The Texas BBQ Forum

Got all set for a rib cook, three racks of meat washed, dried and seasoned, drip tray wrapped in foil, pellets mixed 30/30/30 oak pecan and hickory and loaded into the box but wait!
The darn thing won't turn on, all I get is a single nonsense digit at the far left of the display and only when I turn the power switch to off, nothing at all when I turn it on.
Tried the reset button and the feed mode but no joy.
Of course CampChef is closed till Monday and the owners manual has no advice for what mine is doing.
So I tossed some lump in the Kamado, along with some pecan and hickory chunks and it's off to the races with charcoal!
Rats Rats Rats, I hate it when new gear fails.

It sucks, but it is always good to have more than one cooker.

did you kick it and lay some choice 4 letters on it ? It's too late but could there be anything not allowing the auger to turn ?

I don't think anything is making it stick..first (and last) time I used it to cook beef plate ribs I followed the shut down procedure, which is to turn the knob to "shut down", so it runs the fan for 15 minutes or so to cool down.
After it sat over night I dumped the pellets to put back in dry storage bins and pushed pellets out till could see the top of the feed screw.
Then of course cleaned up the mess in the main body with paper towels after cleaning the cook grate and drip pan in the sink..
When I turn it on nothing moves or tries to move, there are no electric motor noises and the screw sits still.
The display (after letting it alone and unplugged for two hours) now shows the far left display square sort of half iluminating and flickering on and off.
As before, when its switched from "on" to "off" the same far left digital read out display square lights up brightly (for 1/2 second) with a sort of x with a 0 around the x.
Then nothing.
I thinks I'm getting a new digital controller under warranty come Monday morning, or a darn well better be getting one.

Good Luck

About 90 seconds into my call to customer service the nice lady agreed with me that I need a new digital controller...it's on the way.
I'll report back when I get it installed..

You might want to consider a surge suppressor for that cooker.
The controller is electronic so it is vulnerable to electrical aberrations.

Had it plugged to one during the cook and shutdown..It died during/after shutdown mode or when I plugged it back in and tried to turn it on..

Thanks for the update, CD, Papa T's suggestion of a surge protector is almost a must with this kind of equipment. Mine is in the form of an electrical outlet with a built in breaker and it works very well for me.

That brings up (sort of) another question (which of course I forgot to ask the service rep), and and that is how many amps does thing draw and do I need to use one of my high amp extension cords?
The info provided by CampChef in the owners booklet leaves out any mention of cordage requirements so I suspect it does not draw "high amps".

FWIW - I use my H.A. Cord and always from the first breaker outlet in my circuit but my Man Cave is not the norm.

Although I don't have a Camp Chef I'll bet it is like the others and draws 450 watts or less (the 450 being when the igniter is on the auger and fan also running).
So most any ol' cord will suffice.
I will add here that when electronics fail it is almost always on power up.

I spent my career in computer support and once we moved a large system (180 node massively parallel system 370 19" rack mount cabinets) that had been running continuously for years to a new location. When it was powered up at the new location it worked fine except for all the electronic failures. We even had electrolytic capacitors in power supplies catch on fire. Anticipating this happening we had plenty of spare parts and after that first day it continued to run fine without failure.

ELECTRICITY I don't trust anything I can't see and only half of what I can

There's no such thing as electricity, all those wires are full of smoke and it's just waiting to get out..

Got my new controller yesterday afternoon and will report back when I get it installed and tested..
Wait time was not too bad, called it in Monday and got the new part Thursday.

Chasdev wrote:There's no such thing as electricity, all those wires are full of smoke and it's just waiting to get out..

Got my new controller yesterday afternoon and will report back when I get it installed and tested..
Wait time was not too bad, called it in Monday and got the new part Thursday.

Seems like pretty good customer service to me. Then again, they might know the awesome power of this forum within the BBQ community and would feel the sting if they did otherwise.