Power Outage

[bluecrab]

Loaded up my Ironwood 885 with a pork butt at 8pm last night and went to bed. About midnight, I was awoken by beeps and lights blinking due to a power outage (it was a quick outage, probably 30 seconds). I grabbed my phone and see that the grill is now idle. I went outside and had to re-ignite the grill, the temperature had wild swings for the first 30 minutes but eventually settled down (temp swing was 160-220 degrees F). It seemed as though the grill was having a difficult time getting started again because it dropped from 188 F down to 160 F during the re-light stage. Took 20 minutes for the temp to climb back up to the 200 F range (grill was set to 220 F)

I know this is probably normal, but I really think Traeger needs to add a setting called "Recover from Power Outage" that will take into account that the grill was turned off unexpectedly... i.e., it knows there are pellets in the pot therefore don't do a full "Ignite" cycle which dumps even more pellets into the pot... I think something like that would really help getting the grill back up and running again.

 

[GrillMeister]

I'm almost half tempted to get a UPS for overnight cooks, just for this situation. One brown out or momentary glitch and your cook goes bad and the food spoils before you wake up. Hmmm.

 

[RemE]

I'm almost half tempted to get a UPS for overnight cooks, just for this situation. One brown out or momentary glitch and your cook goes bad and the food spoils before you wake up. Hmmm.

I agree, a UPS is cheap insurance, 500w is more than enough.

 

[GrillMeister]

I agree, a UPS is cheap insurance, 500w is more than enough.

I've got an old Emerson Liebert 850 that I will test on my next cook. I'll pull the plug after 15 minutes of cooking and see how long it takes to get to 25% on the battery.

 

[RemE]

I was thinking about short power loss, so the grill doesn't shutdown. For longer power failure you would need a bigger unit for any serious run time. An 850 might go a couple of hours.

 

[bluecrab]

Great idea... my grill says it draws 95 watts.

 

[RemE]

Yup, once up and running they don't draw much power.

 

[GrillMeister]

Just tested mine. Plugged it in and after the Ironwood 885 came up to temp, I checked the UPS. The LCD display on the UPS gave me 180 minutes of run time. I unplugged it from power and the Ironwood just plugged along maintaining 210 (my normal overnight smoking temp).

I came back just over a half an hour later to plug the UPS back in to power and it had 151 minutes left on it.

I'm keeping it on the Traegers as it protects it from surges when the power is on and I will now sleep better during over night cooks knowing I have up to 3 hours of run time during a power outage. Plenty of time to fire up the Honda 2000i so the cook continues uninterrupted.

Great thread!

 

[bluecrab]

Great information!! I'll be buying a UPS for mine too since I do a lot of overnight cooks. THANKS!!!

 

[Pogo007]

Just tested mine. Plugged it in and after the Ironwood 885 came up to temp, I checked the UPS. The LCD display on the UPS gave me 180 minutes of run time. I unplugged it from power and the Ironwood just plugged along maintaining 210 (my normal overnight smoking temp).

I came back just over a half an hour later to plug the UPS back in to power and it had 151 minutes left on it.

I'm keeping it on the Traegers as it protects it from surges when the power is on and I will now sleep better during over night cooks knowing I have up to 3 hours of run time during a power outage. Plenty of time to fire up the Honda 2000i so the cook continues uninterrupted.

Great thread!

What are you doing to protect your UPS from rain?

 

[RemE]

What are you doing to protect your UPS from rain?

I use long cord and keep the ups indoors. I replaced my grill's cord with a 15ft (16ga) version.

 

[GrillMeister]

What are you doing to protect your UPS from rain?

My UPS is in the garage which is the front side of the BBQ patio. I ran a brown extension cord from the UPS to my Traegers. The cord is tucked away and the connections to the Traegers is protected from rain. Works like a champ.

 

[Pogo007]

I use long cord and keep the ups indoors. I replaced my grill's cord with a 15ft (16ga) version.

Do I understand correctly that you used 16 gauge wire? That gauge is typically used for light duty extension cords that support less than 15 amps! I think you should use at least 12 gauge.

 

[RemE]

Do I understand correctly that you used 16 gauge wire? That gauge is typically used for light duty extension cords that support less than 15 amps! I think you should use at least 12 gauge.

You understood correctly, surprisingly these grills use little power. The newer models with the D2 controllers use a DC power supply like a laptop, the fan and auger use little power. The hotrod ignitor pulls the most power, but only for a few minutes.

I was just testing a small 9lb lithium emergency/portable power unit (330watt max). I tried it with my Timberline, 130 watts at ignition and 20 or 9 watts during the alternating super smoke cycles.

Bottom line, a 16ga cord works great, is light and flexible!

 

[Pogo007]

You understood correctly, surprisingly these grills use little power. The newer models with the D2 controllers use a DC power supply like a laptop, the fan and auger use little power. The hotrod ignitor pulls the most power, but only for a few minutes.

I was just testing a small 9lb lithium emergency/portable power unit (330watt max). I tried it with my Timberline, 130 watts at ignition and 20 or 9 watts during the alternating super smoke cycles.

Bottom line, a 16ga cord works great, is light and flexible!

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Cool. Glad that it's working for you.

I put a power meter on my Ranger and measured the draw. If you are interested have a look at my post

Portable battery power for the Ranger

Looking for recommendations for a portable battery to power my Ranger. Considereding Ecoflow and Goal Zero Yeti models but not sure what models or stats I should be looking for.

www.traegerforum.com