# Opinions



## Tobeyww (Sep 27, 2019)

I plan on buying one or the other soon. I don't really need the bluetooth or meat probe. My question is about the digital controllers, is one better than the other? I've read reviews that state the MES 140G is so dim lit its hard to see. Any insight? Thanks.


----------



## Winterrider (Sep 27, 2019)

Bearcarver
 has reviews on most MES


----------



## Tobeyww (Sep 27, 2019)

I have read his reviews. I guess the two I listed would be considered hybrids?


----------



## Bearcarver (Sep 27, 2019)

Tobeyww said:


> View attachment 406980
> View attachment 406981
> 
> 
> ...




I wouldn't worry about the light---They're all about the same in that respect.

I would worry about:
The top Vent should be on the left---Not the Right. (I think that would be the Bluetooth unit).
Stay away from the Gen #2, with the slanted drip plate with the little water pan hanging from it.
I'd like to see the inside.

$299 is a pretty good price for the 140G.


Bear


----------



## Tobeyww (Sep 27, 2019)

https://www.academy.com/shop/pdp/masterbuilt-mes-140g-bluetooth-digital-electric-smoker

https://www.samsclub.com/p/mes145s-digital-electric-smoker/prod22810673?xid=plp_product_1_1

From the pictures I believe the inside looks like the GEN 2.5, I could be wrong.
I also think both may have the vent on the right side.


----------



## Bearcarver (Sep 27, 2019)

Tobeyww said:


> https://www.academy.com/shop/pdp/masterbuilt-mes-140g-bluetooth-digital-electric-smoker
> 
> https://www.samsclub.com/p/mes145s-digital-electric-smoker/prod22810673?xid=plp_product_1_1
> 
> ...




Yup---The 140G has the Gen #2.5 Inside.
I would go with that one.
Mine is a Gen #2.5, with Bluetooth. I don't use the BT, because I don't have anything to use with it, but I'm happy with making very rare adjustments at the console when needed.

They both seem to have the top vent on the right, but that can be remedied, and isn't a world ending problem. That's a Great Smoker for $299.

Bear


----------



## Tobeyww (Sep 27, 2019)

Bearcarver said:


> Yup---The 140G has the Gen #2.5 Inside.
> I would go with that one.
> Mine is a Gen #2.5, with Bluetooth. I don't use the BT, because I don't have anything to use with it, but I'm happy with making very rare adjustments at the console when needed.
> 
> ...



Thank you very much. I've been reading a lot about them on here and every time I think i have decided something changes my mind. I believe I'll stop on my way home from work to pick it up. Thanks again!


----------



## eddiememphis (Sep 27, 2019)

Bearcarver said:


> The top Vent should be on the left---Not the Right.



Why is this important?


----------



## Ben58 (Sep 27, 2019)

In a nutshell, better heat and smoke distribution.


----------



## Bearcarver (Sep 27, 2019)

eddiememphis said:


> Why is this important?




The main reason is, If you don't do something about it, in the MES 40, more so than the MES 30, The heat comes off the heating element in the bottom right, and runs straight up the Right side of the Smoker, and Right Out the Vent, if it's on the Right side of the Top. Then the right side will be much hotter than the left side, because of this.

If it's on the Left side, the heat has to cross the inside of the smoker, past the Meat to get to the Top Vent. There are a few ways to remedy that, but having the Vent on the Left is Preferred.

Bear


----------



## Tobeyww (Sep 30, 2019)

I picked up the smoker Friday after work. I had to take the first one back as it was smash in when I removed it from the box. Seasoned it Saturday and smoked beef jerky Sunday. It turned out great! What is a good thermometer to get? I’ve read a little about the Mavericks and ThermoPros but I have no experience with either.


----------



## Hawging It (Sep 30, 2019)

Tobeyww said:


> I picked up the smoker Friday after work. I had to take the first one back as it was smash in when I removed it from the box. Seasoned it Saturday and smoked beef jerky Sunday. It turned out great! What is a good thermometer to get? I’ve read a little about the Mavericks and ThermoPros but I have no experience with either.


I have had a Chef Alarm for over a year. It is dead on measuring internal temp of the meat as well as temp at grill grate level. Best one that I have used so far. I trust it.


