Finally lit her up....and then 😕

ROCKEWEHARD

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Joined
Dec 1, 2020
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Location
N. California / Bay Area
Grill
EX6, OG 22" KETTLE
So I finally fired the EX6 up today to do the burn in.....450-475 for about an hour as per the updated manual...all went well. Lowered temp to 250 to see how she smokes....had lid open to help cool....she got to 250 and all was good. lowered to 225 and all was good. decided id put some Thermoworks probes in and see what the center pit temp was vs the controller.. temps were reading a bit lower than the SF so I was playing with the set temp to se how it did....went back up to 250, she sat there for a bit then had a flame out.

No auto relight is a major thing they need to fix / add. Hard to believe any new Pellet smoker made today would not have this feature. its simple, if temp falls below "X" percent of set temp, re-energize the glow plug and speed up the fan.

Anyway......

I put the grill into shut down which in its process actually started the fire again as the fan pulses a high speeds...thought maybe if i power down and turn back on i could just enter a set temp and it would heat back up since the fire was burning. Nope...that didn't happen, told me improper shut down and went back into shut down mode. after it shut down i re-lit and set to 250. display showed it was at 250...TW Smoke said it was well over 375 and then the SF display started climbing.

i figure this was from excessive pellets in pot from flame out so i bump set temp to 350...units gets to 350 and then flames out again. put it back into shut down which again relit the fire...units is fully shut down now. debating if i want to try to cook on it tonight. I'm guessing the second flame out may have been my fault...maybe both were but not sure. it seems it doesn't do well trying to lower the set temp when its hot....goes from low to high fine.

Also the lid which at the start of the cook didn't close all the way on the left side (if you are looking at it) now seems to have an even gap on both sides and has maybe 1/4" of play in it...closes fine if i press it down. the Lid is rather stiff to open and close. is this normal? I want to say I've seen something about lid issues but don't remember exactly what it was or if there was a fix.

Thoughts...experiences...fixes. I'm all ears, thanks in advance.
 
Your lid issue is probably due is uneven floor. You can adjust each leg and get the lid centered properly.

You can not do what you want with the SF controller. It is made so that any error is on the safety side. It controls all shutdowns to prevent back burns into the pellet hopper and to make sure that the burn pot is empty for the next run. And it does not like open lids. The controller generally runs a little above the actual temp. That prevents burnt food and over shoots.

As far as the open lid, it affects the PID and the rate of temp change and things get funny.
 
Both times it flamed out the lid had been closed. the first flame out when it was at 225, it had been stable with the lid closed for about 10 min.

Outside temp is 57*...no wind.

I'm not at all discounting the fact that its my fault as an possibility. ill keep playing with it.

ill look into the not level for the door, i know i still need to level the grill.
 
On a normal cook you don't do those types of temperature swings up and down. The meat absorbs smoke the best at the beginning of the cook so a low temperature then or smoke boost and then later turn the temperature up. If you need to cool down leave the lid close.
 
As far as the door, mine opens and closes very easily. I’d try letting it go at a single temp for a while to see what happens.
 
I agree that multiple temp adjustments in a short time confuse the weber software. I have only had one flame out in 30 cooks. This was when going from 600 degrees to 225 for a reverse sear smoke. Since then I learned to adjust less of a differential at a time and allow the bbq to react.
 
On a normal cook you don't do those types of temperature swings up and down. The meat absorbs smoke the best at the beginning of the cook so a low temperature then or smoke boost and then later turn the temperature up. If you need to cool down leave the lid close.

Yes... I am familiar with cooking on pellet grills., been doing it for years on a Savannah Stoker 4.5 controlled Traeger..in practice would not normally go from hot to cold or change temps that frequently which is why I figured it was probably my fault , for sure on the second one. The stable 225 flame out has me more concerned. I did cook with it last light to grill some pork chops and zucchini and it worked great...got to 600 in about 14 min with outside temp in the low-mid 50's.

As far as the door goes, before I started the cook I lifted and set back down each corner of the smoker to let the legs reset on the ground...still not full leveled...the door was still a bit funky. while heating to 600 the grill slowed around 520 and then dropped to 515. I went out and held the door shut and within 90 seconds it climbed to 600 and held. through out preheating and the cook I had some pressure on the door and by the end of the cook and after shut down the door seemed to be fitting properly. I will check it again today after it sat in the cold over night.

as far as it being stiff, it was stiff when I opened it and built it in the garage which is a flat level surface...I don't recall units I've seen at Lowes being that stiff. Could be the door hinge mechanism is a little over tightened. ill see how it works out over the next few cooks...its not to stiff to open and close, just don't want something to fail.
 
