Quadrafire santa fe not feeding pellets

[55chevy]

My Quadrafire pellet stove stopped feeding pellets. I have done a lot of testing and research. So far I have checked and bypassed both snap discs and the Vacuum switch. I swapped the control board with one a friend has in his quadrafire and my control board worked in his and his did not work in my stove..

The board does power up and cycles through the 6 blue light blinks a few times and the convection blower comes on

Neither the auger or the heater come on and I verified the auger works if it gets power. No power coming from pin 10 of the board.

Call light is on and if I heat the thermo coupler I get the green light on the control board.

Took the wiring harness box (where the controller bus is located) off the back and made sure no broken wires.

Since the control board is not sending power to the Auger and it worked in another stove it must not see a signal it needs.

I would really appreciate any ideas because I am fresh out.


Thanks

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

With the power off and the stove unplugged disconnect and reconnect every connection on those snap discs one at a time to clear any possible corrosion on the contacts, pay attention to all three snap discs do the same with the vacuum switch connections.

Also does the combustion blower ever start up when you hit the start button?

 

[Don2222]

Hello
I rebuilt 2 Santa Fe's and still own a Contour.

There are 3 snap discs, did you check all three?
Also, I would pull out the Auger and buff it out so there are no snags or jams.

Snap Disc #1 (Convection Blower) 110°F
Snap disc #1 is located on the right side of the appliance on
the bottom of the heat exchanger box. There are 2 purple
wires connected to it. This snap disc turns the convection
blower on and off as needed. Power is always present at
snap disc #1.

Snap Disc #2 (Fuel Delivery Interrupt) 250°F
Snap disc #2 is also located on the back side of the feed drop
tube. There are 2 orange wires connected to it. This snap disc
will turn off the feed system which will turn off the appliance
if an overfire condition should occur or if the convection
blower should fail to operate. If this occurs the snap disc will
automatically reset itself.

Snap Disc #3 (Back Burn Protector) 250°F
Snap disc #3 is mounted on the back of the auger tube in the
center of the appliance and has a red reset button. To access
it remove the right side panel. If the fire tries to burn back

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

While you are cleaning contacts of any corrosion, you need to check those of the controller and where it gets plugged in. It is possible that the path from the socket to the controller has corrosion or is not making a solid contact. A number of folks have found that by merely removing and re seating their controller that the problem goes away.

The contacts and connections on these device is of a quick change variety and they are not always tight or corrosion free. There have been cases of Molex connections where the socket side is fine but the plug side is loose and gets pushed back into the plastic instead of going into the socket. Then the socket side has also been known to have loosened enough that the plug cannot make contact with the socket sides. The same thing is true of edge connectors etc ...

 

[55chevy]

Thanks for the quick response. I have onhooked a rehooked and bypassed all 3 snap discs and the vacuum switch sev eral times. I do get the convection blower when I power up. I hook the auger to 110 with a cord and it turned fine. I have also put a meeting on the side of the snap disc comming from the controller and I do not see voltage. The ignitor does not get hot either which tells me te controller is not seeing the call for heat. I do get the call light on. I also jump the therostat connections on the back of he stove and that did not help. I also pull the plug on the bottom of the sheet metal ox that holds th controller board. The one that just has a jumper on pins 4 and 5 and measured the voltage comming from the thermostat it was 7. something. Is that about right ?

The 3rd snap disc you talk about (the one that turns on the convection blower. That one reads open with a ohm meter which made sense to me since the stove is no hot. I can check to see if there is voltage on that one but I bet there is not. I jumped it as well and the fan did not start. I will check tonight.

Thanks for the ideas, keep them comming

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

The 3rd snap disc is the burn back protector it has a red reset button on it if that switch is open the stove will not light and a lot of other things will not happen. The controller is seeing the call for heat that is what turns the call light on.

 

[55chevy]

OK, just had the disc numbers wrong Snap disc 2 zero ohms, Snap disc 3 zero ohms, Snap disc 1 open., Vacuum switch zero ohms when combustion fan is running. 120 volts at snap disc 1 and it does have the purple wires. all connections ohm out and do not have any visible corrosion

Thinking about you comment on the connection to the controller. The bus block is not as tight as I would like. I have had the control board slip out a couple of times over the years.

So I took the controller board out of the plastic case plugged it in and held it forward to see if it made a better connection. Did not work any better so I took voltage readings off the pins on the front side and here is what I got.

Pin Voltage
1 0
2 0
3 0
4 0
5 0
6 0
7 0
8 6.4
9 6.5
10 0
11 120
12 120
13 114
14 0
15 0

Need to find way to get to the back pins.

 

[stoveguy13]

Is there a yellow light in in the control box?

 

[55chevy]

No yellow light. I did as a test heat up the thermo and the green light came on.

Since my control board worked in another stove and a known good control board acted just like mine I gotta believe there is a contact problem with the buss. It looks good (no corrosion). Smokey wrote that the call light being on means the control board recognizes a call for heat. What else does it need ?

