MAK's newest firmware 3.63+

[Jim Hachtel]

Sorry I have 2 star #1034

[HogPilot]

This seems to be the best place to post this…if not apologies.

So I have MAK 3-Star #71 (new version, not the original). I was lucky enough to purchase this right before MAK went kaput. One of the many issues I’ve had is that the PelletBoss (hardware ver 1.4) was acting erratically, missing the set temp by a large margin and sometimes inducing wild temp swings all on its own. And I couldn’t get it to stabilize lower than 230-250°F. I’m verifying all my temps with an external air temp probe placed near one of the chamber thermocouples and plugged into the front of the MAK.

I was finally able to swap my ver 1.3 Pellet Boss in, and while the temp seems to be stable I still can’t get it to stabilize below 230°F, regardless of whether I’m in normal or manual mode. If I set it to smoke, it stabilizes at 230°F. If I set it to 230°F or higher, it stabilizes at the set temp. This exact same Pellet Boss would easily stabilize my old 3-Star at 170-180°F every time.

I began to suspect it might be my pellets - I use Cookin’ Pellets black cherry normally, which in my old 3-star burned significantly hotter than any other wood for some reason (it was the only wood that could get that thing up above 350°F in any reasonable amount of time). However the old 3-star didn’t have the flame zone so it would heat the entire cooking chamber and fire pit chamber, which took a lot more energy than the new version. But that also meant more heat loss so it was easier for it to stabilize at a lower temp, or so I’m thinking.

So I swapped to a bag of Cookin’ Pellets Longhorn Blend of mesquite, hard maple, and cherry, which in my old 3-star would have ran cooler. No dice - still happily stabilized at 230°F.

Now I’m looking at the controller itself - in maintenance mode, there’s two lines of settings that clearly are important but I have no idea what they do. The first is a series of letters for the left and right pots, and the second is “Grill Defaults” with numbers for idle, smoke, med, and high.

Does anyone know what these are for and if they could possibly be used to help me out? This is driving me nuts because my old 3-Star had zero problems stabilizing at 170-180°F when set to Smoke, and I used that often for steaks or roasts that were only going to med rare before searing and I wanted to maximize the smoke flavor.

*Note: yep, the pics show a temp of 200°F - I had been opening the lid moving the independent thermocouple around trying to find the hottest part of the chamber, which could temporarily cause it to get as low as 165°F. Then as soon as that lid was closed…right back to 230°F.

[ItsAllGoneToTheDogs]

Try it in manual mode, it will ignore the thermocouple and run based on timing.

https://youtu.be/dY-ZgGot5-Q?is=w753Kv3FViXKhcWR

[ItsAllGoneToTheDogs]

Unfortunately I'm not familiar with the screen you are showing, but in pro mode you can adjust fan speed and auger feed intervals which may end up being the solution to your problem.

[HogPilot]

Dang, forgot to mention that I did try manual mode but got the same result. Appreciate the suggestion tho!

[HogPilot]

Just a follow up for anyone else who may stumble across this, I was able to manipulate the "Smoke" value under the Grill Defaults page to fix my temp floor issues, at least in Manual Mode (Grilling). Refer to the pictures in my post above for the following:

1. Press and hold the "Up" arrow for 10 seconds - this opens Maintenance Mode.

2. Turn "Manual" mode to On.

3. Scroll down until page 2, which is the "Grill Defaults" page.

4. Scroll over to the value under "Smoke" - mine was set at a default of 29 on both my Rev 1.3 and Rev 1.4 controllers.

5. Press the star button, the value will begin to blink. Set it to 30. This audibly decreased my fan speed, but still kept it fast enough that it's feeding a good amount of air to the fire pot.

6. Voila! My 3-Star was able to stabilize around 170-180.

Note that these presets only affect manual mode - if you turn manual mode off, it will revert to using the thermocouples as part of the temp setting algorithm.

Also, I'm sure the warm summer air is playing a large role in how much heat my 3-Star can dissipate, I wouldn't be surprised if this setting were too low for the cold winters. I'll have to wait for that time to play around with it further.

ItsAllGoneToTheDogs, it appears that I can only adjust fan speeds on these controllers. Unless "Idle" is the setting for auger feed intervals, I might experiment with that more.

[ItsAllGoneToTheDogs]

Maybe the 3 star is different, but I swear there were values for Smoke Fan, Low, Med, High (with low-high being the auger speed at various settings). We need to get you into pro mode but I forget how to do it and deleted my emails explaining it... I'll try to get you a better answer.