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Hard wiring temperature probes to the Savannah Controller

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PepperMike:
I have one each of the old & new style Savannah controllers. The old style was originally mounted to a ProSmoker 100SS (similar to FE100, but bigger). I now have the latest Savannah mounted on that smoker. When mounting it, I removed the 'K' type connector from the original probe and hard wired the probe to the back of the new controller. It appears to be working great.
I've mounted my old style controller to a Traeger Executive 125 and quickly found that the stock Traeger probe won't work with the Savannah. I own several 'K' type thermocouples, and they work fine plugged into the front of the unit, but  for a clean appearance, I prefer to hard wire the probe into the back of the controller.
 I'd like to avoid cutting the mini connector off the new Savannah probe, so I bought a standard male/female mini extension cable at Radio Shack & made a female pigtail to hard wire into the back of my controller. The screws on the back of the 'K' connector are hard to get to, so I followed the wires & connected the pigtail into the back of the controller block.
It seemed to work OK for a few minutes after cranking up the cooker, but then started to give me crazy temperature readings and flashing codes(?) on the display. I changed the wires, thinking the polarity was reversed, no help....Is the new style probe incompatible with the old Savannah, or have I done something wrong?
Any advice is appreciated.

muebe:
I am sure Bill will be along soon to help you out. There are settings on the SS that will need to be changed to recognize the new thermocouple.

You will need to know the new style thermocouple type and millivolt rating. Then Bill can help you get the correct setting.

The traeger probe is a RTD and not a thermocouple. I believe the SS has a setting to work with a RTD also but I might be wrong.

PepperMike:
Actually, I'm trying to hard wire the new thermocouple (with mini connector) that came with the latest Savannah to my old style Savannah that was designed with a 'K' type connector. I hesitate to remove the old thermocouple since it's hardwired into the ProSmoker... I can change it out, it's just a little extra work. When plugging a couple other 'K' type thermocouples into the old unit for a test, I was getting (semi)accurate readings (+-5 degrees or so from ambient temp), then tried the pigtail/new thermocouple.
  I wondered if the female mini-connector and 'pigtail' I used to connect to the back of the Savannah changed something. I wanted to leave the male mini-connector on the new probe if possible.

muebe:
I believe that if the thermocouple is wired backwards (reverse polarity) the temperature reading on the controller will actually go down when it gets hotter and up when colder. Is that what it is doing? Did you verify polarity is not reversed?

Sounds like the new SS uses a slightly different style thermocouple to me. If you know how to go into the settings on the controller you can see if both the old and new SS are set to the same number for the thermocouple being used. If they are the same number then it is the connection. If the numbers are different then you will need to adjust that setting in the old SS to match the setting in the new SS so the controller can properly take the reading from the thermocouple.

If you do not know how to do this then wait for Bill or Art to respond and assist you. This is their product and I don't want to step on any toes.

PepperMike:

--- Quote from: muebe on May 14, 2013, 05:21:31 PM ---I believe that if the thermocouple is wired backwards (reverse polarity) the temperature reading on the controller will actually go down when it gets hotter and up when colder. Is that what it is doing? Did you verify polarity is not reversed? I thought that might be the problem & reversed the wires with no luck. I'm wondering if the female connector pigtail has anything to do with the problem.

Sounds like the new SS uses a slightly different style thermocouple to me. The probe itself appears identical, but has a shielded cable and mini connector in lieu of 'K' type connection. If you know how to go into the settings on the controller you can see if both the old and new SS are set to the same number for the thermocouple being used. If they are the same number then it is the connection. If the numbers are different then you will need to adjust that setting in the old SS to match the setting in the new SS so the controller can properly take the reading from the thermocouple. I'll need some guidance to do that... although the old style thermocouple with 'K' connector does appear to work hard wired to the new style controller, I'm having a problem getting the new mini connector type probe to work with the old style Savannah.


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