Tell me it's not the board.

After shutting down my ten year old St Croix Hastings for the season, I found myself having to re light it this week. It needs the year end cleaning, but was running fine. Now, the newly replaced room fans always seem to be on high. with the stove set on two, or five, the fans are blowing full power. Any ideas?

 

Did you unplug it when you thought you were done for the season? If not, try unplugging for a minute or so. And it ran normally after the fans were replaced before?

 

I didn't unplug it, and yes, it was running fine before. I installed the new after market fans in late Feb, early March, and they ran nice and quite, at the right speeds for the heat settings. It's cold again today,( It's been cold and rainy since the snow melted! ), so I will unplug it and crank it up again now. ( the Bruins are on tonight, and my big screen is down there! ). I will let you know shortly.

 

OK. Fix number one didn't take. I unplugged for a couple minutes, plugged in, it started right up, set on two ( of five ), and the room fan sounds like it is at full speed. I can set the stove at one, or five, and the fan runs the same, full speed.

 

Are these ceiling fans? I too have a hastings just wondering your setup, My stove was going last night for the Bruins win, getting hairy eyeball from teenager to start it today, not in mood.

 

Do you have the stove plugged into a really good surge protector to protect the circuit board from those nasty slow damaging power fluctuations that we do not always see?

 

The fans in the stove that blow out hot air.

 

I do not. I guess I've been lucky for ten years or so.

 

Me too Bro...mine is plugged into one of those crappy strips you plug your computer into!! Lucky so far I guess.

 

Gotcha. Mine is 14 years old and still purring it is plugged into a 100 dollar surge protector I have for my 1000 watt sub.

 

TrippLite UltraBlok.....a lot of forum members use these. About $24 on 'Zon last time I looked.

 

Those things happen correctly. Then the stove reaches operating temp, feeds fuel at whatever it is set to, but the room fan goes right up to high and stays there.

 

Sorry, I can't help. I only had my Hastings for 1 season and never ran into trouble with it (that I know of - besides it being a huge PITA to dial in the damper whenever I changed pellets). I honestly don't even remember if the fan was always on high, or was variable speed.

 

I have not tinkered with any of those boards. You might want to drop an IM to member Ssyko, he has been getting into repairing some boards.

 

Ahhh yes the damm damper. I have left it wide open for the bad Vermonts and almost closed for mwp. But it is what it is. LOL

 

One thing I have found about "MOST" (not all) aftermarket blower motors. they are not variable speed compatible. The speed of any AC motor is dependent on the applied frequency that can be changed with voltage. OEM are made to be controllable to parameters the mfg sets to the motor mfg (Taps in the windings at areas that change speed, 2-4 wires like Quads). Most are controled by board voltage and timing the microcontrolers are turning it on and off (freq). some of the chinese motors floating around multiple websites are not speed controllable and usually run at the boards High setting but not the lower, or will run at a lower speed with high resistance to the armature windings and will shut itself down of burn itself out and do a fair amount of damage to the board by drawing more current than they can handle. motor stats really have to be watched when looking for replacements.

 

I believe the fans were variable speed when I put them in. Then at the end of the season I noticed they just seemed to run on high.

 

Some controllers have a speed over ride function that places the room fan into high speed mode. Check with your manual.

 

This is usually a snap switch that senses heat (As in too much) and closes routing full line voltage to the blowers.

If there is not an override snap switch then the issue is likely the Triac speed control on the board has died.