New Mak 2-Star, need help!

[ItsAllGoneToTheDogs]

With you living an hour away, you have a benefit that heradlstorm, glitchy, and myself don't. IF you had a significant issue they couldn't figure out you could get the grill in their hands to get perfect no problem. I live on the other coast so it's not conducive to MAK or myself bringing the grill in. Also you get a significant discount purchasing direct from MAK and picking it up

[glitchy]

arthrovine I am not discounting heraldstorm’s experience at all, but it’s definitely an anomaly for MAK brought about by complications from both sides. Heraldstorm has a job that seemed to be very restrictive for him to work with MAK during support hours and seemed pretty busy himself during the issues which drug things out much longer.

Most of the blame falls on MAK, but from my point of view it was a combination of unfortunate events. They released a new controller, had their operations manager leave, suffered supply shortages (like everyone else), all at the same time. I can tell you MAK will work as hard as anyone to make things right. I had a couple issues with mine and they were resolved quickly and I received follow up communications to make sure things were working correctly afterwards.

I think they rushed out the new controller due to supply issues before they wanted to. ItsAllGoneToTheDogs has a new grill with the same controller and had some issues that have since been resolved.

[arthrovine]

Thanks. I was wondering if MAK can through for heraldstorm. I am 1 hour away from Dallas, their company HQ. I would never have had the commitment heraldstorm showed. Despite living just 1 hr away, and knowing that i could easily return the defective unit, it still gives me pause to invest $4.4K into this grill.

I was hoping to learn the customer service resolution as well as the control board fix before I mads my leap.

Thanks again

[RonB]

Welcome to The Pit.

[ItsAllGoneToTheDogs]

I sold my 2018 2 star and bought an all stainless model, if you have any specific questions let me know.

[arthrovine]

Hello! i just found this link an read through your story. Terrible experience and i hope you get a resolution. Your commitment is awe inspiring.

Any update to this? I am in the market and am considering the 2-Star stainless.

thanks

[heraldstorm]

To all those who've served, a very big Thank You from myself and my family!!! Happy Veteran's Day! My eldest son is a Marine, and I work in National Security, so service to our Country is highly valued in our family. Thank you to all service members and Govt. Employees for your service and sacrifice!

[heraldstorm]

I'm smoking my first turkey today, and trying out the Fireboard. So far I'm really impressed. The app, the website, and the device itself are all extremely well engineered, and so far the cook has gone splendidly. That said, I haven't tasted anything, so we'll see how it really turns out with the taste test. Sure wish I could have used the MAK, but my Masterbuilt has really done well...at 1/6th the price of the MAK!!!

[heraldstorm]

glitchy thanks, I'm grateful for that input. I'm at the mercy of MAK, and they first wanted to address the controller issues. Admittedly, I haven't had time to compile my reports and pictures and send the data to them from my latest test, but I will do so this weekend. We'll see what direction they want to go in next.

[heraldstorm]

The MAK website won't let me reset my password so I can't use the online graph from MAK. I'm sure Ryan is coordinating that as well, but for now, I can't log in to the Makgrillsmobile website.

[ItsAllGoneToTheDogs]

glitchy gotcha.

[glitchy]

ItsAllGoneToTheDogs I wasn’t meaning it turns off and on mid run, just that unless for some reason the fan is not running at all it seems unlikely the controller is causing airflow issues.

[ItsAllGoneToTheDogs]

The controller dictates fan speed, the fan is always running, otherwise yes everything you said should be priority 1. I also wouldn't throw the fireboard or anything into the mix until the controller is reading +/-5 for 20+ minutes, or at least I'd ignore the readings until then.

[glitchy]

While a Fireboard is a great addition to the cooking arsenal and ItsAllGoneToTheDogs has great information about readings and expectations, my advice personally would be to stop wasting energy and frustration testing temps until whatever is causing airflow problems is resolved. If smoke isn’t exiting from the top of the hood and/or exhaust vents, something is wrong with airflow. That’s going to drastically affect start up times, overshooting, temperature evenness across the grates, etc. Get that resolved and it’s very possible all your other headaches could disappear. The only airflow the controller dictates is the fan running or not running unless I’m missing something.

[ItsAllGoneToTheDogs]

So just a random question, are you watching the temp on the controller physically or just what the wifi is showing for the MAK? The reason I ask is I'm running a graph right now and it's showing 5 to 10 over what the MAK is actually showing on the controller every time I go for a smoke, because it just takes a snapshot in time and not the actual average temp in that time period (the wifi logs every 5 mins or so after the all the graph points are filled, so the only time it's 100% correct is the first 20 minutes).

I had to make some changes on my MAK to revert to factory settings (it kept my altered settings) after the firmware upgrade (which is a good thing long term, but the changes were made this time to overcome something that should no longer exist). Anyway after the hour or so burn tonight I'll actually give the MAK a clean firepot and a fair test tomorrow or the next day. What I found with the old settings I had was the MAK was graphing high, but my Fireboard was actually showing the MAK running where I had it set. If that makes sense?