Have I killed my Mes 30

[Gary Uk]

I live in the uk, got a Mes 30 shipped to me last year. I use a step down transformer to supply the unit 110v.
At the weekend I made the mistake of plugging the Mes into the wrong socket, thus sending 220v to it. The lights went out and now it wont turn on.
Does anyone have any ideas to fix it or have I killed it.
Any help much appreciated.

 

[motolife313]

Buy a stick burner you won’t have any problems with it.

 

[daveomak]

I think you may have fried a circuit or two... Time to remove all the OEM electronics and hook up an AUBER controller.. You can probably save the heating element.. Check the ohms reading for the element... I think it should be 18 ohms, or something like that, if it's still good....
With an Auber controller, you will have a much nicer smoker...

 

[zwiller]

Many electronic things have fuses protecting that sort of thing but not sure if MES does or not. I am pretty knowledgeable with electronics and would attempt to fix. Have a mate that can help? Most enjoy that sort of thing.

 

[chopsaw]

I don't believe there is a fuse or at least I haven't seen one .
Can you smell anything burnt ? I'm thinking what ever was first in line got fried , but where ever the weakest point was is most likely where you will find the failure , but like Dave said could be multiple circuits . You'll have to open it up and take a look .
Here's a couple pics of a Gen 1 30 with the access panels open ,
Back , the 2 wires that connect to the heating element .

Bottom

Not sure if those help , but give you an idea of what it looks like .

 

[Gary Uk]

Thanks for the reply's guys.
I think being in the uk, and not having easy access to spare parts , will make fixing a lot more difficult.
Also im not comfortable tackling electrical work myself.
Looks like a new smoker may be my best option and maybe look into getting the mes fixed later to use as a 2nd smoker

 

[Bearcarver]

There's a bunch of guys here who I'm sure can help with electrical problems, but I'm not one of them.

I'm still trying to figure out how you were able to plug the 110V plug into a 220V outlet.
Over here they are completely different.

Bear

 

[Jonok]

Bear's right. Basically, you couldn't unless you cut off a 120 60hz plug and put on a BS 546 of some sort, how in the heck did you do what you think you did? Unless you actively wired a hot to what should have been a Neutral (in this hemisphere) or Earth (your side, and not the same as our "Ground" [earth equivalent to you, and always bonded and independently grounded at the service entrance]), you will not have been able to get there.

(with apologies to Messrs Marjohn and Kristofferson): "one phase at a tiiiiiiime, sweet Jesus)....

 

[daveomak]

In the UK, all they have is 220.... He said it was plugged into a transformer that dropped the voltage to 110... BUT.. plugged it in wrong..

 

[Gary Uk]

My transformer has two sockets, one for converting 220 to 110 and the other will convert 110 to 220.
unfortunately for me my mes plug fits into both.

 

[sigmo]

So you may have actually fed 440 Volts to the smoker.

The electronics as well as the transformer in the smoker may have been damaged.

 

[Wakulla]

Well this gives you the opportunity to make your smoker better than it ever was.

Drill out the pop rivits holding the back on and gut out all the masterbuilt electronics including the temperature sensors. Buy a pid controller with at least a 20 amp relay. You should be able to find one for less than $50. Then just wire it up by the instructions with the pid.

You now have a smoker that will work better than new.

 

[zwiller]

Been to the UK (loved it BTW) so I am familiar with those transformers/adapters. If you intend to use this transformer again be sure to put some tape etc over the "wrong" outlet so you don't make the same mistake again. Here's how I look at it: Smoker is dead so by messing with it your worst case is that you don't fix it but best case is that you do. Often times a repair like this is simply reconnecting a burnt wire. Drill out the rivits and take some pics. You might luck out.

Plan to go back to UK and check out some real ale. Tim Taylor's Landlord at top of my list.

 

[sigmo]

Assuming the smoker's original electronics are dead, and you replace the controls with a PID controller, you will also need to obtain and use an alternate smoke generator such as the AMNPS pellet burner "maze".

You'll like the flexibility, results, and ease of use better most likely, anyhow. A lot of us have done these modifications even though the original controller worked as designed. So this might not be such a bad thing to have happened.