Problem with Mavric

[idaho]

Ok no clue WHY but my Mavrick 732 is messing up, smoker temp stars at like 150 my meat probe seems right which was about 34 and the smoker should have been the same as both items were outside. Any ideas?

 

[dirtsailor2003]

Test your maverick probe in boiling water. Should be 212 or close to that. A few degrees off is okay. The stick therms that come installed in most smokers are rarely accurate.

If you Mav probes check out during the boil test then use those and forget the smoker therm.

 

[idaho]

Guess I did not explain well enough, Mavrick smoker probe says 150 when smoker was off and about 34 same as the meat which at outside all night . Odd it seems to be about right now I put another meat thermometer inside to be able to double check, I will do the boiling water test when done with this smoke

 

[noboundaries]

Just need to clarify.  Smoker is not lit.  Maverick is on, both chamber and food probes plugged in to the transmitter, but the chamber probe (labeled barbeque on the transmitter) reads 150 and the food probe reads 34.  If that's correct, I suspect you have a shorted or kinked chamber probe.

I had a similar situation with a chamber probe.  It would start out reading correctly then not increase above 184.  That happened after only 4 smokes.  I sent an e-mail to Maverick and they replaced the chamber probe, no questions asked, and they replaced it with a 6 foot probe not the shorty that came with the unit.  I had been wet smoking and suspected a short in the OEM probe.  I let it dry out, shrink wrapped it at the wire/probe joint, and it has been working ever since.    

 

[handymanstan]

What happens if you switch the leads and make the chamber probe a food probe?  I would take the batteries out for a minuet and restart a see if there's a difference.

Stan

 

[noboundaries]

Also to clarify again.  Both the chamber probe and the meat probe were inside or outside the turned off smoker.  If the smoker is black and the chamber probe inside but the food probe is outside, and it is sunny outside, the inside of the smoker could be significantly hotter than outside, but 150 seems high. 

 

[idaho]

Ok smoker was not on, was a nice 34 degrees outside. I switched the probes and got a error reading if some sort. then put back.  Yesterday when I was doing jerky it would hit above 300 when smoker was on low, I am thinking its a bad probe. I will email them and see what they say, I have taken batteries out reset restarted and everything could besides getting a hammer :)

 

[manzwood]

Hey Idaho!

After reading your post about your Maverick I decided to grab my DVM and see just what my probes do with changes in temperature.

What I found is that the probes when cold show a very high resistance of around 1.2 Mega Ohms at 72 degrees.

Holding the tip of the probe under test with my warm finger the resistance begins to decrease to

.

I suspect that you may have gotten a tiny bit water down inside the probe that has reached the sensing element that is altering the resistance and inducing the error.

I have heard of this issue with the probed supplied with the Maverick 732 model and was aware of it when I purchased my new Maverick 733 model with the "up-graded" probes that are now apparently better sealed to moisture doesn't get into the sensing element.

Not having a failed probe I can only guess that heating the probe above 212 degrees for a period of time might drive the water out assuming that water is in fact the source of your problem.

The other thing you might consider doing is cleaning the probe's plug with some rubbing alcohol but my money is on water in the probe.

After a little more research in what Maverick uses as their sensing element I have determined that it is likely an NTC Thermistor.

The NTC Thermistor reacts inversely proportional to heat in that the hotter the element gets, the lower the resistance and very susceptible to moisture causing errors.

2014-01-12_12-22-36_69.jpg

• manzwood
• Jan 12, 2014

 As you can see from my MAcGyver style test set-up I used both of my probes with

One connected to the Fluke DVM to monitor resistance the other plugged into my 733.

Probe resistance was 1.2 Mega Ohms @ 72 degrees F  and dropping to 764 Kilo Ohms

@ 411 degrees F.

I went through this discovery process because I found your post interesting and just needed to know for myself.

 

[noboundaries]

Outstanding post ManzWood!

 

[idaho]

Yes wow that's cool. I emailed them about mine having issues and will see what they say

 

[manzwood]

Hey Idaho,

I bet Maverick will be sending you a new probe to keep a customer. 

Now, here is a deal I doubt you will refuse...

I will be happy to pay the shipping if you were to send me the bad prob.

I would like to "tinker" with it and see what the what is with it.

Send me a PM and I we can work out the details

Oh, I am an Electronics Technician (supervisor) and forensic analysis is one of my (few) strong suits...

 

[thelinx004]

I had a similar problem just yesterday with my Maverick dual probe.  Got the smoker fired up with a pork butt ready to go only to find my chamber temp consistently climbing as it should while the food probe sitting just on top of the smoker was reading 230f!  Figured there was some water in the probe as suggested here so I placed it in the chamber right next to the BBQ probe.  They started off reading about 150 degrees difference but slowly over about 20-30 minutes they were within 5 degrees of each other.  This was close enough for me so I threw it in my Pork shoulder and seemed to do just fine for the entire cook. 

Now that it's done, I want to throw it in a pot of boiling water again just to verify.  If need be I will write the company but it appears to be working fine now.  From what I've read on here Maverick appears to be very good about taking care of their customers so I don't want to take advantage of them just yet if I don't have to.