I finally received my 700 at 13:30 today.  There were big dents in the box, but after holding up the driver to unbox and check, all was ok as far as I could tell in a hurry.  I had to unload everything down to the main chamber so I could get the chamber on my dolly and transported back to the backyard and up nine steps to my deck.  It was really hot and humid and lost a few pounds for sure.  All the comments stated that is was a beast and they were not kidding.  It was all I wanted dealing with the stairs and I would not recommend doing this alone like I did.  The steel chamber weighed much more than I thought it would.  It is very well built and heavy.  The shipping weight was 500lbs which included 200lbs of pellets, pallet and packaging.

I put it together and flipped it upright and was glad that part was behind me.  I give it twelve stars out of a baker's dozen only because I was short one lock washer for the smoke stack.  It was easy to put together and I had a big fan blowing while doing so.

While I had it on its back, I checked the two motors.  I was suprised and concerned that the auger motor was flopping around, but planned on checking after uprighted.  When I checked it, the motor is not mounted with bolts at all and is only supported by a shear bolt and nut and was designed that way, so all was good there.  It is situated in a metal box surrounding and cannot rotate very much.  I just never heard anyone mention that before.

I was not able to get the Wi-Fi working and got a message about 2.4ghz only so I will have to call RT on this.

I did the 400 degree breakin for an hour and then cooked a pack of bacon on the frog mat followed by three hamburger patties on the sear plate.  The bacon turned out perfect and my wife was impressed.  The patties were very moist.  When I first fired it up it had a lot of smoke and she asked if that was how it was going to be.  I told her yes until it got hotter then the smoke will be gone.  That's exactlly what happened too.

I will end here and just say I am more impressed with the build quality than I thought I would be.  I can't belive I got the main unit for $1200.  I would suggest getting one before the price goes up.  It is well worth much more.

Here are a few pics I took during the breakin of this Bull.  The probes appear to agree with each other.  That is a magnet holding the towel.  The ring is not very accessible with the front shelf.





 

Very nice.

I’ve seen people mount the towel ring below the light switch.

Looks nice.

That is a good looking pit!!!!

Nice ...'treats.  Congrats on a great looking pit.  Enjoy.

Very nice.

I’ve seen people mount the towel ring below the light switch.

Thanks everyone!  I really like it.


Ross I have seen that pic too, but not for me at the moment.  I will tell you one thing, that ring will drive you crazy with all of the clanking it does against the bottom frame.  One little movement and there it goes again and again and again.  I put a piece of felt stick tape under the tapping part at the bottom and now I have some peace.  Cheese Whiz that thing was annoying.

I didn’t bother mounting mine.

I didn’t bother mounting mine.

Mine came already installed.  It has hex head bolts that are not real easy to access.

I will end here and just say I am more impressed with the build quality than I thought I would be.  I can't belive I got the main unit for $1200.  I would suggest getting one before the price goes up.  It is well worth much more.

I was also impressed with the build quality when I put mine together. Lots of quality stainless, and I was also impressed with the quality of the nuts, bolts, etc. Lots of stuff have quality build, then they save a few cents on the hardware. This hardware is great. I'm loving mine. 

Making some great food.

I was suprised and concerned that the auger motor was flopping around, but planned on checking after uprighted.  When I checked it, the motor is not mounted with bolts at all and is only supported by a shear bolt and nut and was designed that way, so all was good there.  It is situated in a metal box surrounding and cannot rotate very much.  I just never heard anyone mention that before.

This was a surprise to me, too, when I had to replace the motor in my Mini. I've never seen the innards of a 680 or 700 (or any other Rec Tec for that matter), so I don't know if the Mini is unique, but it seemed odd. I don't know what benefit having no secure mounting for the motor has, but under power, any such setup is going to start the motor rotating, as there's less resistance to that action than the friction involved in turning the auger in its tube, the way a drill will want to twist out of your hand when the bit gets stuck in whatever you're drilling.

Apparently, at least in my Mini, the only thing to deter the motor from turning like that is a steel "shelf" angle welded to the body of the pit, a fraction of an inch below, but not in contact with, the motor. The motor will start to rotate and it will hit this shelf and immobilize, putting its rotational action into turning the auger. There's some kind of tape (padding? electrical insulation?) on the top of the shelf at the point where the motor hits it, so I assume all this is intentional.

The problem with all this, again at least on my Mini, is that the motor's torque is so great that this shelf angle, originally at 90 degrees, has been gradually bent down as it resists the motor's rotation. And it's a fairly stout piece of steel - I couldn't even begin to bend it back up into place by hand (not that that would have helped - once bent down, it would be less strong after bending it back up). And when I had to go in and replace the shear pin a couple of months later, it was bent down even farther.

So I'm not sure what to do. I've racked my brain trying to think of some way to brace it so it doesn't bend even more, but that wouldn't help the fact that now as the motor contacts it under power, the drooping angle is introducing a new force to pull the motor and auger out of the grill. I don't know that it would actually do that, but it introduces stresses in the system that it wasn't designed for. And heaven help me if the shelf bends far enough that it no longer contacts the motor - the motor would sit there and spin until the wiring gets wrapped around it, yanking it out of the controller board.

Sorry for the thread hijacking. 

I wonder if the 680 and 700 are different since the hopper is in the back?  I haven’t taken a very close look at mine.

I've never seen the set up of the 680 or 700 undertake drip pan.  Is there any pics of this on PF?  Would like to see the heat deflector, and the fire pot set up.  RecTec doesn't seem to display this area on their website.  Fan and auger as well are never displayed.  ??

They seem to have pictures on the website now.

My Campcheff is set up the same way. Auger motor looks like it is flopping around.

The black and stainless is so much nicer looking than the older units in my opinion. Also, should look better after heavy use. The red seemed to get pretty grungy.