Making a Weatherproof Stoker Box Question - With Light?

WeberWho

BilZol said:

WeberWho said:

DMW said:

WeberWho said:

NPHuskerFL said:

@WeberWho How cold are we talking?  The unit generates heat by itself. 

@NPHuskerFL I've done low and slows in windchill's of -30's. It can get a little brisk in the middle of winter here in Minnesota. I'd say average here in winter is below freezing. My previous Auber PID controller was not a fan of the cold. It would malfunction if not wrapped in some type of towel during winter 

-30* is well below when I go inside and hibernate until spring. Thankfully it doesn't get that cold here. Dang that is cold.

Most days are tolerable but when your teeth start to feel cold it's cold. -30 windchill are not that common but have made a point to grill during those negative temperatures. It's one of those deals where it's wrong but feels right. Everyone is inside and it's quite and peaceful outside. It will be interesting to see what our pup does the first snowfall as he hasn't seen snow yet. 

I plan on doing thanksgiving and Christmas totally on the Eggs. Didn't consider the cold affecting the Stoker. Last year it was snowing to boot. Now I have another problem to solve. (Or needlessly fret over and over think. I'm going to Rube Goldberg the **** out of this...)

@BilZol If your tables are any indication of what your weather box will look like I'm in trouble! Mine will look like a 2nd graders art project. Not really sure what they just made. 

WeberWho

blind99 said:

If it's in a plastic box I bet you'd need very little power to keep the temp reasonable. Maybe a little 4w nightlight, if you're using your sketch above?

if you're using DC power, something like this might do the trick:

https://www.adafruit.com/product/1481

Dang now I want to tinker and wire something up!

Thanks! @blind99

Focker

WeberWho said:

Focker said:

WeberWho said:

DMW said:

WeberWho said:

NPHuskerFL said:

@WeberWho How cold are we talking?  The unit generates heat by itself. 

@NPHuskerFL I've done low and slows in windchill's of -30's. It can get a little brisk in the middle of winter here in Minnesota. I'd say average here in winter is below freezing. My previous Auber PID controller was not a fan of the cold. It would malfunction if not wrapped in some type of towel during winter 

-30* is well below when I go inside and hibernate until spring. Thankfully it doesn't get that cold here. Dang that is cold.

Most days are tolerable but when your teeth start to feel cold it's cold. -30 windchill are not that common but have made a point to grill during those negative temperatures. It's one of those deals where it's wrong but feels right. Everyone is inside and it's quite and peaceful outside. It will be interesting to see what our pup does the first snowfall as he hasn't seen snow yet. 

Nowhere near as cold V, but Stac said one winter her lips froze to her teeth outside cold smoking bacon. Lol

Now that's cold! Ripnem text 3-4 months ago asking if I could help him with a concession stand for the dog sledding races up northern Minnesota in January. Northern Minnesota got dumped with snow way more than we got here in the T.C. Some stiff drinks will be needed for a weekend outdoors in January 

Hell yeah, that's what whiskey and scotch are for. 
A flask keeps me in the tree longer on the cold days.  

Canugghead

inspired by @blind99 , I found this. No auto shutoff which makes it suitable for your application, heck when not cooking you can use it on yourself in Northern Minn. 
https://www.amazon.com/Sunbeam-756-500-Heating-Pad-UltraHeatTechnology/dp/B00006IV4N/ref=sr_1_2_s_it?s=hpc&ie=UTF8&qid=1473614932&sr=1-2&keywords=electric%2Bheating%2Bpad

WeberWho

Canugghead said:

inspired by @blind99 , I found this. No auto shutoff which makes it suitable for your application, heck when not cooking you can use it on yourself in Northern Minn. 
https://www.amazon.com/Sunbeam-756-500-Heating-Pad-UltraHeatTechnology/dp/B00006IV4N/ref=sr_1_2_s_it?s=hpc&ie=UTF8&qid=1473614932&sr=1-2&keywords=electric%2Bheating%2Bpad

I should steal my wife's heat blanket. Now that would be funny. The heat blanket is actually not a bad idea. 

@Canugghead How are the homemade cables you made? This might be the most practical way of going about this.

