Maybe it’s just me

[bbqking]

I’m probably just too fussy, but after a year of solid use...this EX6 is fluctuating temp...not sure why. I set it at 375, put my food on. 15 minutes, it’s dropped to 300...not cool
And now she’s slowly climbing back up too 375...?!

 

[AHoneyman]

That is what many of us have been seeing for a year now.

 

[bbqking]

Went out and checked temp! It was at 375. Came in to throw some other stuff together. Went out to baste for the last 5-10 minutes it had dropped to 150! Temp drop detected...!? Now it’s climbing back up...

 

[AHoneyman]

Watch out. You have a flare up in your future.

 

[bbqking]

Na...I keep it clean, very clean.

 

[AHoneyman]

The flare ups are due to a big pile of pellets that are dumped all at once.

 

[bbqking]

Oh...well that kinda already happened when my glow plug went out....big pile smoldered really bad. Filled my whol back yard with white smoke, then it was roaring like a flame thrower...

 

[Goneincognito]

You need to get those new parts in that Weber sent you.

 

[Mojo RyZen]

I think the glow plug only starts the initial fire.
Since self-upgrading my V1 to V2, I have my temperature settings work fine. For exaple, my initial V1 burn-in took exactly twenty minutes to reach 600F. When I timed it last week, my V2 performed the same way.

Now let's talk firmware and software. I was told that I have the last "stable" version (s):
Controller version: 04042
Software version: 1.4 2350

The app display often conflicts with the control panels', but the control panel display matches my non-Weber internal analog thermometer reading. I keep my phone's Bluetooth turned off when it's near the SF. I puposely won't upgrade until I'm sure stable builds exist.

Also regarding your issue: Have you cleaned the tip of your internal probe? I use Simple Green wipes to do so before every cook. YMMV.

 

[bbqking]

I just cleaned my temp probe for the first time last week.

 

[Old Man Grills]

So I decided to do a thorough clean and an impromptu steak.

Hoovered out the fire box and chamber and cleaned off any grease.
Took a clothing some motorcycle de-greaser to the PID and surrounding area. It was absolutely filthy but came up nice and clean.

Then set it to 500 degrees to burn off any crud on the grates and do a quick sirloin steak and some bacon rashers (dont ask me why but the good lady loves bacon on the BBQ).

I hung an ambient probe just above the top shelf and took a stack of photos of the PID and ambient readings at regular intervals
Left = PID / Right = Ambient. Outside air temp is around 32-35f

Switch on 40 / 32
5 minutes - 45 / 53
7 minutes - 90 / 144
8 minutes 115 / 166
14 minutes 220 / 219
18 minutes 290 / 274
25 minutes 335 / 382

At this point I had opened the door a couple of times to tend to the bacon and steak but as you can see the difference between the two is all over the place. I'm wondering if the PID isn't calibrated sufficiently to be reliable in cold weather?

Opening the door definitely caused significant drops on both probes, as much as 85-100f, in this really cold air but the unit still cooks ok. Not sure that cleaning the PID made any difference but I guess its good to maintain it all regularly.

However, what I did notice is that despite opening the door and thus preventing it from getting up to 500f after the PID was cleaned the auger didn't feed more pellets trying to make up the temperature.

The mystery continues.

 

[AHoneyman]

Addick9574, the PID is a control loop encoded within the controller software/firmware that calculates the potential rate of temp increase/decrease caused by the rate of pellet feed/burn which is enhanced by the fan speed. The temp set point is compared to the controller probe temp in the SF and a pellet feed rate is determined to reach the set point (either up or down). My apologies to the programmers on this rough description.

 

[Mojo RyZen]

I've found that a clean SF internal probe (I use Simple Green wipes) keeps the PID temperature on par with my internal analog thermometer. The Android App temperture reading matches only infrequently.