MES Rewire Simple Guide - No Back Removal Needed!!!

[normanaj]

The manual is very confusingly written hahaha.

Ain't that the truth!

 

[monkman911]

Nice it's in!!!

1. I think it's fine to program without the thermocouple plugged in as long as it lets you
2. You will only have to set the P-I-D values once. It will also remember your last set temp.
3. The thumb drive just has the manual PDF file on it, you won't need it if you follow the instructions in that post on how to set temp or PID values and such. The manual is very confusingly written hahaha.

I hope it's all going well!

Success! Did a test run this morning and the temp never varied more than +/- 2 degrees! The electronics have always been a weak point of the MES but now I can smoke with confidence.

I am eternally grateful to you and the other members of this forum!

 

[dr k]

Success! Did a test run this morning and the temp never varied more than +/- 2 degrees! The electronics have always been a weak point of the MES but now I can smoke with confidence.

I am eternally grateful to you and the other members of this forum!

Wait until it has a load to heat and it starts sucking up the heat fast, then you'll want to change the parameters from no load, if the mes is pre heated and you open and shut to put your load in as fast as you can and then you're waiting an hour+ to get to set temp as the output light flashes many degrees before you get to set temp. I want the output light solid on when you're trying to reach set temp with a load not flashing 20* below. I use the Auber WS-1510ELPM on my MES 40 but the Mes 30 Works great with the stock controller and I have 2 more since the 40 and 30 are identical controllers. I keep playing with the parameter values after 5 years once a year but have stuck to the P mode since it's a bigger volume of air than the Mes 30. The thumb drive will specifically point out the P mode scenario and no other PI mode, PD mode or full PID. I'm more concerned about waiting the first hour to get to set temp so I do P mode P =1, I= 0 and D=0. If P=0, then it's an on off controller like the stock mes controller at set temp no matter what value in I or D so you need a value of one or more in P, but with the Auber Parameters above on the down swing (if you have an over shoot with a load at 260+ set temp) it'll recover at 50% output flashing down swing at when hitting set temp to tighten valley and peak temps in 3 cycles to keep at 1 or 2 degrees of your set temp. Throughly read the manual. I read it online like my vehicle manual before I pulled the trigger. There's a reason they spent the time to emphasize the P mode. Also, figure out if you want to run the program mode default setting entering temp and seconds every smoke vs single step whereby you turn on the controller and it runs the previous temp till you change it or turn it off. I changed it to single step and use a timer to ramp up etc.

 

[philinnm]

I did my rewire even simpler. I removed the wires going to the heat coil and rewired it direct to the plug that goes to the PID. Bypassed everything else. Works great!

 

[normanaj]

I did my rewire even simpler. I removed the wires going to the heat coil and rewired it direct to the plug that goes to the PID. Bypassed everything else. Works great!

Just remember this leaves the safety limit switch out of the loop.

 

[tallbm]

I did my rewire even simpler. I removed the wires going to the heat coil and rewired it direct to the plug that goes to the PID. Bypassed everything else. Works great!

Yep that is definitely an option. And as normanaj brought up, just be sure you know the safety switch is no longer in the mix. Lots of good reliable thermometers helps int his regard.
Let us know how your 1st PID smoke goes. I always get excited hearing about how much people love their rewired PID systems once they are dialed in and are producing that wonderful BBQ :D

 

[philinnm]

Yep that is definitely an option. And as normanaj brought up, just be sure you know the safety switch is no longer in the mix. Lots of good reliable thermometers helps int his regard.
Let us know how your 1st PID smoke goes. I always get excited hearing about how much people love their rewired PID systems once they are dialed in and are producing that wonderful BBQ :D

Thanks. Yes, I know the safety is eliminated, but my unit was an older one that the wiring was totally different from any shown here. And rather than take the time to trace every wire, I took the shortcut. As long as my PID is sound, I'll be OK. Mt remote thermometer I have set to 350, so if it goes haywire, an alarm will sound and I'll simply unplug it.
After I did a new burn in smoke (cleaned it) I smoked about a dozen trout fillets. They were awesome according to my neighbor! PID is the way to go for sure. Took me several reads to figure out how to use the PID, and I'm sure I'm not using it to it's fullest potential, but I finally figured out how to set it as a simple temp control and it's much better than the factory controller. I had gone so far as to buy a new replacement controller and heating element, but with the PID didn't need either. Anyone want an new, unused rectangular control unit and element?
Thanks again!

