Auber thermocouple cable question

[bwells794]

My Auber Instruments setup came in the mail today and before I hook it all up, I have a question about the cable on the thermocouple. The shortest option they had was a 6' cable. The default washer thermocouple says the cable is fiberglass insulated and stainless braid wrapped, rated for 900F. The magnetic thermocouple I opted for doesn't have that information on their website, but is definitely stainless braided... I assume it is also insulated. The temp rating for it is only 750F, but I think that has more to do with the magnet losing is holding force and not the thermocouple suffering damage.

My question: will this cable get hot? It's a weird setup because the cable is 6', but the AC adapter for the meter is only 3' and there's a lot of slack in the line for the thermocouple. Does the thermocouple cable have to have any sort of clearance around it or can it touch the wall? Obviously it has to get close to the wall if it's gonna plug into the bottom of the module, but I thought I would ask one of you pros that might be more engineer oriented. Thanks in advance!

 

[realstihl]

Keep the thermometer and adapter away from the heat. It won't hurt the thermocouple cable to touch the sides of the stove but I prefer that it doesn't. If that's your concern.

 

[bwells794]

The cable doesn't touch the stove. The spring sleeve keeps the cable elevated enough. my concern was more the cable touching the wall about 2 feet away from the stove. As I explained, the cable is an unnecessary 6' long so if I wanted to make sure that it wouldn't hurt anything if I hung some of the slack from a hook in the wall to make the droop not look so tacky. But I guess if the braided steel coating on the outside of the cable won't get hot then It will be fine.

 

[mellow]

I have not had any problems with the cable touching the sides, 750 is still pretty darn hot.

 

[bwells794]

I have not had any problems with the cable touching the sides, 750 is still pretty darn hot.

oh yeah, I'd never run much past 600 and even if I did, it would be a total accident like if I was bringing it up to temp and forgot about it. But hey, that was the point of buying this thing now it'll yell at me if I let it get past a set temp.

 

[spirilis]

I don't think you'll have any problem. The cable should dissipate the heat well enough. I've had 2 of the auber instruments thermocouples on my smoker for a few years now (w/ SS braided wire)... the dome cable doesn't get hot much even with the insides reading 500F.

 

[Fastdonzi]

You can shorten the Thermocouple wire if you want. It is made of two dissimilar metals and doesn't care about length. it only cares about type L,K,J,T etc.. since you already have the type, the length is adjustable