJake]

It is definitely possible. If you restrict airflow or circulation around the drip tray it can cause issues.
It isn't talked about much here because I think most that use foil make sure it is tightly wrapped on the tray without anything hanging off to restrict air movement.
I remember watching an instructional video on a Yoder grill and they specifically mentioned that if you wrap their trays with foil that you are to ensure it is wrapped tightly without any "loose" ends or sides that could impede air movement.
I know I have seem erratic temperature swings on mine if I overload the top shelf, and I can only assume it is restricting the airflow. @Slimpicker did a mod to his grills air vent inside the grill and that resulted in wild temp swings.
None of this can verify that it is your issue, but it shows that weird things can happen with air.

 

[Slimpicker]

Yoder grill

 

[AF5CL]

Are you wrapping the entire drip tray top and bottom? I've been wrapping mine since I purchased the grill, possibly incorrectly though. I usually take single sheet of heavy aluminum foil. I lay it on top long ways, there's about half inch on both sides, but sometimes those sides come up a bit.

 

[RustyJake]

Are you wrapping the entire drip tray top and bottom? I've been wrapping mine since I purchased the grill, possibly incorrectly though. I usually take single sheet of heavy aluminum foil. I lay it on top long ways, there's about half inch on both sides, but sometimes those sides come up a bit.

I use heavy duty foil, and one width of it covers from side to side. I just select the length I need and cut it. Iy is only covering the top and the edge to the drip channel and then overlaps the other side. Then I make sure all of the sides are overlapped and tightly formed against the tray. Nothing protrudes outward from the tray. It looks like the foil is actually part of the tray, if that makes sense to you. Sorry if it isn't, it's clear in my head

 

[RustyJake]

View attachment 7199

Paving the road before I make that plunge

 

[MidwestSmoker]

Paving the road before I make that plunge

I should stop reading this forum if I plan to be stay financially solvent!