The controller appears to me to be a Traeger/ Traeger clone of recent vintage. These controllers don't have an adjustable "P" setting as witnessed by the absence of the small P setting hole on the right side of
the display window. They are preset @ P 2 if I recall..
The smoke mode is timed by the P setting and would almost always maintain a constant temperature IF left alone w/o opening the lid. This smoke temp was dependant on rseveral factors; preheat, ambient
and wind - for the most part.
Once an actual temp was selected is where the problems began. 180º up to, 275º resulted in an unstable temp range. It could be good then for whatever reason, the temps rose well past their settings. The
lower the setting, the more out of whack the temps became. 300º and up presented few temp swing problems.
All the early controller problems led us to what most pits use today - PID controllers.. The early Traeger controllers were Ortech, developed and manufactured in USA. Traeger found they could save $ by
sourcing the controllers and pits to China. The Chinese mass produced the controllers that were sold to anyone wanting them. That is why so many entry level pits use them.
At one point in time I was very familiar with all the ins and outs of the old Traeger controllers. I have forgotten most of what I knew, so thanks for the refresher.
I pulled it apart this morning and checked all the connections. I fired it back up with the controller hanging out so I could watch the auger.
I'm not so worried about the typical wild swings you get with these controllers. My problem is that it won't actually reach the set temp once it goes into it's timing sequence.
I don't remember the timing cycle, but I timed a few cycles this morning.
-Started in smoke mode
-set to 275
-It went through some sort of startup timing from what I could tell theb eventually was auger 100% until it hit 275. So far so good.
- It shot past to 295 or so which I know from past experience is normal.
-at this time the auger was on for 15 seconds off for 60 seconds.
- it eventually dropped down under 275 and this seems to be the issue.
-once under the set temp the auger goes to 15 seconds on and 30 seconds off
-with that timing it never gets back to 275
-it has been hovering around 255 for about 20 minutes now.
Also as just an observation, it doesn't really seem to smoke much at all because there are virtually no swings whatsoever when it goes into the under set temp sequence.