stack temperature control

[sap_savages]

Hello. First time posting here. I am a hobbyist with a Smokey Lake corsair evaporator. A friend of a friend who is an engineer has been prototyping a stack temperature controller on my evaporator for several seasons now. I told him if he ever took it all the way and made it a product, I would help get the word out for him, so here I am. Mostly because he didn't charge me for the equipment.

Even from the beginning when he was running this off his laptop, it has worked amazingly well. We were all pretty shocked at how well you could control the temperature of a wood fire. We thought if it controlled within a hundred degrees, it would be a huge improvement over our AC blower and manual speed box. When it started controlling to plus or minus 5 degrees, we started looking at each other like holy crap, you really have something here. Since then, he's got it down to just a degree or two.

I'd bet I'm using 25% less wood, and my boil times before having to re-load the fire have increased. And, it seems like the draw-off his more consistent and just a more consistent syrup all together. I pretty much only do the maple syrup to give to family and friends, so it's more about having people over to the shack and having fun. I use to fight with that dang manual controller box all the time trying to keep a constant temp. This automated controller has helped me relax and actually pay attention to my friends, instead of fighting with the fire.

I just recently let him take a youtube video with his final product, so here you go!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2aWrIlViC0

Oh, and he wanted me to share his site: https://tetilengineering.com/

[maple flats]

Very good. My thught however is that most of your wood in too big, you will do far better if you split it wrist sized.
I went thru several split sizes, but only when my wood was wrist size did the evaporator do it's best. Try it and yo will never go back. Also, have you experimented with different target temperatures? My 3x8 raised flue boiling 10-12% concentrate did best between 850-900F, below that things may be consistent but still not at optimum performance.