Howdy folks, It's been a while since I've been around these parts and hopefully you are all burning clean and hot. Just a quick story about the Condar 3-12-1 probe for the Ideal Steel.....I put one in a couple of years ago and used a magnet with a center hole to keep the probe in place. It was the guide I used to engage and disengage the Cat, reload etc. It just seemed like the Ideal Steel wasn't performing well so I tried cleaning the Cat....that didn't help so I bought a new Cat (not cheap). That didn't seem to help either as Cat temps weren't getting into high ranges despite super dry white oak. I carefully cleaned the Cat probe and that made no difference. Last week, somehow, the Cat probe got bent when I moved the Cat sled forward and a new probe was needed. It took (ecommerce site that begins with "A") less than 24 hours to deliver a new 3-12-1....holy crud, it's the same stove, same cat, same wood but the temp readings are totally different. I'm engaging the Cat earlier, waiting longer to reload and am getting more heat as a result. The interesting thing is that there is a temp probe in the stove pipe about 2' up from the stove top and it is reading differently as well. Long way around the barn, perhaps the original probe was defective or I damaged it early on in its life and it never read correctly. Good luck and happy burning.
I also use a cat probe in my ideal steel. I changed mine this year cause it failed. They aren’t going to last long in the environment they live in. The new probe reads different from the old one, I also have a probe in stove pipe and a stove top that came with the stove. None of them are real accurate, more of a reference for me.
I've gone through 2 of them. Both ended up getting bent from sliding the cat sled forward. I've gotten used to the look of the fire and just go by that now. I did leave the probe hole open so I can see the cat glowing to make sure it lights off. I have also become tunned in on the quick metal "tink, tink, tink" sound that indicates its warming up too. I engage the cat when the stove top next to the flue is 225-325 sometimes 350 depending on how the flames look. I'm sure those things loose accuracy with the 1000 to 1500 degree temps they are exposed to.
Only owned the ideal steel for 1 month. The cat probe has been the bane of my existence. I am gonna buy a thermocouple set up cause its so frustrating. Even as a newbie ive found it easier to use the STT as a guide.
I too have the Condar cat probe. It's been in the stove for 4 years now and everything seems slower and lower on the heat output. I will finish this year up burning and replace both the probe and the Cat. Just think it's time for both after 4 years of burning (not 24hrs 7 days a week) but everyday with a break for a day or 2 depending on the outside temps....
Make sure you test it in boiling water. Mine read 310 and that was holding it suspended in the water. Not resting on the metal
yeah, these meters are not meant to be tested that way and your meter was probably fine. This isn’t an oven thermometer, a probe meter is calibrated to read the temperature of that hot probe while it’s bimetallic spring is suspended in room temperature air on the other side of a double wall pipe!
I don’t think it came with it. I ordered it with the stove. There is a Allen head screw that you take out and insert the probe. I like having the probe.
Keep hoping I will see a crazy sale soon on a Ideal Steel. Was going to go with a BK but wife likes the looks of the IS better and so do I.
When I went back to buy a cat probe for my Absolute Steel they gave it to me for free and said that they now come standard with the probe, so the IS may be the same. I havent really paid much attention to my cat probe this past year. I have a surface temp thermometer next to the outlet on top of the stove, and just engage based off that.
I would hope the EPA wouldn’t have such control over a product but who knows. I bet they started to include it b/c of a customer service perspective.
Oh the EPA has the control. Especially when it relates to the emissions like a cat meter that indicates proper cat activity. The EPA now requires lots of things from the manufacturer including various emissions rates and efficiencies be published in the manual and website. It would be a good customer service move anyway.
