Received item. All you have to assemble is the supports for the racks which was easy to do. Was ready to use machine upon arrival. Filled all rack with beef and venison. Heated unit to 160% as stated in the manual. Filled racks with meet. Set heat setting on high put racks of meet in unit and put front stainless steel panel on. Set timer for 6 hours and powered up unit. Machine was very noisy most noise coming from the front panel and of coarse the motor noise which was tolerable though. I had some wooden skewers I put between the machine and the panel which took out most of the noise. Book called for cooking 6 hours. Cooked at 160% for an hour then turned heat down to medium. Jerky was done in 5 hours. Was impressed with the unit itself and for the money I think the unit was worth every penny. Like I said only complaint was the noise so if you can live with that I say go for it and I would buy another unit if I needed one. Rack holds quit a bit of meet I think I done about 10lbs... Read more

Got the unit, plugged it in. Worked GREAT! It really dried the beef jerky that I put into it. After my initial success, I then bought a LOT of jerky, dried it, and really liked how the unit performed. On the third batch of jerky, much to my disappointment, quit working without drying the meat. I checked the timer, unplugged the unit, reset switches...nothing...the unit quit working. NOW, I'm looking to return the unit, and wanting another one (when it works, it works great ~ but now it no longer works)....a disappointment, to the tune of $20 dollars worth of meat...NOW I'VE GOT TO TAKE THE TIME TO RETURN IT...AND MOST LIKELY PAY FOR THE SHIPMENT...