Need help Vogelzang VG5790

[Kurlus]

Just had my pellet stove installed last Saturday and it seems like it burns way to many pellets. Everything I've read says 72 hours with a full hopper, I'm getting approx 24. It drops maybe a dozen or so pellets ever 6-8 seconds but the pot stays very low.

Flame appears active and no black tips but each time I start it I get a different flame. One time it will be huge and take up the whole box the next barely comes out of the burn pot.

It soots up the window pretty quickly, I've been cleaning twice a day. It leaves a huge pile of ash, after 8 hours the ash is almost level with the burnpot.

I called tech support number on the manual but is always busy. I emailed them but also heard nothing.

This is my first pellet stove and sad to say I'm not liking it. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

THANKS!

 

[Rhody PJ]

What kind of pellets are you burning? All pellets burn differently.

Getting the stove to burn correctly is going to take a lot of trial and error with the feed/blower rate and the air damper.

I purchased the 5770 last year, and wish I had done more research before hand.

 

[Kurlus]

What kind of pellets are you burning? All pellets burn differently.

Getting the stove to burn correctly is going to take a lot of trial and error with the feed/blower rate and the air damper.

I purchased the 5770 last year, and wish I had done more research before hand.

Hamers hot ones. A friend has the same model stove and the same pellets with no problems. I saw a review where someone posted a similar issue where tech support walked them through a pellet feed reset but they never posted the steps. That's what I need lol

 

[CladMaster]

This stove will chew pellets, it's rated up to 65,000 btu's / 2800 sq/f.

 

[SidecarFlip]

Been my experience in past years that Hammers are on the lower end of quality and higher end of ash content. IOW, basically junk.

 

[Kurlus]

I've got a few friends that rave about them. I bought 2 bags of green supreme at Home Depot and they burn almost how it's supposed to. The problem that I've found is the auger is out of alignment. I understand it has a certain amount of play in it to keep the pellets from jamming but mine shifts way to far and everything it shifts it drops a dozen pellets. So every time it feeds pellets it drops a dozen.

The green supreme's are a little bigger than the Hamer pellets so the auger is feeding them almost correctly. But I have noticed that they don't burn as hot or as clean as the Hamer's, if anyone has suggestions on a better pellet than Hamer's, I'm all ears.

So I'm left with a faulty auger and a company that won't return my calls. A+

 

[SidecarFlip]

I don't quite understand the term 'misalignment'. The auger (at least on my stove) runs in a piece of ordinary pipe, slightly bigger in ID than the OD of the auger and the connection to the drive is made purposely sloppy so there is plenty of movement. If your 'auger tube', aka: pipe is too big ID wise, just sleeve it down with say a suitable length of EMT. Mine 'auger' rolls about it it's tube all the time and has for years.

I'm burning Somersets, same as last year and the year before, I should be burning corn and probably will be after New Years.

 

[Kurlus]

Somersets, I'll check into that and thanks for the info.

The pipe ID may in fact be too big or the OD of the auger too small. I understand there has to be an amount of slop but that slop seems to cause mine to drop a large amount of pellets as the auger, during it's range of motion while feeding, seems to cant toward the upper side of the feed tube. The smaller pellets in the tube then slip by the OD of the auger and drop into the burn pot.

So what I guess I'm trying to say is, I think that every time my auger turns, instead of dropping a couple pellets out of the end of the auger, it drops all the pellets that are in the feed channel. Any ideas?

 

[SidecarFlip]

FYI, Vofelzang in Chinese is: V哦隔离脏

Just though everyone would like to know.........

If you are adamant about the tube being too large in ID, you could pull the auger and measure the ID and the auger OD and have a machine shop turn a blank and insert that in the existing tube, or, conversely, use an appropriate sized length of EMT conduit or copper pipe or get a larger diameter auger or take the auger to a competent weld shop and have them run a bead of weld on the edge of the flighting and turn it.

You could sleeve it with about anything except PVC which would melt and securement on the sleeve could be with any epoxy at the colder end.

Chinese are noted for very sloppy tolerances so thats not a suprise. Just drop in any Harbor Freight. Everythng is loose there....

 

[SidecarFlip]

FYI, Vofelzang in Chinese is: V哦隔离脏

Just though everyone would like to know.........

If you are adamant about the tube being too large in ID, you could pull the auger and measure the ID and the auger OD and have a machine shop turn a blank and insert that in the existing tube, or, conversely, use an appropriate sized length of EMT conduit or copper pipe or get a larger diameter auger or take the auger to a competent weld shop and have them run a bead of weld on the edge of the flighting and turn it.

