Bypassing the Factory Controller

[kbarnes12]

My old analog 30”, that I used an Auber Instruments controller on, finally crossed the rainbow bridge, so my most generous wife insisted I get a newer bigger smoker. I ended up getting a Masterbuilt MB20071819 model. It is very basic, but that is what I wanted since I intend to use my Auber controller with it.

Can anyone here tell me which wires I must disconnect and put a jumper on in order to bypass the MB controller and use my Auber controller instead? I have attached a picture of the bottom where I believe this surgery needs done.

Thank you in advance.

 

[SecondHandSmoker]

This might help.

 

[smokerjim]

i'm no help here but if you pm tallbm i'm sure he could help you out.

 

[cmayna]

As I'm sure you did with your old MES, you found which wires went to the element. Disconnected those wire from the element and attached a new power cord directly to the element? The new power cord would then plug into the Auber.

Odds are it is the black and red wires, but as I said above, I would go to the element and find which wires are connected to it.

 

[dr k]

The black power cord and red braided element wires terminated at the black cube relay cut and wire nutted together will do it. You can leave an inch or more lead to make pigtails and leave connected to the relay to put back together to use the stock controller if ever needed. The white neutral power cord and blue braided ( other element wire at the cable tie) are already terminated together at the PCB. But i dont like the crappy chinese alum lugs. Cut and nut those two together, leaving lead to reconnect if needed for stock controller. Do just the relay wires to test and plug in to heat. The wire in the element juction box may be black vs blue to jump from the thermal switch to the element. One guy put a switch at the relay to use the stock controller or the PID. A direct line like cmayna mentioned also bypasses the safety switch. Newer therms have a temp range to alert you so that would make a hardwire directly to the element easy, fast and have an alert when too hot/too cool if PID controller or sensor fails. Your pick.

 

[tallbm]

My old analog 30”, that I used an Auber Instruments controller on, finally crossed the rainbow bridge, so my most generous wife insisted I get a newer bigger smoker. I ended up getting a Masterbuilt MB20071819 model. It is very basic, but that is what I wanted since I intend to use my Auber controller with it.

Can anyone here tell me which wires I must disconnect and put a jumper on in order to bypass the MB controller and use my Auber controller instead? I have attached a picture of the bottom where I believe this surgery needs done.View attachment 481652

Thank you in advance.

Hi there and welcome!
The guys are giving u great info.

Disclaimer: As with any electrical stuff be sure to check and make sure things are done correctly or get someone who can do it for you like an electrical professional.

Checking Wires:
With that said you can confirm by getting a multimeter that has a continuity setting.

• Open panel to heating element and disconnect the wires from the heating element.
• Come here to circuit board and disconnect the thick red and blue braided wires.
• Use the multimeter on continuity setting to see which wire end at heating element matches the wire end of the red or blue braided wires at the circuit board.
• When you do this you know for sure that those red and blue wire ends go to the heating element without any break in continuity

Simple Rewire Steps:
Should the red and blue braided wires run to the heating element (they should) then the rewire is simple.

• Cut ends off smooth black, smooth white, braided red, and braided blue wires
• Splice smooth black to red braided
• Splice smooth white wire to blue braided
• Done
  

FYI, the red and blue wires are basically interchangeable to be spliced with either smooth black or smooth white.
DO NOT splice smooth white to smooth black and red to blue. This is the only way you can mess up the wiring splicing combo hahaha.

To test you can plug in and watch the heating element heat up BUT UNPLUG once you notice it is heating. DO NOT LEAVE PLUGGED IN.
Once the rewire is done if you leave it plugged in the wall then the smoker will heat up nonstop until it burns down which is bad.

Let me know if this makes sense and let us know how things turn out :)

 

[kbarnes12]

The black power cord and red braided element wires terminated at the black cube relay cut and wire nutted together will do it. You can leave an inch or more lead to make pigtails and leave connected to the relay to put back together to use the stock controller if ever needed. The white neutral power cord and blue braided ( other element wire at the cable tie) are already terminated together at the PCB. But i dont like the crappy chinese alum lugs. Cut and nut those two together, leaving lead to reconnect if needed for stock controller. Do just the relay wires to test and plug in to heat. The wire in the element juction box may be black vs blue to jump from the thermal switch to the element. One guy put a switch at the relay to use the stock controller or the PID. A direct line like cmayna mentioned also bypasses the safety switch. Newer therms have a temp range to alert you so that would make a hardwire directly to the element easy, fast and have an alert when too hot/too cool if PID controller or sensor fails. Your pick.

