Any electronic/electrical wizards in here?

If you would like i can pull out the grinder, plasma cutter and welder. That way, i would be modifying the stove. But i see your point and that would be the simple reason i would elsewhere for insurance if i ever get insured because of the stove.

 

I was only joking.. i know you mentioned many times you wouldnt sell your units.

 

I havnt nor do i plan on running the stove just to see a flame. But it does state designed to run without it. But doesnt go into any details.

 

Oh... and for the love of god do not i repeat DO NOT look at that insured stove in my avatar pic.. ;-)

 

I have to add to my reasoning behind wanting to "modify" the stove. I want to be able to turn the convection fan higher than what the heat setting is set at. Thats it. Not so i can run it to slow and overheat the stove. (I can literally push the fan OFF button on the control board to do that)
I just believe i can run the blower at higher speeds and pull alot more heat out of the stove.

Snowy if you read this check out the brochure i attatched. Specifically Towards the bottom on the left.

 

Bingo.

So it's OK to move the fan outside the house.

I can just see this (Thinking of some of the stuff many of us have seen) Extension cord draped across the driveway laying in a mud puddle and the fan hooked up with plastic dryer vent hose that's snaked in through a foundation vent then through a hole in the floor hacked in with a chain saw.



Those kind are out there, yeah buddy.


Getting serious again (who me) I went over to a buddies neighbors house earlier and took a look at their pellet stove. (FOLKS JUST GOT THE HOUSE AND STOVE WAS IN THE FAMILY ROOM.

Stove did not work.
No sign of power to anything.

Opened the cabinet and things went downhill from there, FAST

The wiring looked like a complete rat nest.

Fuse blown due to a shorted wire the runs to the feed motor.

Wire had been spliced a few times instead of replaced, and had become wrapped around around the auger shaft until it ripped it up, shorted and blew the fuse.

Further snooping revealed some left over parts stuffed down deep into the cabinet.

Some sort of relay (no sticker or ###) a worn out auger motor and some old wires all rolled up and crammed into the corner.

After an hour of checking all circuits for damaged and bare wires, and replacing some connectors that had been replaced by TWISTED WIRES TAPED WITH MASKING TAPE we were ready to go for a fire up.

The draft fan did not run, and needed some oil (After a good cleaning and adding a lytherm gasket to replace the one that had been left out, plus installing a set screw in the fan hub (Screw absent) we were ready for another giddyup.

This time we got a running draft fan and the room air fan was making GAWD AWFUL NOISES.

Ripped out the room air fan and find the remnants of a sandwich bag all chewed to H#*L on the outlet side of the fan.
The rest was melted into the heat chamber and required a goodly amount of elbow grease to get it loose.

OK

Another try and this time at least the thing halfway tried to go.

About 10 minutes into the run the auger started making strange grinding noises and the pellets stopped dropping.


OMG
This poor stove was a 5 alarm train wreck.

Ahhhh, I might add, there was a sticker on the back with "Call Ron for service" and a phone number.

Hmmmmmm ????????????????????????

I certainly hope this was not his handy work.

Ran home and grabbed an auger motor from my stash, stuffed it in and WADDAYA KNOW, IT WORKS GREAT.

The idea of modifying a stove some to actually make it better does not worry me at all.

The crap and hash I found in this stove could lead to more serious issues including burning the house down.

A call to the previous owner revealed that "Ron" whoever was the only tech that ever worked on it.

This dude told the P O that he really needed a new stove.

This was certainly the case after "Ron" got done with it.

Sooooo sad that these kind are out there, and they actually accept $$$$$$ for what they do.

Luckily the Fuse blew before the thing burned the house down.

Oh and the two safety over temp snaps were gone and the wires twisted together.

The screws that hold the snaps in place were rolling about in the belly of the beast.

This sort of stuff, unfortunately happens far too often.

Testing with snaps jumper'd is fine, but you NEVER EVER leave things this way.

This AZZ could have killed some folks.


The Widdle stove was working fine when we left, and was still fine 2 hours later.

Surprising that the board did not fry.


