Smoker
New member
I wanted to add a pellet grill to my grilling tools (previously used only weber gas grills) so I bought the SmokeFire EX4 (gen 2) off of Amazon, by the third burning I started to have problems with the pellet igniter/glow plug to the point the grill was shutting itself down. After many calls to customer service and many replacement parts (both correct part numbers and incorrect part numbers - see pictures), I am up and running again but I wanted to share my newbie learnings to help others if they are running into the same issues as well as some best practices that I found helpful.
1. There are multiple renditions of the pellet igniter/glow plug (plastic and steel assemblies) that are on the market for Gen 1 and Gen 2 grills. My main grill issue was with my plastic assembly that holds the pellet igniter where the assembly melted from an over heated plug (see melted plug picture). Customer service sent me numerous assemblies, steel first then plastic to get me up and running. As noted, there are serveral different types of igniter assemblies on the market for the EX4 and along with different corresponding electrical connections for the grills.....if you are experiencing similar problems, send Customer service pictures of your assembly along with how it is wired to your grill. Based on the literature that Weber sent me, it is clear that they have been updating their specification sheets but not all of the Customer Service reps are up to speed on the changes to their grill parts and corresponding grill model numbers/grill production dates.
2. Preventative maintenance/operator error - As noted, this was my first pellet grill thus I got into some bad practices around pellet storage....when I first received the grill, after grilling I kept some of the pellets in the hopper for the next grill session. Bad move, I found the pellets are prone to absorb moisture as such, I now remove all of the pellets after each burn and store the pellets in a plastic container from Sam's club along with some rechargeable desiccant (see links for both). I have found this practice also helps with keeping down the accumulation of the pellet powder which i think is another possible source of igniter issues.
3. I had asked for Weber for some specs on the ignitier plug but this continues to be a secret but have found that igniters with the etched code of TY24V2133 D perform well vs. those that were originally shipped with my grill TY242120 D
hope this helps in some way, happy grilling!
Sams Club pellet container
Amazon desiccant
1. There are multiple renditions of the pellet igniter/glow plug (plastic and steel assemblies) that are on the market for Gen 1 and Gen 2 grills. My main grill issue was with my plastic assembly that holds the pellet igniter where the assembly melted from an over heated plug (see melted plug picture). Customer service sent me numerous assemblies, steel first then plastic to get me up and running. As noted, there are serveral different types of igniter assemblies on the market for the EX4 and along with different corresponding electrical connections for the grills.....if you are experiencing similar problems, send Customer service pictures of your assembly along with how it is wired to your grill. Based on the literature that Weber sent me, it is clear that they have been updating their specification sheets but not all of the Customer Service reps are up to speed on the changes to their grill parts and corresponding grill model numbers/grill production dates.
2. Preventative maintenance/operator error - As noted, this was my first pellet grill thus I got into some bad practices around pellet storage....when I first received the grill, after grilling I kept some of the pellets in the hopper for the next grill session. Bad move, I found the pellets are prone to absorb moisture as such, I now remove all of the pellets after each burn and store the pellets in a plastic container from Sam's club along with some rechargeable desiccant (see links for both). I have found this practice also helps with keeping down the accumulation of the pellet powder which i think is another possible source of igniter issues.
3. I had asked for Weber for some specs on the ignitier plug but this continues to be a secret but have found that igniters with the etched code of TY24V2133 D perform well vs. those that were originally shipped with my grill TY242120 D
hope this helps in some way, happy grilling!
Sams Club pellet container
Amazon desiccant
