We tried to replace our ignitor last year when it quit working . That didn't work , so we thought maybe we got a bad ignitor . Ordered a new one , still nothing . Thought maybe it was the motherboard, no burn marks to indicate it would be bad . Motherboard was dusty , used a can of air , the ignitor heated up some, but not enough to ignite the pellets . Any ideas are greatly appreciated. Also if anyone knows any repair people that work on pellet furnaces in the Pittsburgh , pa area .
Welcome to the forum CJK. Do you own a Multi meter? Check the Ohm's of the igniter and Carefully check the voltage(with igniter connected). Report back.
Which igniter do you have? Theres the finned igniter and the tubular igniter with air pump in the later PF series...... If its the finned igniter, yes, check the resistance between the two wires going to the igniter....should be 43-50 ohms....don't have to remove the igniter to do this, just undo the spade connectors in the rear.......no conductivity (infinite resistance) means the igniter is bad. Dont bother checking voltage in this case. Sometimes when folks change their igniter, they fail to pull the wires back to the rear sufficiently and the insulation burns off, then they ground against the feeder weldment, then they burn out the triac on the board....this usually causes the igniter to be on all the time, or not come on at all (depending in what position the triac burned out in).....this is often indicated by the burnpot bubbling where the igniter is, and thats usually the only indicator youll get (well, plus increased power usage!) Now, as for tubular igniters, I dont know how many, if any, late model PF100's had them.....I know the PF120's did. I will assume you don't have one of them for the sake of brevity.
Here is something else. There are still some 13 fin Harma igniters around! After sitting all summer it did not get hot enough to light the pellets. Every other part was changed except the exhaust blower! This blower has the extra cooling fan with the black plastic guard on the back and still works great! Remember heat is the # 1 cause of bearing failure so having an extra cooling fan like computers to keep the parts cooling will extend their lives!!! I changed an old 13 fin igniter in a P68 Thursday so here is a pic of the old and new. I make up jumpers to connect the cooling fan to the exhaust blower so it goes when the exhaust fan goes and mount it to the inside back panel See 2nd pic
