Pellet heads!! What's up today?

Well the good news is that it’s been good ever since getting a ten pack of pins and raising the skid plates. It would be much nicer if I paved the driveway. However with the tractor dragging mud in every fall it buggers up the drive anyway. I rarely have used any ice melt, this year I’ve really grown tired of the ice appearing. Much of the drive is now paved with ice. The snow everywhere is now iced over also. Sunday it’s supposed to be 48*F, rain with 60 mph winds followed by a week of really cold weather, oh boy more ice.

 

Paving the driveway in northern New England has its own challenges with the changing ground every year. Mine has held up somewhat ok for 20 years but coukd really use a re-do but to do it right would be $$$$

Back when my driveway was dirt, I always kept the sn*wblower raised an inch to leave a base....as you noted, ice winters sucked

 

Ive got 2 boards lol

 

OMG
The cost would be off in the ozones.

For a one off deal its sweet, plus a great project.

Having the ability to fix it quick if need be is my goal.
For many folks if their pellet stove goes PHHHHHT they usually have other heat sources, but we don't. Soooooo...on that cold dark when its going sideways I gotta be able to fix it quick...

3 pellet stoves is it here.
The little Whitfield in the living room will not heat this barn in the COLD and the Quad will not eat shells.

I am sure that many folks would look at my contraption and GASP ...OMG IT'S FUGLY

 

It had things technical people prefer.

Good design, built in status and troubleshooting aids, more robust components, not designed using the lowest price possible, more easily serviceable.

Looks aren’t everything. Good thing, too or else I’d be single.

 

and living in Eastport.


There, I fixed it for you Earl.

 

Just finished ordering some different 1/2 watt resistors to fine tune the controller.

I got a package of 511K ohm...412K ohm and 300K ohm resistors so I can trim out the heat selector to be a really smooth transition

7.15 sec
6.04 sec
5.11 sec
4.12 sec
3.00 sec

The timer uses 1 meg ohm to deliver a full 10 seconds of delay.

Each 100K is a second

Resistors come ion "standard sizes"
I am too cheap to buy custom resistors, so I get what can be found in the standard parts listings

1/2 watt 1% tolerance

Here is the chart of standard resistors.

Simply move the decimal point for the size needed (7.15K or 715K)

Been running the controller all day with various tests being performed.
Checking the various speeds and feeds and going through shutdown and startups.
Checking the startup timer for consistency.
Checking the feed timer for consistency, both feed and burn time...
watching the volt meters on the fans and listening for the nasty wha wha's (NONE PRESENT)

Need to wait until I get the mechanical relay installed to be able to fully check things out.

I installed a relay between the overtemp snaps and the main power to keep current very low through the snaps.

Looking great so far

 

Me three.... 'cept 40 years..
big bucks..

Dan

 

Decided to go all out.

Yanked out the LED LAMP and inserted an MK feed motor with some tape on the shaft to see if it's moving.

Restarted the testing and all is well.

The toggle switch along side the feed motor is my DUMMY low limit switch.

Start up circuit lasts 22 minutes (Should be enough)
I flip the switch at 15 minutes and keep on rolling

The Panel lamps are from top to bottom
LH RED -MAIN RH RED- AUGER ON
MID LH GREEN - LOW LIMIT MID RH GREEN- AUGER SYSTEM POWER
LOWER LH GREEN- DRAFT FAN control LOWER RH GREEN- ROOM FAN control

Auger red lamp shows bright red when feeding (Normal pellet stove thing)

Meters just indicate where the voltage to the fans are set, allowing tweaking for the finicky operator (Actually the factories figure out good speeds and set up the controls to add more draft fan speed as the fuel feed is increased) ***Triac on the board and resistors to change the voltage***
Room air fan is either a knob or a touch panel up and down setup

Presently we are running in quiet low power mode to save my sanity.

Running a test on the "Prime" setting on the heat control... PERFECT.. Motor turns constantly, which will fill an auger quickly...

I started this thing back in 2016...about time it got done

 

Crazy stuff.You started this years ago,and,a lot of the info might be irrelevant,as you burn shells.Hope you are keeping all this,and putting into a big file.But,your thought and workmanship is awesome.

 

Actually this controller will allow the stove to function just as Whitfield shipped it to the dealer.
My heat controller allows a bit more choice for feed rates, plus the ability to customize the draft fan speed for each heat setting allows even better control of the fire.

