I first tried these single electric hot plates for the element. In testing, I saw that the temperature would get to about 200 ° F very quickly, but then it would drop off, only to go back up a little later, but never over 200 °.
Obviously, the problem was inside the smoker. It turns out that the hot plate has its own thermostat (of course!). Under normal use, a pan sits on top of the hot plate, and is heated by the coil. Room temperature air circulates under the hot plate, keeping the rest of it cool. Inside the smoker, the entire hot plate is in the heat, and the overtemperature detector in the bottom of the hot plate was shutting it down. Using the hot plate whole won't work.
This turned out to be the solution. We disassembled one of the hot plates, which was under $9.00 at WalMart, and mounted it on an aluminum plate. The holes in the plate allow the contacts for the coil to protrude to the underside, where the high temperature wires connect.
Here's a close up of the finished element. The electric coil has a stainless steel plate under it, that can't be easily removed. The entire unit is held together by a single bolt and nut (4-40 thread size, I think) that pulls the plate down to the phenolic box containing the thermostat and over-heat breaker. We used the bolt, and bent up some small aluminum scrap wedges to make a sort of stand. You can see the bottom of the bolt with the nut on it. It pulls the stainless steel plate down firmly to hold the three wedges in place. The contacts are also under the plate, waiting for the electric wires.
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