 

[chopsaw]

I know the safety is eliminated,

As long as my PID is sound, I'll be OK.

I had mine save me once , so don't think it can't happen . Just FYI .

 

[tallbm]

Thanks. Yes, I know the safety is eliminated, but my unit was an older one that the wiring was totally different from any shown here. And rather than take the time to trace every wire, I took the shortcut. As long as my PID is sound, I'll be OK. Mt remote thermometer I have set to 350, so if it goes haywire, an alarm will sound and I'll simply unplug it.
After I did a new burn in smoke (cleaned it) I smoked about a dozen trout fillets. They were awesome according to my neighbor! PID is the way to go for sure. Took me several reads to figure out how to use the PID, and I'm sure I'm not using it to it's fullest potential, but I finally figured out how to set it as a simple temp control and it's much better than the factory controller. I had gone so far as to buy a new replacement controller and heating element, but with the PID didn't need either. Anyone want an new, unused rectangular control unit and element?
Thanks again!

Nice a trout success!!!
The element may come in handy for you in the future. Hopefully you can unload that stock controller replacement :D

 

[moussaka]

I bought a AW-1520H. Working on the rewire now following Auber's .pdf guide. For the jumper, they suggest 14awg stranded wire. I have 12awg solid wire on hand. Will this be a problem? Would it be better to just cut one of the female connectors off the pre-installed wires and crimp a male spade to connect the two together?

The more I read, the more I'm confusing myself. With the .pdf, they're basically just removing the wires on the relay and patching those together. In this thread, it seems to be more complicated.

Post #297 has the same model as me (20072612) and rewired more than just the relay. What am I misunderstanding here?

Mine:

Thanks for any clarification.

 

[tallbm]

I bought a AW-1520H. Working on the rewire now following Auber's .pdf guide. For the jumper, they suggest 14awg stranded wire. I have 12awg solid wire on hand. Will this be a problem? Would it be better to just cut one of the female connectors off the pre-installed wires and crimp a male spade to connect the two together?

The more I read, the more I'm confusing myself. With the .pdf, they're basically just removing the wires on the relay and patching those together. In this thread, it seems to be more complicated.

Post #297 has the same model as me (20072612) and rewired more than just the relay. What am I misunderstanding here?
View attachment 703054

Mine:
View attachment 703055

Thanks for any clarification.

Hi there and welcome!

1. The 12AWG wire will not be a problem, it is heavier duty that 14AWG and the MES uses 16AWG which is less heavy duty than either 12 or 14 AWG options. You are good to go.
2. There is nothing wrong cutting any of the wires and putting a female connector so it hooks into the male connector already on the matching wire. Just know that Masterbuilt uses some pretty crappy connectors in general so if they are lose or already corroding, etc. then just getting rid of all their connectors and using a good wire nut also gets the job done. The key is to have a good, solid, and reliable connection when wires are getting connected :D
3. I can help cut through all the confusion between this thread and Auber's instructions (which I'm not sure are solely for an MES, I know they had Bradley instructions in the past).
The main thing to understand is connect Smooth Black to a Braided wire, and Smooth White to the other braided wire.

So in the case of the image below you as long as you connect #1 to a Braided Red Wire (#2 or #3) you will be ok.
Then you connect #4 to the other Braided Red Wire that isn't already connected.
What you have done is wire completely around the circuit board.
This means no power will ever hit or run through the circuit board, the power will strictly go from the MES plug through the wiring you connected and to the heating element BUT it will keep the high temp safety switch in the mix because that switch is wired further along up the back of the machine by one of the Red Braided wires as that wire goes to the heating element.
That's it!