Rant off

 

I was actually refering to the sentance, this stove can operate efficiantly with the convection fan turned off.
But its always a joy to read your rants ;-)

I can barely tell the combustion motor is even running on this one. I dont see any need to have it outside. Other than the extremely tight space they put it in. Cannot remove the motor/fan only. The complete housing needs to come out then you can get the motor off. :-/

 

I wonder how they get much from the stove with the fan off ????

Interesting though.

My take was on the part about the owner relocating the fan.

Usually the manuf's are adamant about wanting only the techs inside the unit.

At any rate, what you are wanting to do is an easy fix

 

and the term "tech" is pretty loose....Ive seen many folks who do a great job of cleaning/working on their units, often better than a "tech", such as Ron, mentioned above.

 

UH HUH

My feeling is that "Ron" had a few tools, enough gumption to get some business cards printed and off he went.

"Always wanted to work on pellet stoves"

Sadly these types are out there charging $$$$ for their services and leaving a trail of destruction in their wake.

There are many folks that can handle the needed tasks presented by a pellet stove and not be a "tech"

"Tech" is a highly overused term me thinks.

This stuff is throughout society, from home re-modelers, car repairs, landscapers, on and on it goes.

Hence the rise of the various lists online that rate various folk's business practices.

 

I deal with this sort of thing almost on daily basis. But in a contractor/carpentry sense.
I make and sell railings and odd furniture and such associated with a "log cabin" business. Homeowners buy a rustic railing and hire joe xxxx to install it. Then they come back asking me how to fix it. Blah blah blah...

Now i have never hired or paid anybody to do any work for me yet. My vehicles have never been to a repair shop. Other than to change tires.. and even then i only bring the rims.
No service calls for the furnace. No service calls to anybody for anything.
I was brought up told if you want it done then learn how to do it. Otherwise you pay someone else who gets it done the way they feel it should be. I like having things done my way.
I knew a simple toggle switch and speed control would work for what i want. But i asked for opinions and a confirmation saying yup that'll work just fine. and i do appreiciate the help and responses. I will be asking more questions i am sure.

 

Cant argue much with what I read here! I wonder, though, how this "stuff" actually gets started? Landscapers? When I was a kid, NOONE, other than maybe the top 1% who are doctors or lawyers, hired someone to mow their lawn....now, very prevalent. Not that they do a bad job, but I think society has changed more to a "hands off" mentality. Can you work on a stove? a car? your lawn? your furnace? your home? Sure, although with permitting processes these days, its getting difficult.
That being said, I still stand by my statement that modifying an appliance negates the UL listing. Sorry.

 

Hells bells LW what could possibly go wrong it is only fire you are playing with, come on loosen up. If the Darwin contestants want to play around, well ....

 

You can pound that statement as much as you want. I will listen or read it as many times as you say it. But that doesnt mean you or the people sitting behind the big desk are right.

At the very most, all i would be doing is cooling the stove down too much..

 

I feel the same way about insurance agencies when it comes to solid fuel appliances as i do with code officers or osha. Lets not get started on that. The guys behind the desk knows best. Thats for sure :-/

 

I have wired everything around here, including my house.
The local inspector was an AZZ and did not like how I did it, and would not sign it off (I wired the place to industrial code with more GFCI plugs and heavier wire throughout (much of the place is #10 copper)

I also installed a huge 400 amp panel and a metric buttload of breakers.

The inspector went insane and demanded it all be torn out and redone.

Hell I put the Cook stove, oven, micro, dish washer, fridge and so on all on their own separate circuits.

The inspector was actually foaming at the butt I think.

I showed him the door and then called the power company (Portland General Electric) and had their inspector come by.

He walked through and happened to mention with a smile, YA THINK IT'S HEAVY DUTY ENOUGH ????

He gave it the 2 thumbs up and signed it off.

The county dude was not gonna take this slap, and decided to make trouble.

I had to bring the PGE fellow back and those two about came to blows.

Was fun to watch

Finally the PGE guy explained that his signature was GOD and game over.

All ended well, at least for me.