You could sleeve it with about anything except PVC which would melt and securement on the sleeve could be with any epoxy at the colder end.

Chinese are noted for very sloppy tolerances so thats not a suprise. Just drop in any Harbor Freight. Everythng is loose there....

Additionally, I'm curious as to what manufacturer made the drives? Are the drives domestic or Chinese as well?

 

[Kurlus]

No Somersets within 100 miles of my location, LOL

Sleeving might be my option, I'd hate to void the warranty seeing how it's brand new but if it's gotta be done, then oh well. Chinese piece of crap that a US company imports and sells, thought I was buying American. I won't make that mistake again.

 

[CladMaster]

It's all about the $$$$'s ......... cheap labor, materials and so forth, that's why ZERO goods are made in the USA now, all made in China or some other place.

Until production costs here fall, that's the way it's going to be for some time to come.

 

[SidecarFlip]

It's all about the $$$$'s ......... cheap labor, materials and so forth, that's why ZERO goods are made in the USA now, all made in China or some other place.

Until production costs here fall, that's the way it's going to be for some time to come.

Thats not a fair or accurate statement to say ZERO goods are made here. Quite the contrary. Companies that offshore products that can be manufactured here like USSC, I tend to not do business with and savvy consumers should do the same.

I have no problem with Chinese manufactured products, so long as those products are one, quality made and two sold at a reasonable price.

When they aren't quality manufactured (as evidenced by the Ashley and Vogelzang USSC Chinese nade units with ill fitting components and are high priced), I have an issue.

That, IMO, is taking unfair advantage of a customer who is trusting you (as a company) to put out a quality product, at, a reasonable price.

Case in point, I just bought (2 months ago) a Tanaka chainsaw. Tanaka is a wholly owned subsidary of Hitachi but, Tanaka is built under license by Hitachi, in China, It's a well built, easy starting lightweight chainsaw with all kinds of power and it's 1/4th the price of a comparable Stihl or Husky, which, to me makes the Tanaka a great value, in fact, I'm going to buy another one.

I won't ever buy another USSC product however. My 6039HF was made here but that was over 10 years ago.

Finally, if you hold such disdain for Chinese products, you might as well toss that computer you are posting on. Most of the components and possibly the whole machine was manufactured in China....

Thats where I stand, you may not.

 

[CladMaster]

LOL I have no problem with products made in other countries, but when they cut costs with production and use cheap parts it becomes an issue, and that's when I take it up with the company.

Outsourcing parts that are of good quality should be the norm, but in this day and age it is not the case, companies are out to look after their profit margin first and not customer satisfaction. Take the new iPhone 6 for example, some have got bent, some have cracked screens, yet my iPhone 4S is still going strong and does what I need it to do, and that's make calls and be called anywhere, anytime.

 

[SidecarFlip]

The ONLY reason I have a cell phone is it don't cost me anything, it's a company issue. If I had to pay for service, I'd have a landline, preferrably a dial up.

 

[Kurlus]

Well they sent me a Control Board. I took it out of the bubble wrap...not ESD safe, looked at the board and immediately emailed customer service and told them I was refusing to put the "new" control board in the stove. I'll upload some pics momentarily.

Basically this was a broken control board that someone "repaired", performed a horrible repair job and then never cleaned the flux off of either board.

For those not familiar with electronic repair, Flux is used while soldering to enable a better heat transfer between the soldering iron and the component being soldered, while in liquid form it conducts electricity just as well as it does heat. So once the flux melts again from being heated by say..........a pellet stove, these power components will short and then I'll have a completely non-functional stove, if it doesn't burst into flames and burn my house down.

After this stove and the now officially horribly customer service, I can't recommend anyone to buy any of their pieces of crap.

There's more flux than you can see in the pics, there's probably 6 full fingerprints not visable on the photo's. Crappy repair job, it's classified as a defect for ALL classes of Electronics. Even for chitty Chinese electronics.

 

[sweets]

Just had my pellet stove installed last Saturday and it seems like it burns way to many pellets. Everything I've read says 72 hours with a full hopper, I'm getting approx 24. It drops maybe a dozen or so pellets ever 6-8 seconds but the pot stays very low.

Flame appears active and no black tips but each time I start it I get a different flame. One time it will be huge and take up the whole box the next barely comes out of the burn pot.

It soots up the window pretty quickly, I've been cleaning twice a day. It leaves a huge pile of ash, after 8 hours the ash is almost level with the burnpot.

I called tech support number on the manual but is always busy. I emailed them but also heard nothing.

This is my first pellet stove and sad to say I'm not liking it. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

THANKS!

put the board in ,thats how they come with all that solder on the back...