Bradley Smoker Original XLT 6-Rack Smoker - BS815XLT

I knew all of this when I ordered it. This is a pretty poor smoker, and the manufacturing and engineering is extremely poor. It is under powered and the workmanship is shoddy. It's surprising that Bradley hasn't addressed the well known heat problems or the workmanship. I didn't know Canada was so poor at manufacturing. I bought this because I like the smoke generator and a challenge. I can add enough tweaks to make it decent. This is my second purchase of a Bradley Original. One of the online BBQ sites has an article about burning wood to ash, and the creosote flavor it causes. I've tasted that flavor with a side fire box. I like that it cycles the bisquettes after 20 minutes and the flavor is good. The bisquettes are wonderful. The poor quality of the smoker has messed up several of my smokes. I like a challenge and like to tinker, and did a few tweaks to this one based on experience. I hardwired the power input to bypass the male plug to the heater. It made poor contact and seemed to lose contact during a smoke. That was a serious weak point on my first BOS. I also checked all the electrical connections and reworked as needed. It's easier to do when new and clean. The heating element is seriously weak, keeping the temp from getting up to 200, even on hot, sunny, summer days in the South. Recovery from opening the door takes an hour or more. I added a second heater element, and since they are known to fail, I used ceramic wire nuts instead of the provided nuts so when an heat bar fails, it will be a quick easy repair. Possible even during a smoke. To add the second element, I bought the proper ceramic insulators and a heat shield and added them directly above the first heat bar, and added the heat shield to the first to extend it upward. The original heat controller sucks, so I am using an Auber PID Controller. The Auber PID rocks and keeps the temp almost perfect and makes recovery a snap. The Auber makes a huge difference. I mounted two wall mount temp probes on the back and side wall so I can choose which I need to use depending on the meat and placement. That was an extra $25 and very little work, but is a nice tweak. I added angle aluminum between the racks to give more options for placement. This is not an original idea, and I got it off a forum. I like to smoke different meats together and I can put a pan under the top racks if I don't want the drippings on the other meats below. It may sound silly to do all of this to an inferior product, but this is the only device I know that doesn't burn the wood to ash. I chose this over a Traeger, knowing what I was getting into. I don't doubt I'll run into other problems, but that's half the fun. I still have my 4 rack I can fire up to finish what this device leaves stranded. It's amazing to me that Bradley doesn't address these issues.