Speaking of the clowns from OSHA

We won't go there

 

When I moved my cabinet business I had to hire an electrician to install the new 3 phase equipment. I wasn't allowed to do it myself as I had for many years. The power company wouldn't come until the inspector had left his inspection report/sticker on the work. The inspectors recommended electrician supplied and installed the box and meter box for the install. The inspector looked it over and gave it his approval. The morning the power company came they were shaking their heads. The idiots had installed a single phase box and the inspector approved it.

The power company foreman let me redo everything myself, no more red tape. It was done the next morning, and not the week and a half it took to get it wrong...the "right way".

 

YUP
Thats how it goes

I also installed the 20 KW gen set and the 400 amp transfer switch.

I had things up to the point that the meter had to be pulled.

The power company wanted a licensed electrician to yank the meter and make the final connections to the meter panel.

Lets just say it went poorly, and I ended up having to redo things myself.

A buddy just happened to have some SEALS from PGE and I yanked the meter, fixed the screw up and stuck a new seal on it.

No body was ever the wiser.

Gawd I hate paying for crap.

Ahhhh well, such is life eh???


I have 3 phase for my lathe and mill but bought a rotophase that creates the 3rd leg.

Works great.

A3 phase motor with a huge capacitor to start the motor on two legs and the third is used to generate the 3rd leg for the equipment.

These are the catsass

Full power with instant reverse on the spindles.

 

There is certainly a lot of folks that will mislead others for monetary gain.

The shift of manufacturers to stove designs that take more and more control away from the owner and basically give it to the engineers that designed the thing.

In years past most every stove had a fan speed control to allow the operator the option of setting the fan speed to a comfortable spot.

A roaring fan in a room where you are trying to listen to the TV or conversation is just unacceptable, and by the same token at times you want a bit of a smaller fire and more blower to distribute the air somewhat better.

Some stoves such as our little Whitfield Prodigy 2 have the fan speed tied to the fuel feed rate because the fan serves as a combination room air fan and combustion "booster" via a shunt tube (Small metering pipe that feeds extra air under pressure into the fire pot to aid combustion.

This setup is, in my estimation a bit sketchy at best, but it works acceptably in the case of these small stoves.

My new controller changed that a bit to allow full speed control to the fan.
There is no downside either, as the fan has to be feeding air at a threshold pressure before the auger will feed. (pressure switch on the air plenum controls this)

In our situation, having more control on the fan allows better combustion of the fuel (nut shells)

Now, on most stoves, simply interconnecting the heat range and room air fan is ludicrous.

The only justification is that the manufacture feels that the owner has no clue on how to run the stove and therefor has decided to take away any possibility.

If the manufacture is so worried about the fan speed, they can do a few things to add fail safes, 1 would be to add a snap switch in the plenum to run the fan on high if the heat reaches a certain level. (Stove run on too high of a setting with too low of a fan speed--- This was done in the past by some)

The other worry might be the stove running too cold by too small of a fire and too much blower, again easy to guard against with a snap switch circuit that adds a resistor to keep the fan at a higher speed.

Bottom line is the manufactures are trying to stave off the large amount of Whiners that will complain about everything.

So they do a shotgun approach and give the design a reasonably good set of operating parameters that keep the heat level and blower in a nice narrow band width.

Then comes along folks like me and so many others that say, hmmmmm, I DON'T THINK SO.

And we go and do our own thing.

Automobiles have entered this arena and now they are like flying a computer console with little resemblance of real driving.

Anti lock brakes that take away all control when you really need and want it.

Ever been in a situation where you wanted everything locked and the anchor tossed out for good measure too ??? well I have, and it's extremely frustrating to have a magic box on board that takes this control away and sends you merrily careening headlong into a mess that could be avoided with a bit of good old fashioned skill.


The industry is also worried to the point of excess about liability.

Their cute little "Super stove" is all packaged up and designed to give you just what the builder says YOU NEED.


Sorry for the cynical viewpoint, but this scenario has really become quite common everywhere, and is annoying.

Ahhhh well.

If it does not work like you want, Take it apart and make it work better.