shoot-straight
Minister of Fire
as i wrote on the current draft thread- mine goes nuts. my ashford goes through wood like crazy and heat output is less. i use a key damper to slow things down. my leaky house adds to the problem.
2014-2015 Blaze King Performance thread (Everything BK)#2
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as i wrote on the current draft thread- mine goes nuts. my ashford goes through wood like crazy and heat output is less. i use a key damper to slow things down. my leaky house adds to the problem.
tigger
Burning Hunk
I just broke into my 3 year old oak. Temps going to -1 tonight with windchill of -25. Ouch......my 4 year old starts skiing lesson tomorrow morning........lots of layers. Fortunately the lesson is only an hour long. Stay warm!!
Dieselhead
Minister of Fire
Kings holding 70 degrees in 2950 sqft with 13 degrees outside and a steady wind going. 12hr reloads. I swear it will hold 70 degrees inside when it's 35 degrees and I'll get the same maybe an extra 2 hours out of a load. Wacko pixie dust voodoo magic hocus pocus SOB right here....I don't get it but I'm happy nontheless
charger4406
Feeling the Heat
Turbojoe
I was just on the smartstove website forum and I seen the post that you plan on modifying your princess,
have you started yet, curious to know why you would do that to a BK since the system works great as is.
I would think such a modification would void your warranty.
I was just on the smartstove website forum and I seen the post that you plan on modifying your princess,
have you started yet, curious to know why you would do that to a BK since the system works great as is.
I would think such a modification would void your warranty.
Quentin2
Burning Hunk
Had my first power outage since I've had my stove. About 20 deg out with 40mph gusts. In years past heat woulda been main concern, barely a thought this morning. My main concern was my cheap generator doesn't have enough juice to power my well. Power came back on of course after I spent an hour running extension cords finding candles and water. At least I'll be more prepared next time.
I might bite the bullet and invest in a big generator that can run on ng and power the whole house. Anybody got any experience with these that can point me in the right direction? I'd much appreciate it.
And as always the king is doing its thing 80 downstairs 70 up.
I might bite the bullet and invest in a big generator that can run on ng and power the whole house. Anybody got any experience with these that can point me in the right direction? I'd much appreciate it.
And as always the king is doing its thing 80 downstairs 70 up.
charger4406
Feeling the Heat
So with the temps getting down to single digits, and below, I'm seeing a lot more large chunks of coals when I need to reload. This is taking up space so I can't put as much wood in. Should I burn it hotter for a bit to burn them down, or is it better to just remove them (and dispose safely) to make more room? Not sure what my wood is.
Quentin2
Burning Hunk
I turn the stove up all the way when there's coals building up and burn them down. This works for me, others have suggested putting a couple small splits or even pellets and cranking it up to help burn the coals down.
I'm currently having this same problem. Not sure if my burning practices or wood are at fault but since the weather has dropped I have a pretty huge bed of coals. I did a little search and one suggestion is to rake the coals forward and put a small split on and burn on your highest setting. You may need to do it a couple of times. I'm currently trying it. Seems to be working and the temp isn't dropping too much.
On another subject, woke up today with ice on the inside of every window in the house! I knew I needed new windows but I didn't realize they were this bad. The humidity is only around 25-30% so it's not high humidity being the problem. Poor windows. Oh and a pipe froze in my laundry room today too! man it was cold last night. I managed to thaw it out and the pipes seem fine, thankfully. In the morning the outside thermometer read -30f.
Next year I'm going to have to do a lot of insulating and sealing up this house, as well as new windows/doors.
Oh man, the secret is out, don't tell Chris...lol... kidding
Have spoke with him a few times about my project. I'm not worried about the warranty, especially the Cat, My line of work is Performance and Durability testing on Catalyst for a large Catalyst co.You may have noticed on Dan's Smart Stove web site that the featured installs involve heavy modding of the stoves air system. Not a big deal to cut and weld on a $700 stove, well kinda. Not going to cut up a 3k stove.
My set up will not require any permanent changes to the stove. I plan to control the air before it enters the current air control. This way i can use either control system if need be.I would say the bimetallic spring works as intended. A low cost and effective system that works pretty darn good.