Well, I just had a couple of flame outs out of the blue. Turned a whole smoker full of ribs black. The second one I caught. It was immediately after startup while set to 200. It went to around 375 before I noticed and got the door open to check for fire. No fire.
 
Hey All,

Hope everyone had a better weekend then I. Big plan today to officially break in the EX6 today with some Spare ribs.

Lit her up this morning at 350 to do a bread heat map test. Everything went fine, shut her down and started prepping the ribs. (Interesting note...this unit seems to be hotter on the left side, I seem to recall most saying it was hotter on the right.)

When the ribs were all ready to go I went out and fired up the SF again with a set temp of 225. Grill lit and got to 225, I waited 10 min and went out and turned on my Thermoworks Smoke to see how things looked.

TW showed temps over 300. I waited a bit more and the temps dropped, and kept dropping...Flame out.

Shut it down, did a hard factory reset...resynced with app and reloaded all firmware and software updates....started it again with a set temp of 200 figuring I could bump it up to 225...similar issues and flames out. shut it down...re-lit with set temp 325.

It got up to temp and I lowered it over time down to 250. Got it to show a stable temp around 250. turned on the TW probes with 2 probes in center pit and had readings 30-40* below what the SF temp showed. i opened the lid and repositioned one of the TW probes and an analog thermometer near the SF probe. while the lid was open the grilled cooled and when I closed the lid the SF temp said 195 as did the TW probe near the SF probe. they were in sync for a bit but then the SF probe climbed up to 250 while the TW probe was around 210.

After some more messing around and moving TW probes both back to center grate, I eventually got it to where both TW probes at center and the SF display all were in the 250 range together...all seemed ok. I lowered the set temp to 225 and for a while it lowered and ran at 225 ok but eventually flamed out.

My thought is that the SF controller is having issues really tacking the temp and is in some cases 40* colder than what it thinks it is so its not running the fan up or feeding enough pellets. Every time it reaches "set temp" the fan seems to drop to idle and very rarely speeds up...every once in a while but not often. I can hear that its dropping pellets. Seems to have this issue anytime its lit with a set temp below 300 to 325 and doesn't like to be set below 250.

I have never received an error of flameout code on the app or the SF itself which lead me to think it doesn't actually know its getting cold and out.

Also even with the grill cold, the SF controller displays about 10* higher ambient temp than the TW probes do. Also just to be sure, I calibrated both the TW probes in boiling water today and confirmed they are correct. Ambient temp throughout the day was mid 50's to low 60's. When i did the bread test it was in the low to mid 40's.

In the end I had to fire up the old Savannah Stoker 4.5 controlled Traeger to cook the ribs and I must say it gave a good showing in its fight to keep its place in the back yard.

I talked to Weber today and they were going to talk to a SF specialist and get back to me, probably tomorrow. I was also told by Weber today that in an upcoming update there is an auto relight feature being added as well as some modified startup and preheat modes.

Has anyone had a unit do this or heard of this? It seems to work great at higher temps where its having to drop more pellets and stoke the fire nonstop.

Also a side note for those following along :cool:...the door is getting looser and seems to close fine when the grill is heated up.
 
Hey All,

Hope everyone had a better weekend then I. Big plan today to officially break in the EX6 today with some Spare ribs.

Lit her up this morning at 350 to do a bread heat map test. Everything went fine, shut her down and started prepping the ribs. (Interesting note...this unit seems to be hotter on the left side, I seem to recall most saying it was hotter on the right.)

When the ribs were all ready to go I went out and fired up the SF again with a set temp of 225. Grill lit and got to 225, I waited 10 min and went out and turned on my Thermoworks Smoke to see how things looked.

TW showed temps over 300. I waited a bit more and the temps dropped, and kept dropping...Flame out.

Shut it down, did a hard factory reset...resynced with app and reloaded all firmware and software updates....started it again with a set temp of 200 figuring I could bump it up to 225...similar issues and flames out. shut it down...re-lit with set temp 325.

