Help! Is There Something Wrong?

[unity5358]

I have a new Masterbuilt 20070910 30-Inch Black Electric Digital Smoker with the mailbox mod.  It has a 5 pound roaster chicken in it for 1 1/2 hours and the temp. isn't yet 250 [according to the ThermoWorks Smoke I use].  The smoker is set for 275.  I waited until it was 260 before I opened the door to put the chicken in.  I worked fast and had the door open for about 30 sec.  The temp went down to 205 and has taken all this time to slowly get up to 250.  This same thing happened the first time I used it loading it with 2 racks of ribs [cut in half to fit on the 4 shelves].  With the ribs, even though it was set at 275, it couldn't get over 220 and it took 90 min. to get there.

Is there something wrong with this unit?  I got it because my old one, which I still have had a similar issue.  Shouldn't this smoker be able to get to the temp. it is set at?  I thought maybe with the ribs it was more meat than it's 800 watts can handle.  But now there's a single 5 pound chicken in it and it is struggling to get past 250 and took 90 min. to get there after opening the door to put the chicken in.

I am using a 25' 12/3 heavy duty extension cord.  That can't be making this much difference can it?  The mailbox mod can't have anything to do with it, can it?   This isn't the way all Masterbuilt digital 800 watters with the mailbox mod are, are they?  I'm frustrated!  Can anyone help?

 

[redoctobyr]

I have the same smoker, and just did my own mailbox mod.

No issues getting to temp with my setup. Using a 12/3 cord that is at least 25 feet. When I checked, I was getting something like 112V at the unit, with the heater running, vs 119V with the heater off.

What voltage do you get, with the heater on? One way to check is to put a plug splitter at the end of the extension cord. Run the smoker off one plug, and while the heater is running, use a multimeter to check the voltage at and empty plug on the splitter. That will take voltage drop through your cord into account.

How does it behave with no food in there? Can it get up to temp in a reasonable time? I'd hazard a guess that mine, empty, gets to 275 in about a half hour, from an ambient of about 80, but I don't have data in front of me to check.

If the meat is too close to the temp sensor on the back wall, that will fool the smoker into thinking it's colder in there than it actually is. So if you're putting stuff on that shelf, near it, that could contribute to low readings.

Do you have a second thermometer you can put in there, as a way to double-check the reading?

Of course, with no food near the sensor, you don't really need to double-check the temp. Even if a reported "275" was actually 285, the smoker should still be able to get itself to what it *thinks* is 275.

I'd start with testing it empty, to simplify things, if you haven't already. That at least takes a few complications off the table, for now.