I do see room for improvement in response time of the system. As in, I don't see any air valve movement until i drop 200f stove top. it is also slow to close and overshoots temps. not hating on BK at all, awesome stove and even better customer service
I will temp graph both systems. Combustion control is a big part of what i do in Catalyst testing, why not give it a shot on a Cat stove.
Actually I'm a control freak...lol
Joe
Not sure if i am supposed to post links, if not please delete.
If your curious as to what Smart Stove is all about. http://inveninc.com/SmartStoveForum/index.php
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charger4406
Feeling the Heat
Thanks !!
The install should be pretty straight forward, Finding the sweet spot for temp on the Stove top could take a few tries.
Programing for a Cat stove is going to be the fun part. I beleive this will be one of the first Cat stove installs.
It's going to be hard to improve a BK !! At a minimum, i will have lots of cool options to play with. A remote control for my stove
The hardest part will be not getting attacked by the many BK fans here, for messing with a BK
On a different note, had a small issue with my Princess. pre mod..lol
I just wanted to let everyone know my Customer Service experiance with BK and my dealer has been beyond expectation
Thanks Chris from BK, Keep on doing what your doing, it's working
Also a big thanks to Terry from Konieczka Heating and Cooling for pulling those clips off your floor model to get me going !!
Joe
I just wanted to let everyone know my Customer Service experiance with BK and my dealer has been beyond expectation
Thanks Chris from BK, Keep on doing what your doing, it's working
Also a big thanks to Terry from Konieczka Heating and Cooling for pulling those clips off your floor model to get me going !!
Joe
NinjaTech
Burning Hunk
turbojoe, what kind of safety do you have in case of a controller failure when your not home? I like the idea of putting a controller on the stove, i figure a UPS for power failures, what about a servo failure, or some kind of failure with the board that's running it? I could see it being pretty problematic if that failure would occur when the throttle is pretty far open. Possible over fire situation. Just an idea I was going to toss out for you, but what about making a mechanical 'thermal fuse' on the linkage connecting your air valve to the servo, if the stove would ever started getting towards overfire temps and the controller isn't cooling it off your thermal fuse linkage would melt and the air valve would snap shut from gravity or a spring. You would just have to figure out what that overfire temp would be in that location, and find some kind of wire made of an alloy that melts at that temperature. Electrical solder came to mind since you can find that in a bunch of wire diameters and alloys with melt points that would probably be fairly close to what you would need for something like that.
You make many good points, and thanks for your ideas.
It does have 4 hours of battery life on board and will default to min. air setting without power. I don't have the specifics on circuit board fail safes and such. Though it has been discussed with Dan from Inveninc ( Smart Stove ) I just couldn't retain it all.
This will be done in small steps and lots will need to be learned and tested before i would leave it alone.
This is still in the planing/fabrication stage. I should have my controller this week.
My initial plan is to rely on the BK stat to close down the air in case of a servo/controller error.
We do have different temp thermal links on out test cell windows at work. This could work too.
Hopefully i can get Dan to chime in and explain the workings of his controller better than i.
Thanks Joe
Good people for sure !!
I have 2 bypass door clips sitting in there wood pile for me to pick up after work tonight...lol, now that's service.
Poindexter
Minister of Fire
For burning down coals, absolutely rake the coals forward, leave the thermostat on wide open and maybe put on a small really dry split or not. One bio-log, or a piece of one will work well here too.
On mine it is usually "faster" to use a small really dry split of spruce. My goals are to 1) keep the cat active and 2) make room for more wood.
Generally it is better for me to burn down in the am when the house is getting some solar gain anyway, so air control wide open + small fire + minimally active cat + solar gain keeps the house from cooling off too quick.
Keeping the cat active - my house my stove my install - does make a huge difference. If i can feed that cat enough smoke while the coals are burning down I got a chunk of metal in the stove at what 600? maybe 650dF? If the cat flutters out I got a wee tiny fire in the box maybe big enough to bake a meat loaf, a cooling stove box, a cooling flue and a cooling house.
I have been playing with this a couple months now. Having the cat flicker on and off burning coals down has opened my eyes to how much heat used to go up my chimney as smoke - and is still wasted up my chimney when the cat flickers out.