So you are saying to splice the red wire marked with and R in the picture below and the black wire marked with B in the picture? I am not real electrically savvy and want to make sure I am getting it right. I am also attaching a picture of my element connections if that helps.

 

[kbarnes12]

Simple Rewire Steps:
Should the red and blue braided wires run to the heating element (they should) then the rewire is simple.

• Cut ends off smooth black, smooth white, braided red, and braided blue wires
• Splice smooth black to red braided
• Splice smooth white wire to blue braided
• Done

FYI, the red and blue wires are basically interchangeable to be spliced with either smooth black or smooth white.
DO NOT splice smooth white to smooth black and red to blue. This is the only way you can mess up the wiring splicing combo hahaha.

Thank you! This is exactly what I was wanting, what to do and what not to do.

 

[tallbm]

Thank you! This is exactly what I was wanting, what to do and what not to do.

Yeha that pic of your heating element shows me that the red braided runs from heating element all the way to circuit board. The blue braided will run to safety rollout limit switch. At that point they run a black braided from the safety rollout limit switch to the heating element. They switch colors at the safety switch.

What I mentioned in my post will work like a charm :)

 

[Powdercoat]

I purchased

Masterbuilt MB20071117 Digital Electric Smoker​

With the plan to use it as powdercoating oven. Unfortunately it can be set to 275 as the highest setting.
Is there a way to install a controller to make it reach 400 degrees?

 

[choochooman442]

I purchased

Masterbuilt MB20071117 Digital Electric Smoker​

With the plan to use it as powdercoating oven. Unfortunately it can be set to 275 as the highest setting.
Is there a way to install a controller to make it reach 400 degrees?

The foam insulation would likely melt, that is why they used a upper limit safety switch set at 300 degrees. If you can swap it for the analog version you can run that type higher as it is uninsulated.

 

[Powdercoat]

I could remove and change the insulation.
I just got this second hand for $60 lol.
Now I feel to stupid haha. I read the instructions above, and seems pretty straightforward to bypass the digital controller.
Now you guys all mention this Auber controller to set the temperature. Never heard of it, but what's the cheapest one I can use? They seem to be over $100, in which case it would be easier to just throw out this smoker and buy another used one, without the digital controller.

But if I can buy a cheap controller to make this one work, I don't mind splicing some wires!

 

[Powdercoat]

Was super simple, just needed to Unplug the 2 wires from the relay, and connect them together (I used a car fuse). That's all! Literally took 5 minutes, including removing the rear cover plate for the wires.
Now I just plug it in, and it heats up. Also easy to revert back if needed. No need to splice or cut wires.

Just ordered a thermometer to see how high the temperature will go if it's heating non-stop.

https://a.co/d/5CqnZP9

 

[tallbm]

I could remove and change the insulation.
I just got this second hand for $60 lol.
Now I feel to stupid haha. I read the instructions above, and seems pretty straightforward to bypass the digital controller.
Now you guys all mention this Auber controller to set the temperature. Never heard of it, but what's the cheapest one I can use? They seem to be over $100, in which case it would be easier to just throw out this smoker and buy another used one, without the digital controller.

But if I can buy a cheap controller to make this one work, I don't mind splicing some wires!

Here's some good points to consider and some answers:

1. In a digital MES, the insulation is foam spray in insulation. This is actually what gives the body of the smoker it's rigidity.
   I once thought "hey I could just remove the insulation from an MES and do xyz" and then I pulled the back off one to undrestand that the metal is flimsy sheet metal and the entire structure and solidity of the smoker is just rigid spray foam insulation that has dried.
   So basically if you were to go through the painstaking effort of removing the spray foam insulation, you would still need to build a structural frame to then just fasten the existing sheet metal to.
   A better option would be to get an Analog Masterbuilt smoker which is constructed with a frame and has zero insulation BUT is hollow so you could add about 1inch of high temp ceramic/fiberglass style insulation into it at that point.
   Also the electric element is a 1400W element on the analog where the digital MES has a 1200W element.

2. For what you are doing I don't think you can buy a complete an off the shelf PID controller that will work well with the amperage and wattage of these smoker elements, for less than an Auber one.
If you've never built one, you will pay more in tools, components, and parts in the end than buying the lowest cost Auber option... I've lived this situation before lol :D
Now if you love projects like this, then go for it and get all the stuff to build you a controller. It's fun for sure!
Once you buy all the stuff to build one, you can build a 2nd PID controller for about $30-45 less than the lowest acceptable Auber option because you have the extra components, you have the tools, and the main parts really aren't that expensive. Also factor in about 2 days of goofing around with building one, once you know what you are doing. It will take a few more days than that to do the box fabrication, get it all right, etc. when doing your 1st ever PID Controller build.