DoubleEgger

What about a small heating pad? 

Canugghead

I've since set up a dd-wrt wireless bridge and using the box outside next to the egg.  However, the unit has been broken for quite some time ... a plug broke inside a socket and causing short-circuit that puts the whole unit in limbo. Haven't found time to tinker with it yet.

Toxarch

WeberWho said:

@Toxarch I should be able to skip the Y splitter if I went with 3 stereo extensions for each plug?

Yes, you can run 3 extensions if you want. But you don't really need to since the inside of the Stoker is just a buss bar so there's no real advantage to running 3 wires. As long as the wire in your extension is a large enough gauge, then a single extension will work fine. If you have a small gauge wire, then you would want to run one extension for the probes and one extension for just the fan.

texaswig

Thanks for posting. It made me remember I picked up a plastic ammo box for mine a couple of months ago and still hadn't set it up yet. Here is some picks how everything fits . Im still gonna doing good some different things to get it just right . Gotta figure out how I want to run the cables out so the lid can close while in use.  I just pulled the foam off the bottom, cut some off and turned it sideways. It's only a friction fit. There is still enough room under the foam for my power and ethernet adapter . and it matches the color of my Engle cooler.  

Canugghead

Toxarch said:

Do you have any way to keep the Stoker in the house and run a wire outside? All you need is a long 1/4" stereo extension and a couple of Y splitters. Then you don't have to worry about the Stoker getting cold.

I tinkered with this thing long time ago so don't remember 100%, vaguely recall either the temp probe or the fan probe must have its own dedicated socket, i.e. cannot share a socket with other probe(s) via splitter.

BilZol

Canugghead said:

Toxarch said:

Do you have any way to keep the Stoker in the house and run a wire outside? All you need is a long 1/4" stereo extension and a couple of Y splitters. Then you don't have to worry about the Stoker getting cold.

I tinkered with this thing long time ago so don't remember 100%, vaguely recall either the temp probe or the fan probe must have its own dedicated socket, i.e. cannot share a socket with other probe(s) via splitter.

The fans should come directly out of the Stoker itself. The probes can be used in the splitter. 

Canugghead

@BilZol thanks for confirming.

Toxarch

All the plugs on the Stoker box are on a buss. It's the same as a 6 way splitter inside the box. As long as the wire gauge of the extension is thick, then you will be fine using a single extension wire. It will be no different than plugging straight into the box. But yes, Rock's recommends that the fan have its own extension wire so that there are no issues.

BilZol

Canugghead said:

@BilZol thanks for confirming.

My pleasure. Just had some discussion with Rocks about this recently. White box has three up front and two in back, when I got the wifi2 box I discovered it was three and three. Since I was running three fans, two fives and a ten, he recommended I upgrade to a higher output transformer. Dunno if these tidbits will help anyone but it's a few of the things I remembered. 

billt01

Toxarch said:

Do you have any way to keep the Stoker in the house and run a wire outside? All you need is a long 1/4" stereo extension and a couple of Y splitters. Then you don't have to worry about the Stoker getting cold.

Need to pay attention to length and fan...Ive run a 5CFM with a 100 ft. extension cord...no issues....but I could not run my 25CFM on a 50 ft'r without communication issues....

WeberWho

Toxarch said:

All the plugs on the Stoker box are on a buss. It's the same as a 6 way splitter inside the box. As long as the wire gauge of the extension is thick, then you will be fine using a single extension wire. It will be no different than plugging straight into the box. But yes, Rock's recommends that the fan have its own extension wire so that there are no issues.

Thanks! @Toxarch for the explication 

WeberWho

billt01 said:

Toxarch said:

Do you have any way to keep the Stoker in the house and run a wire outside? All you need is a long 1/4" stereo extension and a couple of Y splitters. Then you don't have to worry about the Stoker getting cold.

Need to pay attention to length and fan...Ive run a 5CFM with a 100 ft. extension cord...no issues....but I could not run my 25CFM on a 50 ft'r without communication issues....

Good to know. I might make some extensions to run into the garage from the driveway. Won't need to worry about someone messing or carrying off the Stoker at night. Thanks for the explanation of the fan. Will run it's own line. @billt01