My MES died.

[chopsaw]

Good to hear . Nice job on doing the fix yourself .

 

[tallbm]

Parts came today. I had taken a few minutes last week and tore the parts that needed to come out apart. Had a little time today so I proceeded to tackle the repairs.

Less than a half hour later, my MES is alive again. This I have to give thanks to everyone that gave advice for. Plugged it in and set it to going. Came right up to temp and worked just like it did before.

Now it’s time to get some stuff prepped to give it the run through.

I'm glad to hear you got it back up and running! Smoke on! :D

 

[Bearcarver]

That's Great, Spuds!!
I'm glad to hear you're back in business!!
Smoke On!

Bear

 

[WombatSmoker]

Parts came today. I had taken a few minutes last week and tore the parts that needed to come out apart. Had a little time today so I proceeded to tackle the repairs.

Less than a half hour later, my MES is alive again. This I have to give thanks to everyone that gave advice for. Plugged it in and set it to going. Came right up to temp and worked just like it did before.

Now it’s time to get some stuff prepped to give it the run through.

I have the exact same issue with mine, so I'm happy to hear there's a fix. Did you just order the heating element from and get the new spade plugs from somewhere else? Also did you end up replacing any of the wiring as mentioned by @johnmeyer?

 

[klutzyspuds]

I ordered the parts I needed off a website called Appliance factory parts. They had a package bundle that included all the parts I needed all together including the heating element, pig tails of wire with spade connectors to hook to the element, and wire nuts to connect to the existing wires. I chose to avoid the wire nuts and connect the pig tail wires directly with solder crimp fittings. They even included short pieces of heat shrink and the rubber gasket that goes around the terminals. And it was a couple bucks cheaper than just the element on amazon.

I did order new thermostats from amazon separate, but as of yet have not needed to replace it.

Used the smoker this past weekend to make up a batch of venison snack sticks and it worked as good as ever!

KS

 

[sigmo]

It's great to hear you got it fixed. And it's great to see the advice in this thread and others like it.

Others will hopefully stumble upon threads like this and benefit from them.

While all of this has been covered before, it never hurts for it all to be repeated.

I've said this all before and I'll say it again:

1. The MESs purposely use long heater cycle times to ignite their stock chip burners. As mentioned by @johnmeyer above, if you replace the stock controller with something that gives more smooth, even heating, you will defeat one of the major design "features" of the MES, and you'll no longer get smoke from the stock chip and tray design.

2. As @Bearcarver said: The stock chip and tray design doesn't work very well, even with the stock temperature controller. So most folks who've had their MES for a while, and especially, if they've run across this forum, will adopt a different smoke generator. I personally use one of the original AMAZN AMNPS pellet trays, and it's night and day better than the OEM chip burner. Bear's right. If you stay with the stock chip burner, you really are a glutton for punishment! :)

3. As @tallbm has pointed out, because the stock controller cycles the temperature so widely, there are certain types of cooking that are impossible with that stock controller. And as a lot of us know from our professional work, a PID controller can be the answer to getting optimum response to disturbances as well as initial temperature accuracy, etc.

But as @johnmeyer points out: PIDs are non-trivial to program properly. Likely far beyond what most people want to fiddle with. So a simple "bang-bang" control may be all that's really necessary. We just want it to be accurate, and likely have less hysteresis than what the stock MES units have (to make their chip burners work).

4. The stock wiring and connections are not very good. And replacing things should be done with proper care and attention to detail. Heating elements, not surprisingly, get HOT! :) And that means that the connectors and wire near the elements need to be the right kinds, designed for this application. The lugs I've gotten for heating elements have been made of a nickel alloy, not copper. They retain their "springiness" even at high temperatures so they don't loosen up and cause the high contact resistances mentioned above by @johnmeyer.

In my 40 years of electrical and electronics work, I can say that in my experience, at least 90% of all so-called "electrical" or "electronic" failures are bad contacts and connections. This is true even inside of fancy IC and power semiconductor packages, where lead-bond failures make up a surprisingly high percentage of field failures. This is why we always temperature cycled completed devices before sending them out to the field, and this reduced field failures by an enormous percentage. Temperature cycling roots out a LOT of marginal connections, especially within IC packages.

Mind the connections! :)

I'm in the same camp as @Bearcarver. So far, my MES's stock controller has not failed. Nothing in my MES has failed, actually.

But I did get an AMNPS pellet burner quite early on, and I've removed a lot of the stock "guts" of my MES40 and added some "air flow control" in the form of aluminum sheet to direct the airflow to my liking. So I only used the MES's stock chip burner a few times. I do NOT miss it!