----------



## Hawging It (Sep 30, 2019)

Tobeyww said:


> I picked up the smoker Friday after work. I had to take the first one back as it was smash in when I removed it from the box. Seasoned it Saturday and smoked beef jerky Sunday. It turned out great! What is a good thermometer to get? I’ve read a little about the Mavericks and ThermoPros but I have no experience with either.


If you decide on the Chef Alarm make sure you order the grill clip for 4 bucks. Not included and ThermoWorks carries it.


----------



## Hawging It (Sep 30, 2019)

Bearcarver said:


> The main reason is, If you don't do something about it, in the MES 40, more so than the MES 30, The heat comes off the heating element in the bottom right, and runs straight up the Right side of the Smoker, and Right Out the Vent, if it's on the Right side of the Top. Then the right side will be much hotter than the left side, because of this.
> 
> If it's on the Left side, the heat has to cross the inside of the smoker, past the Meat to get to the Top Vent. There are a few ways to remedy that, but having the Vent on the Left is Preferred.
> 
> Bear


How does one remedy the issue with the vent on the right. With your modification, is the heat on the left now equal to the heat on the right.... Thanks


----------



## Bearcarver (Sep 30, 2019)

Tobeyww said:


> I picked up the smoker Friday after work. I had to take the first one back as it was smash in when I removed it from the box. Seasoned it Saturday and smoked beef jerky Sunday. It turned out great! What is a good thermometer to get? I’ve read a little about the Mavericks and ThermoPros but I have no experience with either.




Guys who have the ThermPros like them too.
However I still have the first Maverick I bought 10 years ago & it still works.
I used it in my Meat fridge for 8 years 24-7-365.
I also have a Maverick ET-732 for about 7 years & one for about 4 years, and I love them both.

Bear


----------



## Bearcarver (Sep 30, 2019)

Hawging It said:


> How does one remedy the issue with the vent on the right. With your modification, is the heat on the left now equal to the heat on the right.... Thanks


I only had to do it with my MES 40 Gen #1. And Yes it evens out the heat.
It depends on if you have the MES 40 Gen #1 or the MES 30 Gen #1.
Which do you have?

Bear


----------



## Tobeyww (Sep 30, 2019)

Thanks guys! Bear, I too am interested in the remedy for the vent on the right, as you know I have a 40.


----------



## Bearcarver (Oct 1, 2019)

*Heat Deflector for MES*​OH guys,
One way to fix the problem with the heat going from the bottom right "Heating element", up the right side, and out the top right Vent, would be to remove the top vent from the top right & put it in the top left.

If you don't want to do that you can do what I did in the Picture below. Check out the caption, above the Pic:

If you look above my water pan, you can see a heat deflector. Mine is just a sheet of Aluminum, about 9" wide, and slightly less in depth that the space between the inside of the door & the back wall. There is a piece of aluminum, bent into a "A", sitting in the water pan, holding the left side of that deflector up above the right side of the deflector. If I slide the "A" to the right a little, the left side will rise, and if I slide it to the left, the left side will drop. The higher the left side is, the more heat will be directed toward the center & left side of the Smoker. I also covered the deflector with foil to make it easy to clean.

BTW: That thing on the left is just an upside-down half of a Foil Pan, keeping drips off of my AMNPS:


----------



## Hawging It (Oct 1, 2019)

Great idea. Simple too. Thanks for sharing this info.


----------



## tallbm (Oct 1, 2019)

Tobeyww said:


> I picked up the smoker Friday after work. I had to take the first one back as it was smash in when I removed it from the box. Seasoned it Saturday and smoked beef jerky Sunday. It turned out great! What is a good thermometer to get? I’ve read a little about the Mavericks and ThermoPros but I have no experience with either.



Hi there and welcome!

I've owned both a Maverick and a ThermoPro and I prefer the ThermoPro simply based on how much easier it is to work than the Maverick.  The ThermoPro seems to be like half the button presses and therefore half or more things/sequences you don't have to remember.