3. Beware throwing money at an inexpensive controller "option" because often in the fine print of the specs, they can't handle the amperage/wattage or even measure temps high enough for what you need to do.

4. To answer your earlier question about getting the temp to go higher. There is a Normally Closed safety cuttoff temp switch hard wired into the the digital MES. So even with the rewire and a PID controller that hard switch will open and stop feeding electricity to the element when it senses about 305F smoker temp. This is because the foam insulation cannot handle working temps much above 325F for long.

So to get to 400F you would need to replace that safety cutoff switch with a higher temp rated one or remove it all together, but DISCLAIMER/WARNING you are removing a safety device so be sure you understand how you want to safely use the device and the consequences of altering it. Like the existing foam insulation catching fire and then burning down the property and half the county lol :D



Overall though, getting a PID controller that can handle the element for what you want to do will be a good start even if you decide not to use this MES for a powder coat oven and go with another body option as your powder coat oven.
At the very least you could smoke BBQ or do jerky with your currently rewired MES using the same PID controller on both this MES and on a 2nd better suited powder coating oven option/smoker you rig up :D


Let me know if this info helps :)

 

[Powdercoat]

Thanks so much for this information.
This will be one of those rare times that I'm going to listen to someone more knowledgeable than me and take the path of least resistance!
I thoroughly cleaned this smoker and wired it back to the original, placed it on the patio.
Now gonna go buy whatever it needs (pellets or wood) and try smoking something for the first time in my life lol.
I will maybe just buy an over for powdercoating, I think that it's big so I can put the blasting cabinet on top of the oven.

 

[tallbm]

Thanks so much for this information.
This will be one of those rare times that I'm going to listen to someone more knowledgeable than me and take the path of least resistance!
I thoroughly cleaned this smoker and wired it back to the original, placed it on the patio.
Now gonna go buy whatever it needs (pellets or wood) and try smoking something for the first time in my life lol.
I will maybe just buy an over for powdercoating, I think that it's big so I can put the blasting cabinet on top of the oven.

Glad the info could help! :D

But fair warning. Now that you know how to do the rewire so it works 25X better with a PID controller... you might get the bug to do so once you start cranking out pretty good BBQ and want to take it to the next level of doing sausage, jerky, bacon, etc. hahahah :D


I might have been bitten by the bug myself a few times ;)

 

[Powdercoat]

Appreciate your humor lol!
Forgive my ignorance, but what's the point of a different controller and what does it do?
I think everyone on this forum has a level of knowledge and understanding that I don't have lol!
I only stumbled on this thread by trying to figure out how to raise the temperature to 400. So I have no clue what's the point of this controller hehe.

 

[dr k]

I like terminating the wires with wire nuts and eliminating alum lugs that will form alum oixide and corrode opposing metals. Just wire nut wires and done.

 

[tallbm]

Appreciate your humor lol!
Forgive my ignorance, but what's the point of a different controller and what does it do?
I think everyone on this forum has a level of knowledge and understanding that I don't have lol!
I only stumbled on this thread by trying to figure out how to raise the temperature to 400. So I have no clue what's the point of this controller hehe.

Good question.

It seems that many electric smokers like the Masterbuilt's are designed so that the stock controller will give you an AVERAGE temp rather than hit and hold dead on.
So if you set 250F temp the controller will allow it to shoot up to like 265F and then drop down to like 235F. Those temp swings are horrible when you need tight control for things like sausage and bacon so you don't melt out the fat with the high temp swings.

I believe they do this probably because it's cheaper and easier AND it allows for wood chips to get hot enough to smolder and smoke.


A PID controller will be very precise (when tuned properly).
So when you tune in the proper P-I-D values, the PID controller will hit and hold the temp dead on or within 1-2 degree swings of your set temp.

This type of steady performance and tight control means you can effectively do sausage, bacon, jerky, etc.
Also these controllers don't have a set max limit like the stock controller does.
So as long as you replace the safety cut off switch with a higher limit one or if it is removed all together, the controller will be able to take the smoker up to a higher temp.
I do this with chicken and turkey because if you don't cook chicken and turkey skin at a high enough temp, it will come out like leather. Tasty leather, but leather lol.

This about covers it. I hope it helps you see why we love a rewired Masterbuilt smoker with a PID controller slapped on it.
The next closest electric smokers with this kind of perofrmance are like $1,000+ :D

 

[Timber II]

Appreciate the detailed information here also. Don’t feel like the Lone Ranger powder - I’m learning w ya