From say +10dF down to about -15dF or maybe -20dF I can spend darn near all day burning the coals down if I get started in the AM and keep the cat active. If the cat goes out I got about two hours to have a full load roaring before the house cools off for my wife to complain.
Besides wood MC 16% or greater, I find more ash in my stove when I run the thermostat at anything less than full throttle. Less throttle is more or less equal to more ash for me, even running 12-13% MC spruce.
By all means play with it. Try something different next time. See what works in your stove your house your install.
On mine it is usually "faster" to use a small really dry split of spruce. My goals are to 1) keep the cat active and 2) make room for more wood.
Generally it is better for me to burn down in the am when the house is getting some solar gain anyway, so air control wide open + small fire + minimally active cat + solar gain keeps the house from cooling off too quick.
Keeping the cat active - my house my stove my install - does make a huge difference. If i can feed that cat enough smoke while the coals are burning down I got a chunk of metal in the stove at what 600? maybe 650dF? If the cat flutters out I got a wee tiny fire in the box maybe big enough to bake a meat loaf, a cooling stove box, a cooling flue and a cooling house.
I have been playing with this a couple months now. Having the cat flicker on and off burning coals down has opened my eyes to how much heat used to go up my chimney as smoke - and is still wasted up my chimney when the cat flickers out.
From say +10dF down to about -15dF or maybe -20dF I can spend darn near all day burning the coals down if I get started in the AM and keep the cat active. If the cat goes out I got about two hours to have a full load roaring before the house cools off for my wife to complain.
Besides wood MC 16% or greater, I find more ash in my stove when I run the thermostat at anything less than full throttle. Less throttle is more or less equal to more ash for me, even running 12-13% MC spruce.
By all means play with it. Try something different next time. See what works in your stove your house your install.
Dan chiming in here: As far as fail-safes go, SmartStove(TM) includes a backup battery that will keep the draft control running for the duration of a fire. The system monitors the battery level and when it is depleted, the system will close the draft control, disconnect itself from the battery, and power down. As for a catastrophic hardware failure that leaves the draft control wide open: Assuming that the system is still functioning and monitoring temperature, it will set off an alarm if the stove exceeds the OverTemperature limit set in the configuration menu. If nobody is home to hear it, then this is what happens frequently with people who run their stoves manually. They get distracted, and fail to close the draft control. All modern wood stove installations by design are intended to be able to tolerate this because of the manual nature of the control. They are all tested in EPA certification at High (wide open), Medium and Low draft control settings. There will be an issue when someone clogs up their chimney with creosote burning too cool, or with wet wood, and then leaves the draft control wide open, or fails to latch the door tightly. This is what causes chimney fires. I am not recommending running a wood stove with a full firebox and leaving the draft control wide open. Just saying that a proper stove and installation is designed to be able to handle this.
When I ran my stove manually, I would typically get the stove into the nuclear zone (800-900 degrees on the stove top) 3-5 times every year because of family distractions. With SmartStove(TM) running the draft, that never has happened one time over 9 years since installing the first prototype system. The OverTemperature alarm has gone off one time since 2005 when the gasket around the door glass was loose and I was too lazy to fix it, but that limit was set for 675. I can confidently say that things are MUCH safer than running the stove manually.
Oh no, I would for sure get it out. I also would be very carefull running the stove without it. Flame impingement isn't good for the Cat.
I would turn it way down, little if any flame.
Thanks. Took it out and have the stove set way low but still have some red glow no flames. This year seasoned pine is the best wood I've burned in here haha. Will use this as a chance to clean the cat tomorrow. There really is no way get the grate back in with a full load and flames jumping at ur hands!
These Cats now a days are pretty durable.Thanks. Took it out and have the stove set way low but still have some red glow no flames. This year seasoned pine is the best wood I've burned in here haha. Will use this as a chance to clean the cat tomorrow. There really is no way get the grate back in with a full load and flames jumping at ur hands!
I'm pretty sure most will agree your's will be fine.
Maybe a little ash, brush it off and run it.
I just put my Cat back in tonight and fired up the stove, was thinking about your deal. Yup, no way i could have got it back on.
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NinjaTech
Burning Hunk
I did that a while back, just went out in the shop grabbed a pair of welding gloves grabbed it and put it back in place.
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