With that said I would recommend you get a dual probe or MORE probes thermometer.  I like a minimum of 4 probes.  
Two probes for measuring rack temps (left and right on same rack OR rack 1 and rack 2 if using two racks, etc.).
Two probes for measuring meat temps (meat on hot side, meat on cold side of rack, OR meat on rack 1 and meat on rack 2, OR 2 probes inside a large cut of meat like a brisket or a pork butt since getting proper placement of a probe in those big cuts is really not an easy thing to accomplish so the more the merrier).

I bought the Ink Bird wireless 4 probe thermometer on discount when they offered it here and it has worked very well.  They seem to have an Amazon discount code or special offering every few weeks or month or so on here so that helps.  It has been working well also.

So to sum it up I prefer the ThermoPro Tp-20 dual thermometer over the Maverick dual thermometer options.

I would recommend you get a radio signal, not blue-tooth signal, 4 probe (or more) wireless digital thermometer and the Inkbird IRF-4S works really well.

Finally, poke around on here or reach out to Inkbird on here and see if they have a discount code for thermometers that suite your needs as they are a sponsor and often offer codes to turn a $70 thermometer into a $35-$40 purchase :)


----------



## Tobeyww (Oct 1, 2019)

Thanks guys! So out of the three you’d recommend the inkbird due to the four probes? 


Bearcarver said:


> *Heat Deflector for MES*​OH guys,
> One way to fix the problem with the heat going from the bottom right "Heating element", up the right side, and out the top right Vent, would be to remove the top vent from the top right & put it in the top left.
> 
> If you don't want to do that you can do what I did in the Picture below. Check out the caption, above the Pic:
> ...





tallbm said:


> Hi there and welcome!
> 
> I've owned both a Maverick and a ThermoPro and I prefer the ThermoPro simply based on how much easier it is to work than the Maverick.  The ThermoPro seems to be like half the button presses and therefore half or more things/sequences you don't have to remember.
> 
> ...


----------



## chopsaw (Oct 1, 2019)

I have a TP-20 , TP-08 and a 4 probe Ink bird . I like the Ink bird with my MES . It's easy to set custom temp alarms .  I have the one that works with a phone . I have an old cell phone I use for this . 
The TP-20 is very user friendly for that type of therm .


----------



## Tobeyww (Oct 1, 2019)

chopsaw said:


> I have a TP-20 , TP-08 and a 4 probe Ink bird . I like the Ink bird with my MES . It's easy to set custom temp alarms .  I have the one that works with a phone . I have an old cell phone I use for this .
> The TP-20 is very user friendly for that type of therm .




Thanks!!


----------



## tallbm (Oct 3, 2019)

Tobeyww said:


> Thanks guys! So out of the three you’d recommend the inkbird due to the four probes?



I would lean towards the Inkbird model I posted for the 4 probes (3 are hybrid probes for meat or rack level, and 1 is a rack level probe only).


----------



## dr k (Oct 3, 2019)

Depending on your surrounding structures RF may have to be your go to since steel/concrete block more signal.  I've had my Soraken several years and it's a six port BT that came with 4 probes.  I've never lost reception mowing the yard/walking down the street 150'+ away and no instructions needed for the phone app.  I recently picked up two new probes for $12 for filling all six ports.  It's the best therm I've ever used for around $38 after promo code.  I got it for $21.03 after throwing cash back bonus $ at it.  I like alkaline batteries vs. rechargeable because all batteries fail.  So I prefer to replace dead alkaline batteries and they work great in cold temps.  I just replaced the two AA batteries after three years of heavy use.


----------



## Bearcarver (Oct 3, 2019)

Can somebody explain to me why these digital Therms have trouble with dropping when walls or steel doors get in the way.

Yet when I tested my first MES 40 with RF Remote:
In every room in my house, thru up to 4 walls.
In my garage, thru 3 walls.
My Recliner, thru 2 walls & a Steel front door.
On my rear deck, completely on the other side of the house---5 walls.
Out front at my Mailbox---About 300' of open space.

Everything on that remote worked good at all those places, all the time.
I would think the coverage with a digital wireless set of Therms would be more important than coverage with a Smoker.

Bear


----------



## tallbm (Oct 3, 2019)

Bearcarver said:


> Can somebody explain to me why these digital Therms have trouble with dropping when walls or steel doors get in the way.
> 
> Yet when I tested my first MES 40 with RF Remote:
> In every room in my house, thru up to 4 walls.
> ...