Does anybody have readings from the pins of a working board? Or a schematic ? It seems like the board is doing everything it should at startup.

I don't here the click I normally do when I turn the thermostat up. That seems to start the pellets feeding.

As always thanks for all the help.

 

[stoveguy13]

does it have a hopper lid switch on it?

 

[55chevy]

No switch, I always thought they should because I have overfilled a few times and left the lid partially open

 

[55chevy]

Everyone, That click I normally here when I turn the heat on, I am guessing it is a relay on the board. Is that the black square component with 6 pins ? I am guessing I could try find out what the pin out on that is and try to go back from there. I have read a lot of threads on replacing components on the board. Does anybody have a home made schematic. Does not need to be pretty

 

[jtakeman]

If you can read the part number off the relay I should be able to source a PDF which usually has a schematic of the contacts.

 

[stoveguy13]

i dont think there is a relay in the wiring anywhere. if you have properly jumped out the #2 #3 snap discs and the vacuum switch. and the control box works?
when you turn on the t-stat does the exhaust blower come on?

 

[jtakeman]

i dont think there is a relay in the wiring anywhere. if you have properly jumped out the #2 #3 snap discs and the vacuum switch. and the control box works?
when you turn on the t-stat does the exhaust blower come on?

Pretty sure he means the relay that is on the controller main board.

 

[stoveguy13]

J didn't he already put his friends board in and same problem?

 

[jtakeman]

J didn't he already put his friends board in and same problem?

Yep, His worked in his pals and His pals didn't work in his. So should rule out the board. Could be a bad wire from the stat terminals to the main board connector or a dirty connection/contact?

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Yep, His worked in his pals and His pals didn't work in his. So should rule out the board. Could be a bad wire from the stat terminals to the main board connector or a dirty connection/contact?

Which was why I was asking for the checking, removing, and re seating of things.

Then there is the possibility that a wire has been pinched and is now broken inside the insulation.

We have had cases on here where after removing, re seating, and a bit of contact cleaning things suddenly fire up (funny that).

 

[55chevy]

Sorry for the delay in getting back. I coach little league and we had a several games.

The relay I am talking about is on the control board. I know the control board is good as you said.

The relay question was part of a desperate attempt to trace something back to a bad contact or broken wire.

As you have said it is probably a bad contact but they all look good, I cleaned the fingers on the control board. I have even tried to push the control board in and hold it to see it I get better contact. I have re-seated it 20 times or more.

How would you clean the contacts in the buss block ?

I guess the next thing to do is try and check from each buss connector to where it goes with an Ohm meter. That would verify the wires but not the contacts.

If I put the control board back in I could check the front fingers.

Thanks again Gary

 

[stoveguy13]

does the exhaust blower come?

 

[55chevy]

Yep, exhaust blower starts right up, vacuum switch goes.

can you but the connector forhe control board ? does it come as a wiring harness ?

I gotta believe it is a wire or contact. I already did check some but I should go through as many as I can get to.

As I said the control board never did feel solid when I plugged it in. Alway seemed too loose to me but it worked for 8 years.

I will try and clean the contacts on the connector (not sure how) to see if that helps.

Thanks

 

[Bioburner]

LPS spray electrical contact cleaner one option.

 

[stoveguy13]

i would start with the vacuum switch. how did you jump it out last time?

 

[tjnamtiw]

The vacuum switch isn't in the logic sequence until after the igniter gets power according to this logic diagram. Now the igniter isn't turning on, ASSUMING that it's getting power, so we're never getting past step 3. Sure wish we all had the schematic/logic for the control box. Somehow the box must know that power is not going to the igniter but I didn't think it was that 'smart'. We have steps 3 and 5 not working but we can make step 7 work.............


Also, in your voltage readings, you show 0 volts at pins 14 and 15. These feed the igniter. I would suggest disconnecting the igniter and checking its resistance, which should be very small. Also, with it disconnected, check the voltage at pins 14 and 15 again. You should see 120 volts.

Your voltage going to pin 12 shows that you have incoming voltage through the safety snap disk 3 and the voltage at 11 shows the voltage going to your snap disc for the convection blower. However, you have zero voltage at pin 10, which feeds your auger circuit. The fact that you have 0 volts to the igniter appears to be the culprit and the place to start looking. We have seen people posting in the past about burned contacts in the female socket so perhaps some close inspection with a magnifier might be in line. Also, checking the igniter itself like I said before is in order although I think you should have seen 120 volts at the pins even if the igniter is burned out. The only way you could see 0 volts is if you have a short in the wiring, but I would think you'd blow the fuse..

Finally, if you use the search and look for quadrafire control box repair or parts, there were a bunch of posts about how these boxes control the power to the igniter, I believe.

 

[stoveguy13]

the igniter does not need to turn on or heat up to make the feed motor come on the igniter obviously needs to work to make the stove start but it has no baring on the feed motor function.