MES additonal heater mod

[davenh]

Ok Richtee...I did a turbo switch mod to my mod

.

I was smoking a bunch of salmon (215°) last night and found turning the extra heater on for a short period of time brings the smoker back to temp quickly after opening the door to mop. It was very windy here and cool temps in the 30's. When I hit the heater on I could recover in under 10 min to the set point.

Thinking about your turbo switch idea and took it a little step further. I added an auto-off timer in parallel to the dimmer. I can set the heater at any level needed with the dimmer, or leave it off. When I open the door and temps drop, I hit the 10 min button on the timer and it overrides the dimmer for 10 mins, element @ full power. Now I can walk away, after it times out the dimmer is back in control. So, kind of like a real turbo boost for temp recovery

. The timer has 10, 20, 30, 60 mins and a hold (unlimited time on).

Marked up the dimmer with some hash marks, kind of ugly but lets me know the wattage setting.

 

[davenh]

Had a problem with radiant heating off the element at full power. I did a couple of turkeys at higher temps (275) and the heater started to warp the door and over heat the walls

.

Temp recovery was great, even with 2 - 12lb birds. Only took 10 min to get back to set point. Problem was with the temp in the smoker, way too uneven

The sideways radiant heating got the walls so hot it screwed with the MES sensor. It was reading about 40~50 higher (rack 260, MES sensor 300+). The uneven temps really messed with the smoking, middle of the top bird was undercooked and the outer areas were overcooked. The bottom bird was great.

So, had to mod again, boxed it in a little to control the sideways heating to the walls and redirected the heat more to the center under the water pan

. I'll try a couple big chickens this weekend to test it out.

Here are a couple pics.

 

[richtee]

Hey good one! I been thinkin about the box you have. Maybe some more surface area as well would help get the heat out and into the chamber. A heat sink sort of setup. Being as you have a relatively small surface area of heating element and an inefficient heat transfer medium <air> alot of heat is being "wasted" heating the box up. I assume that box is stainless? Maybe a couple lines of fins tack welded or riveted on the top would help get the heat out into the smoking chamber better.

That first block you had melted because it was holding on to too much of the heat and was unable to transfer it fast enough to the surrounding air. If it had been a deeply finned block, it MAY have held. MAY... without doing some rather involved calcs I cannot swear by it.

Anyway, something to chew over.

 

[davenh]

Hi Richtee..where would you recommend the heatsink fins, top of the angled cover, sides maybe? The box is stainless. Was trying to make this thing work with materials I have laying around

. I could make some fins out of some left over pieces.

I was thinking of the box being more of a chimney with air inlet holes along the bottom edges (the back is 50% open where the heater enters) and as the hot air rises it is distributed more to the center of the water pan, then diffused more by the pan. These MES smokers are sealed up and insulated pretty good so it doesn't take much to built heat inside.

Then again, I'm in no way any kind of a thermal expert (more of a jack of all trades kinda guy

) and welcome any suggestions or advice.

Another issue, as the outside temps are getting warmer the results might start to seem better, but may be more related to the warmer weather. Not many more 10~20° days left to see if it is doing what it's supposed too . I might not know if it's really working until next late next fall

.

 

[richtee]

Why do you need a bottom at all? It's just something else the heat has to transfer thru to get to where you want it, no?

Also have you considered a small fan to aid in heat distribution?

The idea of an un-exhausted box freaks me out.

 

[davenh]

I probably wasn't clear which box I was talking about , heater or MES, sorry

. I shouldn't have said the MES or the heater box is sealed. There is an exhaust vent on the MES to the outside. Inlet is fixed, 3 - 3/8 holes in the wood chip loader. Other than those holes there is no other leaks. Or were you talking about the heater box..LOL. One end of the heater box is open and I did drill some inlet holes along the bottom so air would be pulled into the box as hot air rises out the top, convection right?

I put a bottom on the heater box to act as a reflector, so the heater wouldn't cook the bottom of the MES. I thought as the heat reflected off the sides and bottom of the heater box it would naturally want to go up?

In hindsight, maybe a thick larger piece of stainless or plain steel with fins as a heatsink and the tube heater clamped to it would be a better choice. Or maybe the tube heater sandwiched between two plates?

I was thinking about a fan before, but wasn't sure if I could easily find one that would run for a while in 275°. A smoking convection oven, sounds good

.

 

[flyweed]

I've seen tubular style heater elements with heat fins already mounted all the way along the tube..wouldn't one of those work?

 

[deltadude]

I've seen tubular style heater elements with heat fins already mounted all the way along the tube..wouldn't one of those work?

I am not sure, my thinking is based on my HVAC background.  Finned elements would work better where there is air flow (like a fan) that moves air over the element, the fins will transfer heat or dissipate or dispense heat faster.  Since the MES basically has static air, with only a little air circulation the smooth type works very well.

 

[baba bones]

I was looking at this post and I'm not getting any pix of these mods   why is that , can anyone HELP.......

 

[danbono]

Hi All Same here pics are NOT there??

Thanks Dan

 

[deltadude]

Many posters like myself us either photobucket, imageshake or another photo storage site.  The posters in this thread haven't been on SMF for a long time, if they used a service they could have either closed their account there or ran out of allowed free storage, and older pics deleted.  If they used SMF to upload the images, this thread is 4 years old, it was before SMF changed forum software when some old threads were either lost or the pics possibly lost.