Ignition trouble (excessive smoke and minor explosion)

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101mph

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Grill(s) owned
  1. Deck Boss 590
I've been having issues getting the Deck Boss 590 to ignite properly.

I start with lid open then hit the power on (temp on "Lo"). After about 5 minutes of nothing happening (no smoke or temp increase) it will finally ignite. It will begin to smoke profusely (lot's of white dirty smoke) with seemingly no end in sight. I will eventually get a small explosion that will extinguish the smoke but then I notice there is a fire starting inside the smoker (flames coming up thru the grate).

At this point I hit the power button to shut it down and then just let the fan run for its 300 seconds. When this is done. I wait a few minutes and then start up the smoker again. It runs normally after all that.

This has happened the last 2 times I've used it and this last time I cleaned out the ash and any little bits of grease that may have been in there before I started. Even put new tin foil on the grease deflector pan.

I was thinking, the next time I use it I will start it up with nothing in the smoker so I can look directly into the firepot and see what's going on. I suspect I'm getting a build up of pellets that aren't igniting and that's what's causing the tons of smoke and explosion I've encountered (when they finally do ignite).

I have only been using the smoker every couple weeks lately so I'm also wondering if the pellets are getting damp (using Bear Mountain "Bold" pellets). This never happened before when the weather was really hot, but now that winter is here (even in SoCal) it is getting chilly at night and quite damp.

I guess I'm just wondering what I can do to stop this from happening. With the recent fires in Socal everyone is very sensitive to seeing smoke outside and with the amount of smoke billowing out of this smoker when this happens, I don't need the fire department showing up at my door.

Thanks.
 
5 min sounds like a long time with pellets in the auger. Sometimes waiting for something to happen seems longer than it really is. You may have timed it, i dont know. I always clean mine out, but i prime the pot with a handful. Before it starts smoking, i can hear pellets droping. It smokes alot like you describe, but i dont get an explosion. I definetly hear it ignite. Sounds like a small jet engine. Smoke clears very soon after ignition. Then i close the lid and let it do its thing. Why do you shut it down right after lighting? There will be more fire on ignition because of alot of pellets in the pot, but in 15-20 min it should be settling in. When you let it shut down then try again, you are actually starting with hot coals in the burn pot, so it starts burning faster. Have you ever just let it go and see what happens?


Edit: Full discloser, i have a pit boss 700, but pellet grills pretty much are the same in operation....
 
Haven't called customer service. Yet.

Igniter position looks ok. Sticking out into firepot about an inch or so.

I have primed it with pellets before starting. Fan is running. I shut it down because the "pop" is pretty scary and with all the smoke I don't want to wait to see if it gets worse. It's almost at a point where I want to get a fire extinguisher out so it kind of sucks. Never did this before and I've got about 30 cooks done on it and over 100 hours.

I'll see what happens when I have it all apart and fire it up.
 
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Igniter seems to me to be out a bit far. I think i saw somewhere 3/8 to 1/2 inch. Maybe being out so far something got damaged...maybe

Heres a pic of mine....
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I'm going by memory on the igniter distance. I'll have to measure and take some pics when I have it opened up.
 
Igniter position looks ok. Sticking out into firepot about an inch or so.
I have a 700 but check out the pictures in my post HERE for some before and after pictures of the igniter rod in my grill. After I adjusted the igniter I’ve had quick ignition with minor smoke at start up. I still start the grill with the lid open so I won’t get a lid pop.
 
The ignition rod should just protrude past the opening, and I no longer prime the pot with a handful of pellets after a clean up. Try starting the grill up at 230F after adjusting the rod instead of higher temps, too high of starting temp and too many pellets in the pot inhibits air flow......which causes dirty ignition. Chance the rod isn't getting hot enough for clean quick ignition, which will obviously inhibit this process as well.
 
The ignition rod should just protrude past the opening, and I no longer prime the pot with a handful of pellets after a clean up. Try starting the grill up at 230F after adjusting the rod instead of higher temps, too high of starting temp and too many pellets in the pot inhibits air flow......which causes dirty ignition. Chance the rod isn't getting hot enough for clean quick ignition, which will obviously inhibit this process as well.
I agree with all of this except I don't believe startup temp makes any difference. I start at 500* or Full all the time, and have never had any ignition problems. Its my belief that the startup sequence is the exact same until ignition happens.
 
I agree with all of this except I don't believe startup temp makes any difference. I start at 500* or Full all the time, and have never had any ignition problems. Its my belief that the startup sequence is the exact same until ignition happens.
I don't think the grills are that smart to know ignition happened and then ramp up pellet feed to 500*. I think it feeds faster (higher than mfr) if you have it at 500* vs Lo - and if the temp never rises it will shutdown and you have a little mountain of pellets in the cup. If it was April or May we could definitely test this in the coming days, but I've got snow coming so it will remain a theory for now.
 
Wouldnt the auger feed at a constant rate no matter the temp called for? Unless of course you change the p setting. P setting doesnt change on its own to increase auger rate just because a high temp is called for, does it? Also, doesnt the p setting just change the lenghth of pause between cycles which run on a set number of seconds? I think the auger turns at the same rpm regardless of p setting or temp setting....
 
I don't think the grills are that smart to know ignition happened and then ramp up pellet feed to 500*. I think it feeds faster (higher than mfr) if you have it at 500* vs Lo - and if the temp never rises it will shutdown and you have a little mountain of pellets in the cup. If it was April or May we could definitely test this in the coming days, but I've got snow coming so it will remain a theory for now.
My understanding of these controllers and algorithms is that they take into account ambient temp, and adjust their startup sequence length based on that, not set temp. After the set 5-10 minutes depending on ambient temp is when the grill then starts to match the set temp. Which is why, as an example, when you set your grill to 180*, you normally will get good ignition, but then have a flameout partway into the cook because the startup sequence remains a constant in how it operates, and then adjusts for the set temp afterwards.
 
I "figured" that if you have a higher set temp during ignition, that is going to equal more pellets being dumped in the pot, I say this as I swear my auger doesn't feed very long during ignition when set at 230/235 and ignition is very quick and clean.
 
I "figured" that if you have a higher set temp during ignition, that is going to equal more pellets being dumped in the pot, I say this as I swear my auger doesn't feed very long during ignition when set at 230/235 and ignition is very quick and clean.
I entirely understand your logic here, but if that were the case, I think we'd have many more instances of peoples firepots being overloaded on startup in very cold temperatures because their setpoint was high. It will end up dumping more pellets in the pot, but only after that 5-10 minute ignition sequence, as by then it is assuming based on its algorithm that it should have good ignition.
 
Thanks for the info guys. I will get some pictures of the igniter rod inside the firepot soon and we'll go from there. Hopefully that's all it is and making the adjustment will take care of this (not sure HOW to adjust it yet though).

Still, for the life of me I can't understand why all of this went south on me these last couple times. Like I said, it always used to ignite without any problems. But who know... I have to get inside there and take some pics so I can stop speculating.
 
This is the firepot. It looks to be sticking out into the pot about an inch like I thought.

You can also see pellet carcasses outside of the pot. I wonder if it over flowed by so many pellets being dumped in there and that started the fire and explosion.
 

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