Pellet heads!! What's up today?

Yep. Window in bedroom open with an exhaust fan upstairs. Great sleeping weather.

 

Got up at 4am
Arrrrrgh..back killing me.
Coffee can fix anything

Started the little stove, and it is churning away now happily with it's "new boss" calling the shots..
In the dark room it looks like a Christmas tree.

 

French toast is a big storm thing.

 

I meant to mention yesterday that I had an encounter with a big bird in the middle of the road. We have crows, ravens, turkeys, and turkey vultures, but this was larger. Just a mile and a half from home I came around a bend and found a very large bird standing on top of a carcass which appeared to be a rabbit. As I came to a stop the bird was struggling to gain altitude while carrying its prey. To my surprise as it rose I saw a pure white tail with a white head. First we have bears now we got some eagles back. What a wing span! Sorry no time to get the phone out and snap a pic.

 

You are much hardier than I am - but that's not hard to do so don't puff up with pride too much

 

Those are huge! Glad you got to see her and come to a safe stop.

 

We have em around here. Been seeing a few fishing on the river by the house lately plus there is a nest a few miles up from here on the river as well. The nest is now huge and there are definitely some eaglets in there again this year.

Hopefully they hang around and teach the eaglets during the summer like they use to. My avatar pic was taken about 6 years ago when mom and dad were training the kids until fall when the kids flew the coop.

I got some awesome pics that year and will try and dig some up.

 

Some knucklehead shot them seven years ago, and to think we moved here to escape such ignorance. It’s been a while since we’ve enjoyed seeing them grace our skies. I was only 20-30 feet away, it was a treat.

 

With the Little stove operational now on it's new control I decided it was time to get the work finished on the panel for the big stove.

The panel has been tested on the bench off and on for several weeks 100% GOOD TO GO.

Tore the old stuff off the big Whitfield this morning and went after the swap.
I marked and removed the bulk of the wires that crossed the cabinet and fed the auger, draft fan and the low temp snap switch... Left the original panel wiring in place along with the factory terminal block...just in case we wanted to go back "WHY"
Neat, clean and tidy inside...

Just finished the last connection a few minutes ago.

I want to double check everything in the morning with fresh eyes and a clear head.
Replace the side panels and the back grille and its DONE...

I built a terminal block just like the one I used on the little stove.

Tired and heading for the Tub and to bed ....ZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..

 

Much clearer head this morning...
Ran through the wire terminations one more time and then plugged the beast in.

All seems well.
Everything came to life as it did on the bench testing.

Weather is too warm this morning to do a live fire test.
I have the little stove running for maybe another hour and thats gonna be it for today.

The plan is to finish up getting the side panels back on and the controller mounted.

I need to do a bit of a revamp on the grille work in the rear.

Sheet metal screws suck.

Going to drill and tap the old holes to 1/4"-20 and thread in short bolts from the back side.

Put the grille on and secure it with wing nuts...
Easy to access and not have to scare up tools.

Pics when I fire it up (Likely tomorrow morning)

 

Got the Big Stove all done...and I just could not stand it...so I tossed a fire in the sucker.
Needed a few tweaks on the draft fan voltage to get it in the sweet spot.

Number 3 (6 seconds between drops) is the real deal.
Nice fire.

Gonna take some extra tweaking when cooler weather permits to get things really spot on....but for now its fine...DOING IT'S JOB

A video

 

Looks like it is doing a great job!

 

Thanks B
YES IT IS

Looking forward to many trouble free years on these bad boys...

 

Crawled out of the sack at 4:45 this morning and the weather was sloppy and 44 F outside.. 64 F indoors.

Time for a good romp with the big stove.

Lit it off and it's churning away happily.

Soooooo much quieter than before.
The triacs that ran the fans were soooooooooo bad that the fan motors were nasty noisy.

Now things are very quiet and just the woooooosh of air and not the WHA WHA WHA of the motor harmonics.

Exhaust vent temp is settling in around 150 F at 18 inches from the stove.

With the cool temps outside we should be able to get a really good test session this morning.

 

Rise and shine friends. Hold crap it’s nice out! We maybe looking at the best weather weekend of the year?

 

Summer is coming....

Day #2 of being able to test the new controller on the big stove.

We have some 90 F days coming real soon, so the stove thing is gonna be going away.

Glad to have been able to do the testing before the long hot summer gets under way.

 

Took the dogs for a walk this morning and saw these flowers growing wild on the side of the road. In other news, the pollen level is off the charts. Everything outside is bright yellow and just looking out the window it sometimes looks like there is a continuous cloud of yellowish smoke flowing through the yard.

 

Actually, my yellow car tends to get a green tint to it this time of year .

 

Saw some bald eagles today.