Dump in a bag of your fav pellets and the stove will burn happily.

The added safety features I have waiting to go in the stove itself makes this old girl even better.

****still a manual lite****

Negative pressure switch on the firebox (shuts things off if the draft fan fails)
Positive pressure switch on the convection air plenum (Shuts things off if the room air fan fails)
Factory positive pressure switch (Shuts things off if the stack/vent plugs up)
Extra high temp snap switch on the vent pipe that shuts the stove off if vent reaches 250 F

I have a LARGE schematic that I am going to redraw due to several changes in the design along the way.
I also have a WIRE BY WIRE "HOW TO" in text format listing each wire from the plug at the wall all the way through...All the wires by number from (1) to (42)
Complete parts list
Supplier info

Thanks again for the THUMBS UP

An interesting note**** NAPOLEON PELLET STOVES use nearly the identical "INFITEC" relays/timers to operate that I used.

I spec'd my relays/timers using the infitec spec chart and added adjustment to both Auger on time and off time.
I can adjust auger on time with a little pot on the timer from .25 to 5 seconds and the off time is remote adjusted from .1 to 10 seconds

My start timer is adjustable from 1 minute to 30 minutes

Napoleon uses fixed times on the auger on time and the startup timer.

I LIKE LATITUDE AND OPTIONS

I have 3 infitec units..... Auger feed timer.... start timer... and then I have a One shot timer with the resistor terminals left open that acts as a "LATCHOUT" relay to prevent a restart in the event of a power outage or an event with a overtemp snap switch tripping.

The Latchout will see a power failure and will open and needs human intervention to restart.

I also have a mechanical relay that switches the main power to keep the higher amp flow out of the main panel toggles.

The draft and room fan speeds each have their own 2 x 2 SSR Triac power controls.

The SSAC (Black) on the left feeds the power after the low limit closes and the start timer shuts off.

The SSAC on the right is the speed control (One of two) "Draft and Room fan"

The blue units are Left... Auger feed timer..... on time on the unit...off time on the panel
Center unit is the Latchout... leaving the resistor terminals open will cause the timer to stay on indefinitely as long as power remains on. (Initiate with panel momentary "Reset")
Right unit is the start timer and I have it set at 22 minutes (On board pot)

I am not sure how Napoleon wires their entire setup, but my bet is that they have a control board with some electrical plugs

 

I ran through the specs on the auger timer that Napoleon uses (TRS series) and its rated at 120 volts @1 amp

I used the HTRS series and chose the 10 amp rating
My feed motor is independently fused at 2 amps
BOTTOM LINE
The fuse is gonna save things and not fry the motor or the timer
2 amps on the timer is not gonna phase it one bit.

Normal amp draw on the auger motors is about 1/2 amp (.55) so a 1 amp rated timer will suffice, but there is no room for any big issues.

The cost on these timers is so reasonable that Cheeeeezing on the amp rating is just poor engineering..

Let the fuse do what it was meant to do...

The HTRS timer does the same thing, just heavier duty.

Available in 2.5...6...10...15 and 25 amp ratings.

 

Holy crap it is windy today!!

 

It's snowing here.

Not a huge dumping, but enough to make things all white.

Maybe 4 inches now.

As I dump another bucket of shells in the stove

 

Wind woke me up around 2 this morning. Couldn't get back to sleep. Snowing when I left for work this morning, and snowing as I came home. Fortunately, not snowing hard and the wind is keeping it from sticking to the driveway. Wind is supposed to keep blasting until 7 tonight, before it calms down some. Then we get the temp tumble.

 

Gas up another 5 cents today, now $2.24 at every pump between Kingston & Salem.

Sam

 

Funny, I noticed this morning that it had gone down 5 cents, and another 5 cents on my way home.

 

I had to go to New York last Thursday and came back Saturday. Driving from Portsmouth to Keene the gas prices were all over the place. I gassed up at a Cumberland Farms in Epson on the way home and paid $2.24 after the 10 cent Cumby's discount. I noticed this morning that the Cumby's price here in town is $2.16 after the discount.

 

Well now...
Been running the new controller for 3 days straight in every configuration I can think of.

Just need to swap in the new mechanical relay into the primary line is all.....
Could run it without the relay, but I want separation between the infeed line and the main switch... so I will wait a few more days..

This Bad Boy is ready for prime time.