I'm by no means an expert on any of this but I think a lot of it has to due with the technology and therefore the frequency being used.

With equipment and environmental factors being the same, the higher the radio frequency the lower the range.

Bluetooth uses a higher 2.4GHZ frequency (gigahertz are > megahertz) so it's range is not so far.

RF (non-bluetooth) is likely to be in the lower 900MHZ frequency range so it goes further.

Bluetooth is a standardized cookie cutter approach making life simpler for everyone to play along with little to no deviation from the standard and capabilities where RF devices can be as proprietary/custom as needed for their application.

This means that with Bluetooth you get what you get within the standardized specs.
With RF you can tailor the crap out of it to work however you want it to work.

Bluetooth being standardized is fast to bring to reality and cheap.
RF designs that get super custom can take longer to bring into reality and cost a lot more money for design since it's being tailored to it's application.

With all of this said your Bluetooth or Wifi or other devices in the 2.4GHZ or higher ranges will give less distance and go through fewer reasonable obstacles than a lower frequency RF device that may have been tailored to behave better with data packet design and delivery etc. than the other options.

Hopefully someone with a good radio frequency and technology background can clean up anything I have misstated here but this is my understanding of it all :)


----------



## Bearcarver (Oct 3, 2019)

Maybe I wasn't clear with my question.
Bluetooth wasn't in my mind, because I have nothing to go with it anyway. So lets forget about Bluetooth for this instance.

My question is why are all of my MES RF Remotes much better than any wireless remotes I've seen on Therms?
I would think getting good coverage would be more important to the Therms than to a Big box built to smoke meat in.

Bear


----------



## tallbm (Oct 3, 2019)

Bearcarver said:


> Maybe I wasn't clear with my question.
> Bluetooth wasn't in my mind, because I have nothing to go with it anyway. So lets forget about Bluetooth for this instance.
> 
> My question is why are all of my MES RF Remotes much better than any wireless remotes I've seen on Therms?
> ...



I wish I had a definite answer.  My best guess is that Masterbuilt actually picked a good frequency and design for the kind of data they have to transmit from the MES to the remote.  

I'm guessing the crappy thermometers are trying to piggy back off an existing RF design which doesn't suit their product behavior well BUT was cheap to buy and easy to put in place and manufacture.

All speculation though hahaha :D


----------



## sigmo (Oct 4, 2019)

First, Bear:  The window in your smoker is way too clean!  ;)

Next:  You can design and build a radio frequency remote system any way you want.  So the frequency used, data signaling method, power levels, antennas, RF sensitivity of the receivers, and modulation modes can be whatever you want them to be (theoretically within what is allowed by FCC regulations).  Although, a lot of these foreign-made units may well technically be operating illegally, and NOT be FCC type-accepted.

The frequency used will have a large effect on how the signals propagate.  When us "hams" want to talk very long distances, we use lower frequencies that will actually bounce off of the ionosphere in the upper atmosphere of the earth, and also bounce off of the earth itself.  The effect is that the radio waves bounce up and down, and can go completely around the world this way, even though there's no straight-line path between the two points.  This is sometimes referred to as "skip", or "working the skip".

On the other hand, higher frequency RF signals will pass right through the ionosphere.  And the ionosphere is always changing, depending on, among other things, how well excited it is by the solar wind, etc.

If the ionosphere is highly ionized, it becomes more electrically conductive, and makes a better reflector.  The so-called MUF or "maximum useable frequency" will go up, so even higher frequency signals will bounce off.

Remember the CB radio craze of the 1970s?  This corresponded with one of the 11 year solar maximums, when there were a LOT of sunspots, and correspondingly, a lot of high speed solar wind striking the earth, and exciting the ionosphere.  Hence, the ionosphere was very reflective, and even CB radio signals at around 27 Megahertz bounced rather than penetrating the ionosphere.