It got up to temp and I lowered it over time down to 250. Got it to show a stable temp around 250. turned on the TW probes with 2 probes in center pit and had readings 30-40* below what the SF temp showed. i opened the lid and repositioned one of the TW probes and an analog thermometer near the SF probe. while the lid was open the grilled cooled and when I closed the lid the SF temp said 195 as did the TW probe near the SF probe. they were in sync for a bit but then the SF probe climbed up to 250 while the TW probe was around 210.

After some more messing around and moving TW probes both back to center grate, I eventually got it to where both TW probes at center and the SF display all were in the 250 range together...all seemed ok. I lowered the set temp to 225 and for a while it lowered and ran at 225 ok but eventually flamed out.

My thought is that the SF controller is having issues really tacking the temp and is in some cases 40* colder than what it thinks it is so its not running the fan up or feeding enough pellets. Every time it reaches "set temp" the fan seems to drop to idle and very rarely speeds up...every once in a while but not often. I can hear that its dropping pellets. Seems to have this issue anytime its lit with a set temp below 300 to 325 and doesn't like to be set below 250.

I have never received an error of flameout code on the app or the SF itself which lead me to think it doesn't actually know its getting cold and out.

Also even with the grill cold, the SF controller displays about 10* higher ambient temp than the TW probes do. Also just to be sure, I calibrated both the TW probes in boiling water today and confirmed they are correct. Ambient temp throughout the day was mid 50's to low 60's. When i did the bread test it was in the low to mid 40's.

In the end I had to fire up the old Savannah Stoker 4.5 controlled Traeger to cook the ribs and I must say it gave a good showing in its fight to keep its place in the back yard.

I talked to Weber today and they were going to talk to a SF specialist and get back to me, probably tomorrow. I was also told by Weber today that in an upcoming update there is an auto relight feature being added as well as some modified startup and preheat modes.

Has anyone had a unit do this or heard of this? It seems to work great at higher temps where its having to drop more pellets and stoke the fire nonstop.

Also a side note for those following along :cool:...the door is getting looser and seems to close fine when the grill is heated up.
I have never had the issue you describe. In fact, my unit is extremely stable in the 200-250F range as well as in SmokeBoost. I have read about a couple of instances like the one you describe on some other user sites and they turned out to be either a bad permanent ambient temperature probe tthat provides input to the circuit Board or occasionally to pellet bridging due to the finger-guard or certain manufacturer’s pellets.

Following, as I too am curious about what is causing your problem...
 
Quick update...after 1 call and an email (to reply to their email) to Weber CS, they are sending me a new control unit and RTD probe. Should be here by Wednesday. Hopefully this takes care of the issue.

So far CS has lived up to their reputation of being awesome...unfortunately the SF has lived up to its reputation of having issues. 🤦🏻‍♂️
 
Quick update...after 1 call and an email (to reply to their email) to Weber CS, they are sending me a new control unit and RTD probe. Should be here by Wednesday. Hopefully this takes care of the issue.

So far CS has lived up to their reputation of being awesome...unfortunately the SF has lived up to its reputation of having issues. 🤦🏻‍♂️
As with any product that operated with electronics and circuit boards, the initial burn-in period is critical. I follow most of the SmokeFire owners sites and there have been an occasional report of an owner needing to replace the control board; almost all during the initial periods of operations.
Electronics can fail during this period — I had to have a new SONY 65” XBR TV replaced after just 6 hours a number of years ago for that very reason.. Hopefully the parts being shipped will rectify your problems and you can smoke happily ever after🙏😇
 
Quick update...after 1 call and an email (to reply to their email) to Weber CS, they are sending me a new control unit and RTD probe. Should be here by Wednesday. Hopefully this takes care of the issue.

So far CS has lived up to their reputation of being awesome...unfortunately the SF has lived up to its reputation of having issues. 🤦🏻‍♂️

Curious, did Weber specify the replacement probe was an RTD type. RTD probes are good up to 712F. If so, they did a good thing other than if they had used an actual thermocouple probe
 
No they did not use the term RTD....I was just calling it that as that is what the ones that my Traeger came with as well as the Savannah Stoker controller ships with one.

The part in my order confirmation as well as when its listed in the SF schematic list it as "thermocouple"
 

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