When I get the time to play with it, or if the stock controller in my MES fails, I will implement a much fancier temperature control system. But for now, I use the stock controller and the not-so-stock smoke generator in the form of the AMNPS.

Someday I may also add a mailbox setup. I already have the mailbox, but again, what I've got works well, so I haven't been motivated to put the time into the mailbox. I've been able to do cold smoking of cheese, and even butter using the AMNPS inside of the smoker. But I do wait for it to be rather cold outside. With a mailbox, I could likely cold smoke at warmer ambient temperatures, of course!

So many projects. So little time!

 

[Bearcarver]

It's great to hear you got it fixed. And it's great to see the advice in this thread and others like it.

Others will hopefully stumble upon threads like this and benefit from them.

While all of this has been covered before, it never hurts for it all to be repeated.

I've said this all before and I'll say it again:

1. The MESs purposely use long heater cycle times to ignite their stock chip burners. As mentioned by @johnmeyer above, if you replace the stock controller with something that gives more smooth, even heating, you will defeat one of the major design "features" of the MES, and you'll no longer get smoke from the stock chip and tray design.

2. As @Bearcarver said: The stock chip and tray design doesn't work very well, even with the stock temperature controller. So most folks who've had their MES for a while, and especially, if they've run across this forum, will adopt a different smoke generator. I personally use one of the original AMAZN AMNPS pellet trays, and it's night and day better than the OEM chip burner. Bear's right. If you stay with the stock chip burner, you really are a glutton for punishment! :)

3. As @tallbm has pointed out, because the stock controller cycles the temperature so widely, there are certain types of cooking that are impossible with that stock controller. And as a lot of us know from our professional work, a PID controller can be the answer to getting optimum response to disturbances as well as initial temperature accuracy, etc.

But as @johnmeyer points out: PIDs are non-trivial to program properly. Likely far beyond what most people want to fiddle with. So a simple "bang-bang" control may be all that's really necessary. We just want it to be accurate, and likely have less hysteresis than what the stock MES units have (to make their chip burners work).

4. The stock wiring and connections are not very good. And replacing things should be done with proper care and attention to detail. Heating elements, not surprisingly, get HOT! :) And that means that the connectors and wire near the elements need to be the right kinds, designed for this application. The lugs I've gotten for heating elements have been made of a nickel alloy, not copper. They retain their "springiness" even at high temperatures so they don't loosen up and cause the high contact resistances mentioned above by @johnmeyer.

In my 40 years of electrical and electronics work, I can say that in my experience, at least 90% of all so-called "electrical" or "electronic" failures are bad contacts and connections. This is true even inside of fancy IC and power semiconductor packages, where lead-bond failures make up a surprisingly high percentage of field failures. This is why we always temperature cycled completed devices before sending them out to the field, and this reduced field failures by an enormous percentage. Temperature cycling roots out a LOT of marginal connections, especially within IC packages.

Mind the connections! :)

I'm in the same camp as @Bearcarver. So far, my MES's stock controller has not failed. Nothing in my MES has failed, actually.

But I did get an AMNPS pellet burner quite early on, and I've removed a lot of the stock "guts" of my MES40 and added some "air flow control" in the form of aluminum sheet to direct the airflow to my liking. So I only used the MES's stock chip burner a few times. I do NOT miss it!

When I get the time to play with it, or if the stock controller in my MES fails, I will implement a much fancier temperature control system. But for now, I use the stock controller and the not-so-stock smoke generator in the form of the AMNPS.

Someday I may also add a mailbox setup. I already have the mailbox, but again, what I've got works well, so I haven't been motivated to put the time into the mailbox. I've been able to do cold smoking of cheese, and even butter using the AMNPS inside of the smoker. But I do wait for it to be rather cold outside. With a mailbox, I could likely cold smoke at warmer ambient temperatures, of course!

So many projects. So little time!

Sigmo Makes Many Good Points!!

I will add that I wish Masterbuilt would have took my advice years ago, when I said they should get rid of their Chip Burner that doesn't work worth a hoot, and design their Smoker around the use of the AMNPS. I know for a Fact that Todd would have given them an Awesome Deal. Then they could have used a better Temp Controller, because you wouldn't need it to act stupid to help the chips to burn.

Bear

 

[PAS]

What gauge wiring do these units use going to the element? May be worth having some high temp wire ready just in case.

 

[tallbm]

What gauge wiring do these units use going to the element? May be worth having some high temp wire ready just in case.

They use 16 AWG.
Buy connectors that are hi temp stainless steel 14-16 awg.

 

[PAS]

They use 16 AWG.
Buy connectors that are hi temp stainless steel 14-16 awg.

Thanks!