The smoke unit in my HL M-26 stopped working after approx 1 hr of run time. By opening the smoke unit and shortening the length of the heating element to about 75% of it's original length. It not only works again but generates more smoke than it did when new.

I removed the smoke unit and gently pried the top off the chamber that holds the smoke oil. The cylinder that houses the pump piston is also part of the top section. Since it is heavily glued I started at the seam on the outside corner and slowly worked a knife blade into the seam. In just a few minutes I was able to pop the top off without any damage. After you have it opened you will see a black wire attached to a small square circuit board. This wire runs through a round peice of wick material that asorbs the smoke oil. The wire is not really black but is covered with a thin black woven material covering (what I assume to be) a very thin tungston wire. So thin that it can be confused with a thread from the woven covering. Remove about %25 of the tungston wire (discard the black material from the section you are working on) and solder the ends back together. Reassemble the smoker. After putting mine back together I had several spots where the smoke was leaking through, this was easily fixed with some silicone sealant. Once everything checked out OK it was installed back into the M-26 and is working perfectly