So people could "work the skip" even with a cheap CB rig, and potentially talk around the world on them.  Normally, this would not be the case.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cycle

https://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/SunspotCycle.shtml

https://www.hfpropagation.com/

The sun is now in a very inactive phase.  The lack of sunspots correlates directly with the amount of energy it releases, and this is the REAL driver of earth temperatures.  CO2 concentrations are a red herring, but that's another story.

Anyhow, different frequencies also tend to penetrate different structures better or worse.

Higher transmitter power goes farther.

Better receiver design improves reception by having higher sensitivity.

Better antenna design helps both transmitting and receiving.

Different modulation schemes can be more or less forgiving of noise in the received signal.  Different data encoding modes can be more tolerant of data errors.  Better data error detection and correction schemes can cover for bad reception.

And a scheme called "spread spectrum" can give you 60dB or more "conversion gain" at the receiving end.  (60 dB is a one million times increase in power level).  Things like our GPS system use spread spectrum communication to allow a tiny, low power transmitter on a satellite 22,000 miles away to cover a whole continent while a tiny antenna in a cell phone or other gadget reliably receives its incredibly weak signal, buried 50dB below the noise floor.

Spread spectrum communication was at least partially invented by the actress Hedy Lamar, interestingly enough.  That's an amazing story.  She was Brilliant, but not well appreciated in her time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spread_spectrum

Where I worked many years ago, we built our own modems to use with radio or telephone links to communicate telemetry data.  These modems worked so well that they were reliable even with extremely bad signal to noise ratios.  We had a telemetry system for a municipal water department.  One site worked perfectly as far as the customer was concerned.  But when we checked its data logs, we could see that it was missing some transmissions, and had to re-try occasionally.  This was invisible to the user, because it still got the job done with no errors.

But we looked into it.  After going back and forth with the local phone company, we located a bad phone line using a time domain reflectometer, and had them excavate the approximate location of the fault.  They were pissed, and insisted there was no issue with their lines, and we were going to have to pay their exorbitant rates ($180 per hour for each of the workers) to do the job if our assessment turned out to be wrong).

When they dug the line up, it turned out that our telemetry had been successfully talking over a phone line with one of it's two conductors completely separated.  The customer never had a problem, but we knew things weren't right, and wanted the root cause corrected.

Anyhow, the point is that with good modem design and good error detection and correction, and a robust control logic, even a crappy signal path can work well!

Back then, the company I worked for was called upon to do some repair and maintenance work for the USDA's system of "snotel" sites.  These sites are located all over the western US (at least), and report the snow depth, snow water equivalent, etc., from these locations so that they can estimate the amount of water held in various watersheds and predict how reservoirs will need to be managed to deal with more or less runoff for the "water year" for agriculture, power generation, etc.

Anyhow, these sites communicate using a very interesting technique.  They bounce radio signals off of the ionized trails left in the atmosphere by meteors!

That's right.  They rely on finding a temporary radio path created by the reflection of radio waves off of the path of ionized air caused by a meteor!  It sounds bizarre and unbelievable, but the system makes it work.

https://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/factpub/sntlfct1.html

Anyhow, there are so many variables here.  Suffice it to say that a well designed radio data transmission system will work well, and a crappy one won't!  :)


----------



## Bearcarver (Oct 4, 2019)

Sigmo,
Thank You for the interesting Reading---Way over my head, but still interesting.
I believe my Son knows about some similar type things, through his Cellphone/Tower Corporation. He used to deal with from 1/2" to 2 1/2" Coax, but now most of it is Fiber Optics. He used to do a lot of "Sweep Tests" on the Coax, with "Wiltron" from Anritsu (sp). You could have a small dent in a line, and that test would find it & tell you exactly where it was in the line (to the inch). If it was close to one end, they could use a longer jumper cable, but if it wasn't, they'd have to run a whole new line. My Son shocked me how he knew so much about that stuff right away when he started his company, since like me he graduated in Cabinetmaking at the Tech School. Then about a year of being a Tower Monkey, and he started his own Business. Sprint called him to a job in his first week (19 years ago), because a Cell site was down, and there were 4 college boys running around totally lost. He left the job he was on & drove 3 hours to get there, 10 minutes there to fix it, and 3 hours to home. He used to have 13 employees, but he changed around, and now he only has 5 Employees, but they just Sub most of the Jobs out, and they oversee the jobs. 
However, like I said it's all over my head, and when I worked for him I did things I could handle, like shoot the Azimuths for each antenna, Honcho Antenna swaps, adjust down tilts, do Tower inventories, and mostly keep the crazy tower monkeys out of trouble on the jobs.

