Some Pitmaker Vault Mods

So I REALLY Like my vault, but I thought there were a few things that I could improve upon.

First it bothered me that the water pan was getting a beat down from the firebox, I poured water in the pan one time to correct an overshoot, and it warped it quite a bit. I noticed that there was a channel in the firebox, almost like it was meant to hold a diverter plate, so easy enough I went and got some 1/4" steel plate and put that in. SO much Better!




Next up was finding a suitable place for the Stoker and the Wifi. I wanted this as neat as possible, and I wanted to semi-protect it from the elements. I chose to mount everything underneath the unit. I then taped all the probes together and routed them cleanly. Here is what I came up with.






Next up was a BIG one for me, I REALLY disliked the vault's air intake setup. It was a slide, but it was loose and full of air gaps. And even when completely shut the pit would go until it was out of fuel. I was also having some issues with temp control with the stoker if it was windy out. I like ball valve controls, so I set out to fab something up. I came up with this.


Orange line being the slider pipe that sticks out on the vault and the pocket is for the welds.

I went out and had it CNC'd for free (helps to have friends!) out of a block of billet Alum. It came out great and I just put a light coat of high temp silicone, for a perfect airtight seal.






Its nice to have precise control over your smoker. I am testing it now with out the stoker, I have a nice 15mph wind so lets see what this thing can do.



Thanks
Bryan

TTNuge said:

I think it looks great but I don't think that is ideal placement of your fan. The stoker fan has a flap gate on it that closes to block airflow when the fan isn't running. I'd have to look closely but in that position I don't think the gate will close and it will allow air to continue to be drafted in even when the fan is off.

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Yes you are correct, there is a flap. But to be honest, I never thought it did much of anything anyways, my gurus never had one, and I never had any issues. It takes just a minute to switch to the other Ball valve if I have a problem. Thats why the other is straight.

Thanks!

Bryan

Jorge said:

Before mounting the electronics, did you check to see how hot it got down there? Between heat radiating from the cooker, and heat radiating back up from any sort of pavement I'm thinking my may have some issues over time.

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Yes, I did. Barely warm to the touch.
Thanks

Here are the results of the mods:

Light the pit with 2 handfuls of charcoal briquettes, 1 chunk of hickory and 1 weber starter cube.

Both ball valves were open until the temp of 220 was hit, once that was hit one was fully closed and the other was 3/4 open.

This is the resulting graph, the valves were not touched.



I was shooting for a pit temp of 220, I had about a +-5f Swing, and went about 18hrs. At about the 12hr mark I opened the other valve, as it was dropping a bit.

Here is what was left this morning.


I am going to do a stoker test this weekend, and get more in depth times and weight of charcoal to get some burn times.

podidol said:

Hey Bryan, what kind of improvements did you notice with the diverter plate? My safe has the same track but I wasn't sure what benefit it would provide. I'm still trying to figure out ways to lower my fuel consumption. Hozman's neighbor welded me up a maze to drop in the firebox, but it is still burning more fuel than I think it should considering the thing is insulated as well as it is. I like the mod. Please post with more results...I'm curious. Thanks!

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I don't know what I noticed, because I did a bunch of stuff at one time. What does the smoke look like coming out of you cooker? I used to have quite heavy smoke, but with making this thing so airtight now, it was BARELY noticeable. I had to get in the right light at the right angle to see wisps of blue.

Bryan

Well the time has come again for some mods. I pre-heated my vault the other week and it helped a ton and worked really good. I really didn't like the whole process of undoing my tank from my grill, finding the weed burner, etc so I sat down and did some thinking and tinkering and came up with a cool( I think) little solution for the vault and safe guys, especially with all the cold weather this time of year.

I didn't know if this would work, and I REALLY didn't want to make another penetration into the vault, so I used what we have existing, the 1 1/4" water drain valve. I sized all the pipe at 1/4" so everything could assemble and disassemble(in two pieces) utilizing that valve and 1 union. So here it is.

The first piece I call the manifold, here it is assembled:


The second piece I call the log lighter here it is assembled:

Here is the log lighter assembled and taped and ready for hole drilling, I went with about 2" on center:



Here it is on the vault ball valve with a tank hooked up to it:




Here it is lit with the valve barely cracked:


Here it is at about 1/4 throttle:



As always I am open to opinions, let me know what you think. I thought it worked out pretty good.


Bryan