river100
Smoke Blower
- Sep 2, 2017
- 115
- 47
I'm a little late for this post but my suggestion could give your smoker element and wire a longer life.
Decide on the highest temp' you want to run your smoker at once you get it going. Look at your PID manual and find a place that lets you set the max % output,0-100%. Do a test run setting the max% output to 75%,( not the same as max temp'), Set the smoker to the max temp you want to run your smoker. If it gets to target temp' in a short enough time you've just lowered the chance of a current /heat related issue and gave life to the element and wiring.
If it doesn't get to the target temp' start raising the max% output until it does it in a resonable amout of time.
You can go as low as the element will hold the setpoint temp' and you're ok with how long it took to get there. If you're cooking large amount or filling the smoker you might need "headroom" in your max% output setting so dont't forget that. If you end up with 80, your element will never get over 80% of it's rated wattage, 4000 watts for a 5000 watt element.
How much of a difference this makes depaends on your setup. If your element can barely get the job done at 100% output there's no sense in even doing this.
Another limitation is the Max% output setting, some cheaper PIDs may not have that setting.
You will probably need to make adjustment to the PID tuning if you change the max output.
Decide on the highest temp' you want to run your smoker at once you get it going. Look at your PID manual and find a place that lets you set the max % output,0-100%. Do a test run setting the max% output to 75%,( not the same as max temp'), Set the smoker to the max temp you want to run your smoker. If it gets to target temp' in a short enough time you've just lowered the chance of a current /heat related issue and gave life to the element and wiring.
If it doesn't get to the target temp' start raising the max% output until it does it in a resonable amout of time.
You can go as low as the element will hold the setpoint temp' and you're ok with how long it took to get there. If you're cooking large amount or filling the smoker you might need "headroom" in your max% output setting so dont't forget that. If you end up with 80, your element will never get over 80% of it's rated wattage, 4000 watts for a 5000 watt element.
How much of a difference this makes depaends on your setup. If your element can barely get the job done at 100% output there's no sense in even doing this.
Another limitation is the Max% output setting, some cheaper PIDs may not have that setting.
You will probably need to make adjustment to the PID tuning if you change the max output.
Last edited:
