Smoke Daddy PID for Camp Chef

[BbqPaul]

I just ordered and received my Smoke Daddy PID controller, fan motor and auger motor for my Cabela's Magnum Pellet Smoker...which is made by Camp Chef. I'm a little apprehensive about taking it all apart and reattaching everything in my smoker. Does anyone have any experience with this or any experience with the PID temperature controllers? Thoughts?

 

[bregent]

If nobody here has, then contact SmokeDaddy, they'll walk you through it. A couple of folks at the defunct pellet heads forum did the conversion - I believe they are now on the pelletfan forum.

 

[tallbm]

I just ordered and received my Smoke Daddy PID controller, fan motor and auger motor for my Cabela's Magnum Pellet Smoker...which is made by Camp Chef. I'm a little apprehensive about taking it all apart and reattaching everything in my smoker. Does anyone have any experience with this or any experience with the PID temperature controllers? Thoughts?

Hi there and welcome!

I have no experience with that setup BUT I have a little experience with PID's and smoker rewire jobs.

The main concepts you need to know is that the replacement/rewire job should really not be that difficult.

1. You need power from the plug to your PID
2. You need your PID to have a temp probe inside the smoker
3. You need power from the PID to the heating element, so the PID can control the power on/off to the heating element
4. You need the plug neutral wire from the plug to go to the heating element
5. You need the plug ground to continue to be grounded

Now some of the details of the 5 items above may change but that is basically it in a nutshell :)

 

[dward51]

Well that is not your standard PID from what I can see. It looks to be a model specific "plug and play" conversion for those pellet smokers. Does your Cabella's unit have the same sort of modular connections? It would appear as long as the connections can be made the same it should work. Photo below is from the Pellet Pro PID web page.

Looking at page 13 of the Cabela's Magnum Smoker manual, it appears the swap out will be a simple unplug the old controller and plug in the new one. The diagaram on page 13 appears to show compatible connectors, but the wire colors are different. Should still be a plug and play mod though (or so it appears). Only thing I see is the replacement control panel appears to be smaller than the Cabela's one. You may need to fabricate a backer panel, etc...

Manual - https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwi_zra084rYAhWG0YMKHZIKDAkQFghUMAE&url=http://www.cabelas.com/assets/product_files/pdf/541835_Pellet_Grill_with_Window.pdf&usg=AOvVaw1KtOoA0UFxl3zv7cSGnDHw

 

[bregent]

As far as I know, the SmokeDaddy is a plug and play for the CampChef's including the connectors. I know some folks had performance problems and needed to update the fans to a higher output model and auger motor speed might also be an issue. This was on the smaller CC grills - the Magnum might already have a higher output fan. Again, contact Dennis at SmokeDaddy. They have direct experience with folks that have converted their CampChef grills.