If you are curious about what the Auber instructions were trying to do, I think they are trying to use the same circuit boards connector paths and have you only switch a minimal amount of connections.
I don't care for this approach because you have a whole circuit board and it's connections, etc, etc. ready to fail at some point, and also what if at some point the board changes and those instructions are no longer any good.
I prefer just connecting the 4 necessary wire ends with simple reliable connection methods to make 2 whole wires that are easy to understand and troubleshoot. Way fewer failure conditions and way simpler. Plus you can just toss out the circuit board if you like for a less cluttery compartment down there :D


I hope this information helps and ask any questions you may have. You will be up and running in no time! :D

 

[moussaka]

So, on mine, what're the other things attached to the board with the smaller wires? Lights?
I've actually never even plugged this in because the control panel on top is completely disintegrated and I don't know what any buttons do. I got this for free and heating elements are cheap enough (if that's also shot). I figured I should give it a shot.
Appreciate this thread and the wealth of info on these smokers. It's fun to tinker.

 

[tallbm]

So, on mine, what're the other things attached to the board with the smaller wires? Lights?
I've actually never even plugged this in because the control panel on top is completely disintegrated and I don't know what any buttons do. I got this for free and heating elements are cheap enough (if that's also shot). I figured I should give it a shot.
Appreciate this thread and the wealth of info on these smokers. It's fun to tinker.

The smaller thin wires attached will run to the stock controller at the top of the MES as well as the light that is inside the MES.
The controller on top has buttons that would send signals down to the board to allow certain things to happen like "cut power on/off to the heating element to reach the set temp", or "turn the light on/off".
The circuit board is where power comes in from the plug and that power then gets fed up to the controller so it is powered on and then the controller would signal down to the circuit board to do things like what I mention. The heating element itself doesn't fail too often. There are a couple of other parts that fail way more often and the top controller is probably the 2nd or 3rd most common failure point.

Chances are if the top controller is in that bad of a shape then it is broken as well and the smoker won't run once you fix the circuit board.
Doing the simple rewire makes it to where that circuit board and top controller are cut out of the mix completely. It makes the smoker dumb so that when you plug it into an outlet the heating element pulls power to heat up in an uncontrolled manner. Basically just "on".

• This is why a PID controller would be needed to control a rewired MES machine.
• The rewired MES would plug into the PID Controller.
• The PID Controller would plug into the wall outlet and have a temp probe dropped down the MES vent and hooked to the underside of the lowest rack in the smoker so it can measure smoker temp.
• You turn on the PID controller and enter a set temp for the smoker to heat up to and the PID controller will feed power to the MES until it heats up to the set temp and the PID controller will then cut power on/off to hit and hold that set temp.

This PID controllers (PID means Proportional, Integral, Derivative) is way way way way more precise than masterbuilt's stock controller. It hits and holds dead on instead of causing temp swings and failing to hit max temp you enter, etc.

 

[moussaka]

I decided to just solder the wires together instead of messing with connectors for this. Chances are I'm never going to disconnect this portion of it anyways.
I need to do some internal cleaning and maybe later today I'll plug it into the AW-1520H and see if anything blows up.

Is there an easy way to know what watt element I have? I'm assuming 1200 as that is all the replacement parts I see for the model I have. I just don't know if it's an 'upgrade kit' or not... Model#20072612. Wondering if I need to tweak the P value as the directions suggest that if you have a 1200 or 1500W one.

 

[tallbm]

I decided to just solder the wires together instead of messing with connectors for this. Chances are I'm never going to disconnect this portion of it anyways.
I need to do some internal cleaning and maybe later today I'll plug it into the AW-1520H and see if anything blows up.

Is there an easy way to know what watt element I have? I'm assuming 1200 as that is all the replacement parts I see for the model I have. I just don't know if it's an 'upgrade kit' or not... Model#20072612. Wondering if I need to tweak the P value as the directions suggest that if you have a 1200 or 1500W one.

