2024/25 VC performance discussion thread

[dmccoole]

That's a great setup!

I have a Thermoworks signals/billows that I can monitor/control my bbq/smoker temps from my phone.

I would just like a WiFi/monitor/phone app so I can view the stove temps on my phone as we mostly sit in a different room from the stove. And we can't hear the Auber controller alarm from our bedroom.

Does anyone know of a good temp monitor with wifi and a phone app for the k-type temp probes? Auber has a controller and app for bbq/smoker but not for the k-type probes.

 

[arnermd]

I've been meaning to report back here with my little project and this seems like a good time. I owe you guys big for helping me completely rebuild this stove several years ago. It was completely disassembled down to the smallest part and completely rebuilt by my hand.

So, I've been using an ESP32 and a few other parts to constantly monitor and control my stove.

The thermocouples in the flue, catalytic converter and griddle monitor everything and keep the temperature within safe limits. The potentiometer adjusts the desired cat temp (900 to 1500 degrees).

There's a soft overheat limit where the butterfly valve on the air intake will shut and a hard overheat where a very loud peizo alarm starts going off. I can monitor the temperatures and see graphs on my phone and it will (soon) send me texts if it overheats or if I need to add wood (The variable for "FEED ME SEYMOUR" is triggered when catalytic temp drops below 800). The numbers on the displays will also start to blink as it approaches the overheat limits.

The adapter for the butterfly valve is 3d printed out of ASA and uses a servo for positioning. The valve has a silicon seal on the inside and seals very well. I also had to weld together an adapter to go from the square air intake to the round butterfly valve housing which turned into me drilling a hole in the wall and turning it into an outside air intake.

I also have it hooked up to a backup battery in case the power goes out. I usually leave the air flow on the stove at the half way mark just so if something goes terribly wrong it doesn't get full airflow but it has now been 3 years with no maintenance and it has worked flawlessly after some PID loop tuning and firmware fixes.

There's plenty of room for improvements and size reduction but I haven't seen a need to rebuild the thing just yet. This is version 2, version 1 was purely monitoring. The big red button silences the piezo alarm for 30 seconds, the led with a piece of paper taped over it is lit when it has an active internet connection and the switch to the right is a hard override and completely shuts down the air supply. The center is just a potentiometer for setting the target cat temperature with a silly oversized knob.

Very cool! Do you have any plots of cat, griddle, flue temps and valve position?

- I assume you leave the manual air lever wide open and let the butterfly control the air flow?
-Did you make any mods to the secondary air flow or is it wide open?
- Which stove are you running this on?

 

[bullittman281]

Hello everyone,
Haven't been here in years but have a new toy and wanted to drop by and say hello. Here are a couple of pics of a Dauntless doing its thing rumbling along on some ok-ish Siberian Elm. Stove is new this year and has a beast of a learning curve. I mostly mastered it and it cooks along fine most of the time. No cat, no fancy probes and telemetry like some of you run. So far I'm a happy camper.

 

[Woodsplitter67]

So im pretty sure its been weeks since my stoves been cold.. getting some real ash build up. Looks like maybe this coming Saturday may warm up so that s probably over 20 days with the stove 24/7. Stove performance has been excellent with many liw burns during the day and at night averaging 12 hours. Im really going through some wood right now. My auber has acted up twice making an alarm for no reason

Heres my stove this morning.. the coals are deep like 80% up the anirons

 

[Jmorg]

Nothing better than walking out to the woodshed in the snow! Been burning 24/7 for a couple weeks now. We finally have a real winter here in Virginia.

 

[dmccoole]

Same here. The stove loves to run when it's cold out! We hit 35 yesterday so I let it mostly die down and shovelled out most of the ash and restarted. I couldn't get the cat to engage. Stt > 600. Cat was anywhere from 300-700 all day and into the night. Stove was throwing some serious heat though. I packed it full for the night. This morning it looked the same as yours but the cat temp was still low even after burning off the glass and adding a few splits to get it going again. Your post reminded me my Auber was acting up 2 weeks ago as my wife dropped it off the mantle. It was acting like a loose wire. So I just moved the wire around and power cycled it. And sure enough it started reading 950-1000 and was being responsive with the air supply. Currently cruising at 1002!