Mod. For Hot Plates -QVIEWS

[dick bullard]

Some of the folks have purchased electric hot plates for use as a heat supply in their smokers. Some have not been satisfied in their use due to inadequate heat. The units are designed to cycle on and off to maintain a temp as chosen on the temp. control. The bi-metal control unit responds to the heat that is reflected back into the unit from the bottom of a pan or etc.

Modifying the unit to stay on all of the time allows it to heat to it's maximum capacity (usually 1000 watts).

Here is a simple mod. to by-pass the temp. control. As simple a mod. as this is___DO NOT ATTEMPT IT IF YOU FEEL UNCOMFORTABLE WORKING WITH ELECTRICITY!!! Ask someone more familiar with electrical wiring to help you!

This mod. was made to one of my Walmart cheapo hot plates.

STEP 1. Make sure unit is unplugged during entire mod. process!
STEP 2. Open up hot plate. Mine required only the removal of a nut and washer located on the underside of the unit.
STEP 3. Once opened, locate power cord wires. Here I have labeled them as #1 and #2.
STEP 4. Locate control device wire going to the heating element terminal. Here labeled as #3.
NOTE: Usually all connections are made with slip on-off connectors.
STEP 5. Remove #1 wire from control device terminal.
STEP 6. Remove #3 wire from heating element terminal and replace with #1 wire.
STEP .7 At this point you can remove wire #3 entirely or as I have done slip end on control device lug. Contol is not in circuit at this point and panel light will not cycle on and off (this is normal).
STEP 8. Reassemble unit carefully and then plug in. If mod. was done correctly...unit should remain at a high temp.

Your unit may differ inside slightly from this, but the same type of mod. should apply.

Rick



MY WALMART CHEAPO



STARTING DISASSEMBLY



BEFORE MODIFICATION



AFTER MODIFICATION

 

[tlzimmerman]

Awesome tutorial. Thank you very much.

Now has anyone found a high capacity rheostat or anything like that to be able to control the heat? I run 2 hot plates, one constant on, and the other I need to be able to vary its output to make things work perfectly for me.

 

[brohnson]

Nice work, thanks a lot!

 

[atcnick]

Great tutorial Rick. I should note that the mod I did for my hot plate, it was a GE with a flat surface not the coils, worked for a little while but the extra heat must have fried it. It's not working anymore at all.

 

[tlzimmerman]

I had a similar experience with a GE from wally world, it didn't get hot at all, and when you tried to force it to it burned out. Thank god wal mart takes anything back right!

The one girl even said "man this thing even smells like smoke", she didn't know enough to know it smelled like good hickory! LOL