Mickey the Dunce Strikes Again

So, after having just survived the "Snowmageddon" that hit New England on Saturday I thought I had a very different and interesting problem with my Enviro M55-Cast FS that I was about to ask you all in the Collective Hive Mind and see if I could get it fixed with your help......

I run the stove on a thermostat and it has never given me any problems controlling the heat output.During the storm I was running the stove on Heat Level 4 with Air and Fuel trims at mid-settings (3). I had the Stove Thermostat (in the adjacent room) set to 70 and this usually makes the stove room about 72 and the bedrooms in the upper 60's. Just right.

Well during the storm, power kept flickering and resetting the stove to a start up sequence on Level 1. After the third time.... I fired up the Generator and ran the stove on it for the rest of the storm with no problems. The Temp was a-droppin' and the wind was a-blowin' The stove was really pushing the heat to keep up (Not unexpected). I burned 120 LBS of Green Supreme (Allegheny blend) in 20 hours. Kept the house plenty warm and comfy as usual.

Problem reared its ugly head when the wind died down. Stove room was up to 78 and the Adjacent room where the thermostat is was up to 74. The stove seemed to not be responding to the thermostat. In the pit of my stomach I feared the flickering power had fried something on the main board. Figured this was gonna cost me $$$.

Then I thought about You guys and Gals on the FHC forum and maybe someone else has had this happen and perhaps a fix or parts were available.

So today after my 3rd cup of coffee I decided to shut the stove down cold and reset the power to see if that rebooted the main board and solved the problem. No Joy. Same issue...no control with the Thermostat. Figured I was up the creek.

I decided to give the stove a weekly cleaning before I tore into the mainboard.
Then....
I found the problem...
I had moved the Mode switch from Hi/Low to Manual at some point filling it yesterday. Sheesh!

Set the Mode switch back to Hi/Low and all is normal again.

And before someone barks about not running the stove on a UPS. Mine died and let the smoke out. Its on the list to get a new one.

Thanks for commiserating with Mickey the Dunce

---Nailer---

 

Nice to see you on the forum again Nailer! Glad you found the issue.

 

One good thing about 'letting the smoke out' and that is, it smells like a BBQ..... Least mine does.

 

It's usually human error.I do crap like that all the time.Glad you figured it out.

 

Both APC and CyberPower make Sine Wave (PFC compatible) UPS units worth considering. Between $200 - $250 for a 1,5oo Watt model: giving approx 90 minutes runtime.

 

Hey, we all inadvertently do things (or don't do things like replace the plate in front of the ignitor after cleaning) that are not the most brilliant at times.

 

Did I get a Ron White reference in there?

 

Or install that plate upside down….and then try and figure out what’s wrong with the stove…

 

I have the insert version of that stove. This has happened to me before! All it takes is one pellet to bounce over near those controls and then get caught between the setting switch and the hopper “door” slider….D’oh.

I run mine of a Wi-Fi t-stat. Love being able to fire it up remotely. Or shut it down prior to cleaning.

 

4 days later....Still running fine. Glad there is no board problem. Dodged a bullet.

Since the storm, temps outside were cold as an ex wife's heart. Burned more of the Big Box Allegheny Green Supreme.
Temps finally moderated and switched to Northeast blend Green Supreme just to get rid of them..I have 4 bags left.

Gonna do a deep clean on the stove this afternoon since its supposed to get up into the mid-40s.

Think I need to get 1 more ton and I should be all set for the year. Gonna go pellet shopping.

---Nailer---

 

x2

 

Bought an additional 4 skids of Michigan Hardwood at TSC (still the same price as last month) but I cannot pick them up because the pickup truck is snowed in and so is the goose neck trailer. In fact, the trailer is totally buried under a huge snowdrift.

Oh well, have plenty as it is, I really bought an additional 4 skids of pellets in anticipation of a price increase next fall, pretty sure that will happen in as much as everything else price wise is making like a rocket ship.

 

That is not a bad fix.
This just happened last week!!
This Hampton GC-60 FS is just like the M55 and after 7 years, all the bronze auger bearing impregnated lubrication dried out so the auger stuck to the bearing so when the auger motor turned it turned the auger with the bearing and the top of the bearing flange ripped off! The auger started falling through the stove and made a gap so half of the pellets fell into the back of the stove! The avalanche of wood pellets pressed against the auger motor wires until one broke! Also the increase in starting current wore out the magnetic hopper lid safety switch!
Luckily I had a new Enviro auger bearing on me! They are $68.00 for a pair!
I also installed an upgraded new S902 - 2 RPM ball bearing auger motor with needle bearings on the output shaft for good measure.
Therefore it may be a good idea to remove this bronze bearing every 5 years and clean out the inside and soak it in synthetic bearing oil or light machine oil for 24 hours to replenish the dried up lubrication???? That will keep the pellets flowing in the right direction??
See pics of old and new bearing below.

 

don2222 wow that's crazy. Glad you were able to get er fixed up.

 

Kind of like my USSC 6039. The bearings are stupid expensive so I turn my own from 660 CA oil impregnated bronze bar stock. Takes about 3 minutes to make one and I usually make the bearing longer to provide more bearing surface too.

USSC wants 28 bucks for a 5 cent part and uses a tinnerman washer to retain it. I cut the inside flange much wider, drilled 2 holes in it and used Tek screws to secure it.

If I had numerous different makes of stoves here, I'd be making parts for them. I don't.

I tend to oil all of them in the spring anyway with light machine oil.

 

Like leaving the deflector on the side of the stove?

Dan

 

Guilty of that at least once