View attachment 703188

Lookin good!

The 40 inch digital MES units use the 1200Watt element. The 30 inch use the 800Watt element and the Analog (no circuit board or electronics).

Here are some good P-I-D values chopsaw provided in the past that should fork for you no matter if it's a MES30 or MES40:

P = 7
I = 208
D = 210


If you want to see if your unit is working without the PID on it just plug it into an outlet now and it will heat up, BUT don't leave it that way because there is no control happening, it will heat up until it melts down if you leave it plugged in hahaha. This test will show if there are any issues in the rewired unit before you put a PID to it, which could happen because the safety high temp switch is like the #1 failure point and this test would let you know that it is still working.... for the time being :D

 

[moussaka]

Lookin good!

The 40 inch digital MES units use the 1200Watt element. The 30 inch use the 800Watt element and the Analog (no circuit board or electronics).

Here are some good P-I-D values chopsaw provided in the past that should fork for you no matter if it's a MES30 or MES40:

P = 7
I = 208
D = 210


If you want to see if your unit is working without the PID on it just plug it into an outlet now and it will heat up, BUT don't leave it that way because there is no control happening, it will heat up until it melts down if you leave it plugged in hahaha. This test will show if there are any issues in the rewired unit before you put a PID to it, which could happen because the safety high temp switch is like the #1 failure point and this test would let you know that it is still working.... for the time being :D

Awesome. Thank you. I've been slowly reading through this thread and a lot of my previous questions had already been answered - so, I'm sorry for that.
I setup the PID/wifi/app today. I'll test everything tomorrow. I wanted to wait until things were dry. I did an internal clean and pulled some stuff out that I don't think are needed. I also have a Masterbuilt smoke box attachment (MB20100112) that I opted for instead of the mailbox mod. I think I can plug that into the Auber with an attachment plug instead of another direct power source? I have a lot of experimenting to do :)

 

[tallbm]

Awesome. Thank you. I've been slowly reading through this thread and a lot of my previous questions had already been answered - so, I'm sorry for that.
I setup the PID/wifi/app today. I'll test everything tomorrow. I wanted to wait until things were dry. I did an internal clean and pulled some stuff out that I don't think are needed. I also have a Masterbuilt smoke box attachment (MB20100112) that I opted for instead of the mailbox mod. I think I can plug that into the Auber with an attachment plug instead of another direct power source? I have a lot of experimenting to do :)

No problem. This thread is pretty big now so it's not easy to come in at any point and sort through the info. The initial post incorporates most of the necessary info but it may miss a small percentage of things needed or people just have questions. You are asking and getting things fixed just as this forum intended so no worries :D

 

[dsk]

I think I can plug that into the Auber with an attachment plug instead of another direct power source?

It should go directly into the wall outlet, or better use a separate control like this...

Amazon.com

Harbor freight sells the same thing for a bit less if you have one nearby.

The control lets you slow down smoke generation, and control it separately from the temperature.

 

[moussaka]

It should go directly into the wall outlet, or better use a separate control like this...

Amazon.com

Harbor freight sells the same thing for a bit less if you have one nearby.

The control lets you slow down smoke generation, and control it separately from the temperature.

Mine is just a simple on off switch. I can 100% set the aw-1520h to turn it on and off through a relay toggle in the settings. It literally has a plug labeled 'smoke generator' on the back next to the heater plug. I looked it up this morning and read through the manual on how to configure.

 

[tallbm]

Mine is just a simple on off switch. I can 100% set the aw-1520h to turn it on and off through a relay toggle in the settings. It literally has a plug labeled 'smoke generator' on the back next to the heater plug. I looked it up this morning and read through the manual on how to configure.

Yeah I think that smoke generator port will work. Just know that I've seen a post or 2 where people mention using a voltage controller like D dsk mentions for turning down the voltage on that smoke generator allows for it to smolder better.
I use an AMNPS and mailbox mod so can't speak to the MES smoke generator directly.