- Joined
- May 3, 2006
- Location
- Ventura, CA
Got the Auber PID controller for the WSM (SYL-1613SYS-W). Read the instructions and manual; installed on the WSM; set the upper and lower alarms at 229-230 and 209-210 degrees (F) respectively; loaded up the WSM with about 70/30 load of lump/briquet charcoal (minion method), some pecan chunks, pan of water and a brisket (with a separate thermometer probe inserted). Clipped the thermocouple probe to the grate about and inch from the meat and set the control temp at 220 deg F and off we go....
First thing I notice that the low temperature alarm beeps. No surprise since the smoker is just coming up to temperature and is still below the 210 low limit threshold. Manual says pressing the shift button (>) will silence the alarm noise. Pressing the shift button does NOT silence the alarm. (I should mention that the alarm is annoying too!) Blower fan is pulsing on/off and soon the temp rises above the 210 low alarm set point and alarm goes off (silences itself). In a few more minutes the temperature reaches the set point of 220 and seems to settle around that point for the next hour or so. Then the temperature oscillations begin. Over the next several hours, the controller lets the temperature drift lower by as much as 12 degrees (low temp alarm again sounds when 209 is reached) a then the temperature rises and overshoots by (only) 3 degrees before letting the temperature go below the set point by 8 to 10 degrees again. This pattern continues for the next few hours even though the blower fan seems to be working harder (longer ON time periods) when the temperature is drifting lower. Eventually (after about 7 hours or so) the oscillations settle down to a 5 to 6 degree temperature swing below and a 2 degrees above the set point pattern. Each oscillation period took about 15 minutes. I also found that a quick stirring of the coals at the 8 hour point helped keep the temperature swings in a somewhat tighter band for the next few hours.
Meanwhile I called the company and spoke to "Andy" about the problem with the low temp alarm silence. He informed me that the manual is wrong (says the manual and instruction sheet need to be changed:shock::?and then proceeds to tell me why a low temperature alarm and associated silence feature is not needed for smoking even after the manual tells me why this is a useful feature to have for smoking!! Sorry, but I have to throw out the bullsnot flag on that one - the website ad can be changed right now but Auber's posted literature appears to continue to mislead the buyer on the low temp alarm silence feature. Microelectronic PID controllers are cheap and this should take only a couple lines of code to fix. Sounds like someone either went too cheap on the controller and/or memory or messed up the coding. BTW - you can silence the high temp alarm by pressing the shift button just like the manual says. On the temperature drift, I'm going to use the auto-tune feature per the instruction manual before the next smoke and see if that improves things. I also found that unplugging the fan blower power cord from the controller when I lifted the lid and then plugging in the blower when the temperature returned close to the set point when the lid was returned, prevented any serious temperature overshoot problems.
My verdict is that the Auber controller does keep the WSM in a tighter temperature band than what I could do by fiddling with the vents, etc. especially at this low of a temperature set point, but the alarm silence feature and Auber's explanations still has me out of joint. I'll let you know in a future post if the controller auto-tune exercise improves the control bandwidth or not.
Final result: After a 14 hour smoke the brisket reached 190 (I wrapped it in foil at 165 deg) and it turned out absolutely delicious! Of course, it wasn't as good as the one you smoked the other day.:-D
B-W
Nice report! I combatted the alarm problem by setting the low alarm to 900*. You are right about that noise being alarming. Outside of that problem, I love my Aubers.
