Fahrenheit Endurnace 50F Project

I know what you meanI usually buy it on sale to replenish low stock.

 

Shoot, got it back together last night and tested it. As I mentioned above. Hopper leak seems to be good, but flame leans over to the left. Though the feedback seems to be that a leaning flame is normal.

I fired it up tonight, and it's burning away as I type this. It's burning ok, but still rich and not a lot of heat. We'll definitely have a look at it when you stop by, but it'll be mainly closed up and in running condition. But if needed it's easy to pop the panels.

I know it's getting late, thank goodness it's been warm. Luckily I have the P61 though and it'll easily heat the house. I also have a propane furnace if needed.

HAHA it's too bad I'll have to head to work or we could .

 

9$ WOW. Maybe not so bad after all having a unit that doesn't have auto igniter. Luckily my is ok. I think I had it twisted the wrong way. The end of the igniter tube is cut such that is has to point a certain direction to get proper ignition.

To the right? Odd, just how the air flows through I guess on the old units. At leas I know a leaning flame is "normal". So that's one thing I can check off the list.

I still have the larger auger motor in my stove. I'll swap it out to the OEM one tomorrow night and then take some flame video for the experts to review!

What kind of heat does your stove produce on setting 2 or 3?

 

Yours isn't auto ignition?

 

Sounds good. I'll time mine tomorrow night when I fire it up. But I'll make sure to start the timer after it does the burn pot clean. Yeah seems like forever to ignite, it's rolling a pile of smoke before it catches haha. Looks kind of cool pouring out of the chimney though.

When I did my tear down I pulled the hose and filter and cleaned both. The white cartridge on the pump was filthy!! Question for you though, how noisy is your air pump? Mine is really noisy so maybe it's getting tired.

As I mentioned above, I think I had my igniter tube turned one set of holes the wrong way. It ignites better now, but just seems like a long time. Though I realize I am still learning the behaviour of the stove.

You are running 30% closed? OK I'll take a picture of where mine is tomorrow night. Again, I think I am to a point that with everyone here I can start tuning. It's a far cry better than the first time I fired it up lol. Just a question, with pellet stoves, isn't blow torch a hotter flame? Do you find your vent runs that much hotter? Indicating heat loss out the exhaust? Ever do a temp check on the exhaust to see how much heat is going outside? I should try and bring home the infrared thermometer I have a work and check my exhaust temp. Just for curiosities sake.

Oh and you know how you said to check the ash pan gasket. Well, as I mentioned, the ash pan gasket was ok, but I think my door gasket could stand to be done again. I think I screwed it up the first time I did it. I checked the seal with a piece of paper (even though I went around it with a lighter) and the paper is a little loose in a few spots.

 

On the little Ecoteck stove here, it's a 65 degree differential, between room air exiting out of the heat exchanger tubes (230 F) vs. exhaust temp post combustion blower (295 F) ..

That is burning 1.6 lb / hr of LaCrete pellets currently, room intake air temp. shows at 62F.

I spent a few weeks 'tuning' the stove to dial-in combustion air to narrow the difference between the two here, it was (90F) when I started.

Room air measured w/ a K-type thermometer Steve ( slvrblkk ) uses, there's a pic in this thread:

★★★★★ - Olympus Douglas Fir Pellets (Review) | Firewood Hoarders Club

Stove here has an Exhaust temp. probe directly in the exhaust stream, and can be viewed in the stove settings / LCD panel.

I have absolutely NO CLUE if that even applies to the Endurance 50F, just thought you may find the #s helpful.

 

No!

 

Mine doesn't have those # readouts, it would be nice to have though! All stoves should have them to fine tune with a comb, efficiency is the name of the game just like the holy grail

 

Today hanging a little to the left. Tomorrow maybe a little to the right. Oh we are talking about the flame...

My flame is usually leaning to the right.

 

I prefer left side hang.

 

You make a good point. I guess more can be less in this case.

Yes, I had the hole in my flame as well due to a hopper leak. That is now addressed.

As for start up times. It's just under 10 min to ignition from the time the air pump comes on and approx. another 11 min until enough heat builds up to trigger the distribution blower. I'm running on heat setting 3. I still need to try putting the OEM 2 rpm auger motor back on. Currently I'm playing with a 4 rpm auger motor. I got painting tonight, so that took up my time. Also, air intake is almost full open. (EDIT: Air intake has been closed to about 30% open, but went a bit far, into lazy flame. I'll start opening it back up).

I need to get a thermometer so I can start measuring plenum temps. I'll have to stop in and get one this weekend.

I appreciate the help and always enjoy feedback from 50F owners.

 

Level 3 in the middle of the winter keeps the house right around 70. If it drops down to single digits or below, it goes to 4. 95% of the time I run it on the t-stat in high/low mode.

I'd like to have auto ignite for the kind of days we've been having - cold at night and mild during the day. If I leave the furnace running when it goes above 40 outside, the house gets too warm for my liking. It needs to stay at 35 or below before high/low makes sense. Otherwise the furnace gets dirty quick from running on low all day.

 

Sweet. It's nice to have those features in your stove. I know it's not important to have that info, but I think it's neat to know the differentials. It's just a good way to really see how efficient your stove is running. I'd like to check my 50F just because they claim it is more efficient than other stoves and they claim lower exhaust temps because of that.

I appreciate the input!

 

You guys have been burning a lot longer than me, I'm still learning here - I'm sure you'll get it dialed in w/ no problem.

It's kind of handy having that info - like Dex says, the slower we can move air through the burn chamber, the better the heat exchange; more heat at a given feed rate = less pellets being consumed here.

Here on the Francesca, 'dialing-in' typically involves getting the stove up to operating temp. / fully heat-soaked (about 1.5 hrs), increasing combustion air so the flame is 'torched', measuring exit air temp. from the heat exchanger, slowly dialing back combustion air until that temp. starts to drop (borderline lazy flame), then increasing air, in small increments, until the flame is 'lively' / the temp. is somewhere near where it was with full air..
After doing this for the better part of a week (5 feed settings worth) I was starting to look like my Avatar.. I didn't think it would take as long to tune the stove here as it did, but the payoff is worth it, fuel-wise so far.

 

Nice, good to know. Thanks for the feedback. I'll need to do some conversions so I get an idea of how the temp your outside temps relate to Celsius. Right now, I'm not seeing the heat output I'd want to see to keep my house warm in the dead of winter on heat setting 3. However, as I've been posting messages tonight I've been tinkering and as I've throttled the air intake back I've noticed the distributed air is actually getting hotter, and the flame doesn't seem to have been affected too badly yet.

I think auto ignite is a bit wasteful on these 50Fs just because of the long cycle time, but I LOOOOOVE the auto ignite on the Harman. From the time it starts firing up it's less than 10 min and it pumping the heat out!

Have you tied your 50F into the ducting of your house?