Pid question

[dozerdude]

Hello from Ontario
I plan on adding a pid to my Bradley Original. Will the cycling of the pid affect the bisquet heater?
I am a bit timid about opening up the generator box and snipping wires! Any suggestions, diagrams, etc will be greatly appreciated!

 

[normanaj]

Auber makes a PID specifically for the Bradley.Kinda pricey but plug and play for the Bradley.
https://www.auberins.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=380

 

[dozerdude]

Out of my budget. I already have the Rex C100. Wondering about mounting in the Bradley generator or using a project box, etc.

 

[MDemerse1]

If you need to learn how to work your PID control to its optimal ability, I'd look at this tutorial. It gives some good information on the hows and whys of what PID control actually does.

 

[tallbm]

Hello from Ontario
I plan on adding a pid to my Bradley Original. Will the cycling of the pid affect the bisquet heater?
I am a bit timid about opening up the generator box and snipping wires! Any suggestions, diagrams, etc will be greatly appreciated!

Hi there and welcome!

Ultimately the rewire of these electric smokers to use a PID basically makes the heating element wiring go directly to the smoker plug wiring so when power is fed to the plug it bypasses everything and goes directly to the heating element. The PID's job is to then cut power on/off to plug of the rewired smoker. Nothing more complex than that :)

I don't know how the bisquet heater and feeder is controlled in a Bradley so I see your problem.
Have you considered removing the Bradley heater/feeder and going with a mailbox mod using the A-Maze-N Pellet Smoker (AMNPS) tray and using wood pellets?
It is MUCH cheaper than buying the Bradley wood pucks and will run for up to 12 hours producing perfect smoke unattended.

Here is an example of my super compact and modular Mailbox Mod and AMNPS for my MES. The same should easily be possible with the Bradley if you want to remove the wood puck device and plug a mailbox mod in the hole :)

 

[dozerdude]

Hi there and welcome!

Ultimately the rewire of these electric smokers to use a PID basically makes the heating element wiring go directly to the smoker plug wiring so when power is fed to the plug it bypasses everything and goes directly to the heating element. The PID's job is to then cut power on/off to plug of the rewired smoker. Nothing more complex than that :)

I don't know how the bisquet heater and feeder is controlled in a Bradley so I see your problem.
Have you considered removing the Bradley heater/feeder and going with a mailbox mod using the A-Maze-N Pellet Smoker (AMNPS) tray and using wood pellets?
It is MUCH cheaper than buying the Bradley wood pucks and will run for up to 12 hours producing perfect smoke unattended.

Here is an example of my super compact and modular Mailbox Mod and AMNPS for my MES. The same should easily be possible with the Bradley if you want to remove the wood puck device and plug a mailbox mod in the hole :)

Thanks for the great info!

 

[fivetricks]

If you need to learn how to work your PID control to its optimal ability, I'd look at this tutorial. It gives some good information on the hows and whys of what PID control actually does.

What a good article. But it is way over my simple mind. I really want to put one (or two) of these together, and I'm sure it's not as hard as it seems, but the more I read, the less confident in myself I am! :-D

 

[tallbm]

What a good article. But it is way over my simple mind. I really want to put one (or two) of these together, and I'm sure it's not as hard as it seems, but the more I read, the less confident in myself I am! :-D

Auber makes a plug and play version that keeps things simple though it cost a little money. The price is comparable to buying all the tools, supplies, and parts if you want to build basically the same thing from scratch so don't fret over the cost of the Auber vs the cost of building from scratch.

You would just have to rewire an electric smoker like the MES doing a simple rewire job :)