I have the same smoker you are using! I am new to smoking meats and I am hooked on it! I have learned so much very quickly from the kind people here that it helps a great deal. So I will pass along my 2 cents and see if we can get you smokin'..
This is my analog smoker and after only 3 uses plus a seasoning round at the very beginning. I no longer have the new shiny inside walls as I see in your brand new unit. For some unimportant reason I feel proud of the patina already building up on the inside walls but I digress.... Let's see if we can get your smoker walls golden brown...
Does the heating element get red hot when first turning on? If it is try heating the unit up to 240 or so. After it is up to temp -
then insert the chip box already containing a small handfull of soaked but not shiny wet chips so your not trying to open the smoldering hot chip tray lid and tossing in chips that go flying everywhere as we aren't lucky enough to have a "chip shoot". This I have found critical as the heat loss with the door open and trying to get the chips in the little box while holding the chip tray lid open takes a lot of precious time and evacuates all the nice built up heat and is very difficult to get it back up. So when it is up to temp. - I actually then crank up the heat on the controller, open the door - drop in the chip box shove in the meats and close it as quick as I can. And leave it closed for as long as possible. And mine starts to smoke fairly quickly with a sweet smelling blue smoke.
Mine did heat up from the get go and did smoke the first time I added chips to the scolding hot chip box - so I must ask questions and then pass along what I'm doing as I go because it is trial and error to perfect this art - maybe especially with this analog unit.
1) Does the heating element bring the unit up to temperature?
2) Does the unit recover after a short time and go back to temperature after opening and closing the door?
3) Are you using an extension cord?
4) Are you using wood chips or chunks and are you soaking them in water before use?
My learning curve thus far with this analog unit...
1) and 2) My unit seems to heat up fine although surprising at first it takes some time to heat back up after opening the door and closing it. But after all there is tremendous heat loss as you can imagine once you fling open the door!
3) I do use an extension cord because I have to even though it is not recommended. I do though use an expensive heavy duty appliance "guage" extension cord
4) I do use wood chips and I do soak them for only about 20 minutes now.
Because the heating element does cover the entire floor I use a drip tray to catch as much of the drippings as possible so that I am smoking the meats with wood chips instead of drippings/grease smoke and I change the tray half way through in order to keep "thin blue smoke" coming out instead of white smoke.
I do heat up the unit before hand now, then insert the chip tray, and my meats after it is heated. It really only take a handful of chips (I use hickory). I do this so I can pretty much keep the door closed for as much of the cooking time as possible. Opening only once to add chips when I change out the drip tray.
I do run it at 300* for chickens to render out some of the fat in the skin to get it a little thinner and crispy. I have though been very proud to see juice and grease flowing everywhere and white smoke pummeling out but have since learned that the white smoke is bad - very bad and not what we are looking for. The addition of the drip tray and covering the bottom of the unit with foil underneath the heating element has greatly and I do mean greatly made a significant improvement in how this unit operates. (Be sure to poke a hole in the foil lined floor where the drip hole is....)
Having done all of this...I am receiving the AMNS unit on Tuesday because it seems a better way to get the "TBS" than the way this chip tray is functioning - but still, I am new at it so I could probably perfect the use of it to make it smoke the way I want it to instead of the way it wants too...
I think all in all if the heating element is getting hot the problem may be that the heat loss when opening the door long enough to get the chips into the chip box. It happened to me on my first attempt, I added chips half way through the cooking time and they never got hot enough to smoke...trial and error. I have read about heat loss problems and heating recovery with other units so I try to minimize this heat loss occurence as much as possible. And cranking up the controller just before opening the door kind of re-sets it so it goes in to heating up mode again...
This could be a weak point on this analog smoker - the chip box and also i wish I could control the venting instead of having zero adjustment and a tiny whole at the top - but what do I know? maybe a tiny hole at the top is just what it should be....