randman1
New member
On Father's Day weekend, I had plans to cook 6 pork tenderloins. All was prepped a day in advance and I was just waiting for the noon start time. Much to my dismay, when I powered up the smoker, the controller displayed Er3 rtd. After some quick Google searches and reaching out to a buddy, we determined that the internal probe was not doing it's job. Upon power up, the internal temp showed 133 then jumped suddenly to 697 degrees. This same behavior was seen with or without the internal probe connected to the controller. Pissed off, and getting hungry, I rolled the smoker back into the garage and wondered how best to cook the tenderloins in the oven (ugh!).
Wanting to get this cook underway, I began searching for an alternative. With multimeter in hand, I measured the resistance of both meat probes that come with the smoker. Each read 109k ohms at about 70 degrees ambient temperature. I thought to myself, well, I'll sacrifice one meat probe to see if it resolves my immediate problem. Much to my delight, cutting the end off the probe, crimping on female connectors and connecting to the controller seemed to work! A different error showed on the controller after connecting the modified meat probe though. Er1 PF. I thought this meant "probe failure" but my buddy advised that it simply meant improper power failure. Pressing the power button as instructed started the smoker. I was in business! The probe was clipped to the grate at center rear and the cook came out wonderful.
This emergency workaround allowed me to complete the cook and get to Monday to order not one, but two additional RTD probes to prevent this in the future. I hope no one has to go through this but this short write up may help in a pinch.
Wanting to get this cook underway, I began searching for an alternative. With multimeter in hand, I measured the resistance of both meat probes that come with the smoker. Each read 109k ohms at about 70 degrees ambient temperature. I thought to myself, well, I'll sacrifice one meat probe to see if it resolves my immediate problem. Much to my delight, cutting the end off the probe, crimping on female connectors and connecting to the controller seemed to work! A different error showed on the controller after connecting the modified meat probe though. Er1 PF. I thought this meant "probe failure" but my buddy advised that it simply meant improper power failure. Pressing the power button as instructed started the smoker. I was in business! The probe was clipped to the grate at center rear and the cook came out wonderful.
This emergency workaround allowed me to complete the cook and get to Monday to order not one, but two additional RTD probes to prevent this in the future. I hope no one has to go through this but this short write up may help in a pinch.