Regency GCI 60 Independent Fan Speed Control

For those of you that own a Regency GC/GCI 60 or Enviro, have you ever wondered why you are stuck with using the pre-set fan speed determined by your heat setting? I did....all the time. My GCI 60 eats pellets like a rabid dog, so I never like to go over setting 3 with the feed trim set down to 1. Yes, I have adjusted the auger feed cover just about as far down as it will go, but it still does a bag in about 10-11 hrs on setting 3. On setting three, under these conditions, the fire is quite healthy and generates some BTU's. Problem is, the fan is not moving enough air (in my opinion) for the heat output and the exiting air is quite hot. This increases component temperatures, exhaust temps and overall abuse to the combustion area. It also sends excess heat up the chimney. Why would the engineer not give the user a choice to set the fan to a higher speed if wanted? The only thing I can think of is decibel ratings. But this would be the choice of the user to leave it on auto with the lower fan speeds or crank it up to get more heat, but more sound.

Well, the other night, I was sitting in the room where the stove is and I pulled up the wiring diagram for the GCI 60. Having been in the controls/automation industry for 20 years in my prior career, I quickly came up with an independent fan controller that is external to the stove and requires zero modification to the factory wiring harness. It took me about 3 hours to slap it together with a pilot relay and a trip to Home Depot and I hit the switch. Wow, what an increase in airflow. I found out the fan speed that correlates to setting 5 is still no where near full fan speed. Setting 3 is about half fan speed. What a waste of heat energy. The stove runs so much cooler and my house is so much warmer from the same heat setting.The flue temps are still plenty hot and no where near condensing. On really cold days (15DegF) or lower, my first floor would drop down to 68 degrees on setting three. Last night, it was -3 degrees and my first floor hovered at 71-72 degrees. That is significant on a 3000 sq/ft home.

Has anybody else found this to be an issue?

It is really quite simple if you have a little controls/schematic ability. Most of the stoves run a PSC (Permanent Split Capacitor) motor. The capacitor puts the start winding out of phase with the run winding and gives it start and run torque. The capacitor stays in the circuit full time. Because this is a variable speed control board, the capacitor is on the L2 (neutral side of the equation) for ease of motor control and wiring. Therefore, I simply disconnected the L1 feed wire (purple) from the control board to the L1 of the fan motor(blue) and inserted a SPDT relay in series. The control board output now goes to the NC contact and full 120V from the wall outlet (which this device and the stove itself is plugged into) goes to the NO contact. The common from the relay goes back to the motor L1 wire lead. Therefore, with my controller de-energized, power goes from the control board, through the NC contact and right back to the L1 wire of the fan, allowing the stove to control fan speed. When I energize my controller, the NO contact closes and NC opens. The full 120V power then goes to the L1 fan lead, giving full speed, which is really what the motor was designed for anyway.

Lake Girl said:

Snowy Rivers did a complete rework on her controls for her whitfield stove leaving all the original wiring and ability to reconnect to original control panel. During the process, she added extra in-line fuses to protect components. Hopefully she chimes in...

In the meantime, one of her threads on her project...
https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/omg-it-looks-sooooo-industrial.139011/

Click to expand...

Interesting. My system is very basic, only to override the fan speed. The Snowy system is quite a bit more intricate, but certainly not mysterious. I would think any Tom, Dick or Harry with a little common sense and hands on ability could do what I did. The other one, not so much. There is a higher level of skill involved there.

Lake Girl said:

Either/both are above my pay grade

Click to expand...

You would be surprised. With a little forethought and maybe some help from an electrician or someone who has a little bit of electrical theory knowledge, it is really simple.