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New term “Auger Motor Recoil” May indicate auger and auger Bushing health?

Discussion in 'Pellet Stoves, Pellet Fireplaces, Pellet Furnaces' started by don2222, Apr 7, 2018.

  1. don2222

    don2222

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    Hello
    The auger motor’s health being more visible may be easier to tell if it is weak causing more pellet jams or broken and not turning or shorted out. But what about the heath and cleanliness of the auger and bearing itself?? I have seen this a few times but when my technician heard a banging noise after the installation of a brand new auger motor we had to investigate!
    Sometimes when a symptom is more severe like this one it is easier to diagnose.
    The St Croix Prescott has an Auger Bracket that wraps around the gear box and bolted to the auger end plate.
    This is what we saw.
    After every cycle of the auger motor turning after the power stopped the auger bounced up away from the auger stop and hit the top of the auger bracket causing the auger banging noise. It can be clearly seen when the stove was in the run cycle under normal operation.
    So we pulled the auger and the bronze oil lite bearing and found a very dirty auger and gunky and worn auger bearing. So we buffed out the auger and replaced the bearing and No More auger motor bouncing or auger recoil like the the push back when firing a gun.
    This should make the auger motor last longer and help prevent pellet jams.
    Has anyone else seen this??
    What do you all think?
     

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  2. heat seeker

    heat seeker

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    I've never seen it, but it makes sense. I think you're onto something here. My auger does something different; I know it's free and the bushing is okay, since I check it whenever the hopper gets really low and I can grab the auger and move it around a bit. When the motor stops, it often turns backwards a bit, which I would think impossible with all the gearing. It just might be some windup in the gearbox, and it's a ball bearing motor so it spins easily. It makes no noise, and the motor doesn't move off of its stop.
     
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  3. imacman

    imacman

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    IMO, a couple squirts of synthetic oil on the auger shaft going through the bearing would have solved the problem.
     
  4. don2222

    don2222

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    It may be best to take out the auger and bearing just to examine them for dirt.
    You are so right about the synthetic bearing oil, even when I put a brand new auger bearing in, I put synthetic bearing oil on the inside.
    If there is any black carbon on the inside of the bearing, cleaning it out and adding the synthetic oil helps a lot!!
     
  5. don2222

    don2222

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    Hello
    One of my techie friends had a similar banging on his Englander 25-PDV on the lower auger motor! He pulled it and found black carbon in the front of the lower auger chute! So cleaning it all up resolved the problem!
    For the double auger Englander Pellet Stoves I took pics of the cleaning, greasing and bearing upgrades
    Pics to see if your bearings are the updated ones with the extra grease channel. They work better! See my pics here
    https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/englander-25-pdv-25-pdvc-block-bearings-with-no-grease-channel-to-hold-the-grease.160951/#post-2162240

    Also
    Here are my pics on greasing the block bearings
    https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/survey-englander-grease-those-bearings-see-pics-how-often-do-you-apply-the-red-stuff.141830/#post-1911156

    Pics on cleaning the augers
    https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/englander-25-pdv-25-pdvc-those-pokey-little-auger-burs-pimp-my-auger-pics.102423/#post-1318807