Castile Insert Auger/feed problem (again)

I don't have your model of stove but on my stove it take then pushing the feed button a couple of times to get pellets. If my Quad is empty it can take 5 to 7 pushes before I get pellets. If your getting no response at all from pushing the button and you can't hear anything you have other issues and someone else from the forum will be along to help. Are you sure the auger motor is properly aligned? On my Harman insert if it's totally out of pellets it can take a very long time to finally get primed.

Also on a lot of stoves you have to have a fair amount of pellets in the hopper and auger chute in order to have the vacumne switch work correctly. A couple of handfuls of pellets wouldn't work. I believe the prime button bypasses the vac switch in order to prime the auger setup.

Are you sure your firebox is negatively pressured, ie your vacuum switch is working and you have no air leaks causing a loss of vacuum, which can then shut the auger down?

It sounds more likely to be an auger jam. It's amazing what kind of stuff people find in there that can jam an auger - a piece of plastic from a pellet bag, rogue piece of metal that got into the bag during pellet production or packaging, and if you have young kids around it could be anything that gets dropped into the hopper by mistake.

Given your pellet use history, possibly remnant long pellets that are bridging and / or obstructing the top of your drop chute? If the Misses has a small compact mirror you can take a flashlight and shine it into the mirror from the bottom of the drop chute above the fire pot and see if there is a pellet bridge at the top of the chute.

If that looks clear, you could still have an auger jam some place else along the auger path, in which case you should take the auger out to check for that. Did you take the whole auger assembly out when you replaced the motor? If not, it's not too hard to do. Unplug the stove first, then disconnect the quick connect wiring connector. Loosen the two 7/16" nuts that hold the auger screw and motor assembly into the auger tube - you can try jiggling it first with the nuts just loose and see if anything drops down, or you can remove the nuts and take the whole auger assembly out.

As an aside, when my Castile runs out of pellets and shuts down, I put a handful of pellets into the firepot before I hit the reset button. This invariably gives me enough pellet burn to get up to the 200 degree thermo-couple temp so that the green control board light comes on and it starts feeding pellets again, albeit slowly for awhile until the auger chute is filled back up again, but I usually don't have to hit the reset button again before the pellet drop normalizes.

Good luck, and post back on what you find.

What was the noise?Did you pull auger,check and lube bushings?Did you run auger(empty and loaded)direct from house current to test?

Are you sure the tubing from the vacuum switch to the auger is clear of sawdust and crack - free? Mine dry-rotted from heat and age and ended up w/ micro cracks at the auger end near the nipple that caused intermittent vacuum loss and consequent auger shut down. Pull the tube off carefully and check that if you haven't already. Did you try jumpering the #2 snap disc, as that can interrupt power to the auger motor as well?

Your heat - singed auger motor wires sound suspect, but it seems if they shorted out the auger that it would be 'all or nothing' function as opposed to turning a few times after a reset. Control boxes can certainly be quirky. When my OE control board - the old grey box type - was on the way out it would still flash correctly at start-up, but wasn't feeding enough pellets to avoid false start-ups and other 'mystery shut downs', which the new board fixed. Luckily, I have a great local Quad dealer who let me try his demo stove control box to trouble shoot it. If that is available to you, certainly take advantage of that to rule out the control box as the source of your problem. You should try removing and re-installing the box you have to start with (after un-plugging of course), as Quad boards apparently have a bad habit of developing micro-corrosion at the terminal connection points - something at least to try.

3 winters ago I was in the same boat as you, when my thermo-couple went out, the igniter failed, circuit board started to fritz, vac tube went bad, etc, all within short proximity to each other. It took help from this forum and my local dealer to get me back up and running after similar frustrations as you're having, but, knock on metal here, my stove has run trouble free for the last 2 seasons, despite it's 12 yr age now. Like a car, it seems parts have life spans that tend to make things start to wear out in close proximity. "Murphy being with us", it always seems to happen when we most need it and don't have the money to replace it, of course!

So hang in there Daryl and you will get it dialed in.

The auger itself has bushings that need tended to.You also still may have another motor problem.

Daryl Cook said:

DKNLD, I've jumped the vacuum switch so that can't be the problem. My manual says if snap disk 2 is triggered it will turn off the feed system and reset itself so I don't think that is it or why would it have initially turned the auger at startup?

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As I understand them, the snap discs have a limited # of times they can trip and self-reset before they're permanently tripped, which may be the case if yours has tripped prior to this issue. So that would be worth a simple trouble shoot to rule that out - which is albeit a frustrating process of exclusion of all the rule out possibilities of the feed issues you're having.

You jumpered your vac switch, but did you make sure the vacuum tubing is intact? Even if the vac switch is OK it will still not generate vacuum if the tubing is plugged or leaking. Try that, to make sure. I went around and around on my feed issue problems until I found the cracks in the tubing.

I hear 'ya on the desire to 'chariot' your stove down the road - if mine hadn't been metal I would have filled it w/ fuel oil and made a 'burning man shrine' out of it 3 seasons back when I was having multiple issues. But wiser heads prevailed, and it just took a systematic step by step process of elimination to figure out the problems, hopefully without having to throw parts at it that didn't need to be replaced.

Walking away sometimes - go have a beer or two (or ten), the coming back to it with a fresh perspective, can go a long way to maintaining your sanity. Hang in there, brother, you'll figure it out one way or the other !

Just hook them together,you will not damage anything.

Daryl Cook said:

Hey guys, can you please confirm the proper way to bypass snap disk #2 to check to see if it's bad? Is it the same as the vac switch just jump the 2 wires together? I don't want to fry anything. thanks

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Also, if your stove has the hopper lid switch you can also put a jumper wire on that.