Smoker Controller Hack is a project to rescue a malfunctioning electric smoker from the trash heap. In a nutshell, the smoker’s display unit was dead. Other parts appeared to work. The smoker’s manufacturer has moved on to new things and the replacement part to fix this smoker is no longer available. In the depths of Covid-19 isolation, this seemed like a perfect opportunity to rescue a device from obsolescence and learn a lot about electronics, Arduinos, and working with plexiglass.
: Smoker Controller HackOriginally I intended to blog my daily progress. What I actually did was bring out the coding stick and a Moleskine journal and write the old fashioned way. I could have transferred the scribbles to the blog but that seemed to cut into my learning time. So I have this long, time sequenced journal of learnings, unlearnings, and relearnings as I tried to absorb the physics and electronics involved in creating a control system for a smoker. Somewhere along in this process I got the idea to convert my notes into a ConOp. That’s a Concept of Operations document. Before I retired I was often asked “Where’s the $#%@ing Conop?” Well here it is. Check out the SCH Conop document. The code mentioned in the ConOp, ThermoSetter, is in Github. There is also another version I am working on, SmokerCntlr, also in Github.