Bear


----------



## sigmo (Oct 4, 2019)

Bear:

It sounds like you've been involved with a lot of this sort of thing yourself. :)

Those large heliax cables are expensive, so when someone has to replace a long stretch of it, it makes them very unhappy! ;)

Cell phone coverage isn't very common out in the boonies.  So there are a lot of areas that still have no coverage around here.  And before cell phones were around, we put in some radio systems to allow oil drilling companies to communicate from well drilling sites to their main offices located in various towns.

Since these guys, for some reason, didn't want to use a normal radio system, but wanted this to seem like a telephone to them, we designed and built a number of these odd gadgets that behaved like a telephone from their point of view, but operated using modified mobile radios at each end.  We separated the transmit from the receive and installed big cavity duplexers to allow them to transmit and receive at the same time so that the system seemed like a regular telephone (full duplex) so you could hear the other guy while you were talking.

Of course, ordinary radio is half-duplex.  You can't hear the other guy while you're transmitting, and vice versa.  For whatever reason, this was "beneath" these hot-shots!

So anyhow, these gadgets got installed at their drilling locations, and we put antennas up on their drilling rigs, aimed at the town they were trying to "hit".

Since this was reasonably high frequency stuff (450 Mhz band), and the antennas were far up on the tops of the drill rigs, we used heliax to connect the radio gadgets to the antennas.

Every single time these folks moved a rig, they failed to call us, and failed to take the heliax down properly.  They'd just fold it up in big kinked wads.  Then they'd call us to set things up at their new location, and we got to sell them a new run of heliax every single time!  Then they'd sqwak about the price of the stuff.  So we'd explain how delicate it is, and how you need to be very careful and not kink it or bend it at too small of a radius, etc.  Then they'd wreck it again the next time they moved the rig!  It was hilarious to us, but they never ever figured it out.

The gadgets worked well.  A "cell phone" before such a thing existed.  Of course, they put out 100 Watts continuously the whole time they were on the "phone" jawboning to the office.  We had to buy special high melting point solder to solder the power transistors to the circuit boards in the radios because they got so hot that they melted the solder on their tabs and disconnected themselves! But I never saw a single one of those RF power transistors actually fail.  That just amazes me to this day.

Fun times!  :)


----------



## Tobeyww (Oct 4, 2019)

My Inkbird IRF-4S arrived today! I used the ambient probe to smoke drumsticks tonight. Works great so far. Thanks everyone for the help!


----------



## sigmo (Oct 4, 2019)

I got a different Inkbird unit that has only two probes a while back.

This one.  Currently unavailable at Amazon, I see:


But when I tested its probes at a number of points with my dry block temperature calibrator, it was right on at every point I tested.  So that's pretty darned good!

I'm guessing the one you got will be just as good.  Enjoy! :)


----------



## Bearcarver (Oct 5, 2019)

sigmo said:


> Bear:
> 
> It sounds like you've been involved with a lot of this sort of thing yourself. :)
> 
> ...




Yeah, the size coax he used the most was 1 5/8", and the usual length was between 140' and 260', but he never had to pay for it. It was always furnished by the Cell Company, along with the BTS & everything else, right down to the cases of Electrical tape. In fact he had so much leftover cable that they didn't want back, that he just turned it in for recycling for BIG $$$$, even full reels of it. But like I said it's just about all Fiber Optics now, and I haven't helped him since that particular change.

Bear


----------



## tallbm (Oct 5, 2019)

Tobeyww said:


> My Inkbird IRF-4S arrived today! I used the ambient probe to smoke drumsticks tonight. Works great so far. Thanks everyone for the help!



Nice!
If you fail to get a reading on the screen or you get weird blinking or weird readings just BE SURE to push the jacks all the way in.  I made that mistake at first and thought I had a faulty unit but then used some super gorilla style strength and pushed them all the way to the black plastic of the jack and bam, it worked like a charm! :)


----------

