I've been tinkering with the smoke generator part of my refer conversion, trying to optimize smoke production. I started with a steel pail with chips and dust and used a charcoal igniter as my heat source. I get pretty long smoke time, but I've burned up one igniter and about burned another. I went back to a hot plate and pan, but still am close to burning up the plastic parts of the hotplate. I bypassed the control on the plate to keep the heat high at all times to keep the chips smoldering, but I'm afraid its too hot for everything else. Any less and no smoke. I'm also thinking the close quarters of the lil chief box might be contributing to the heat build up. What do the rest of you think?