A "time out" for the Accentra

tiger · Oct 20, 2015

Well, been keeping the house quite warm for a couple of days, the wife is home sick and she finds it comforting. After on & off use over the weekend and Monday, yesterday evening I shut it down long enough for a light cleaning; actually it looked pretty decent in there.

Turning it back on, I've always noticed that it takes longer to ignite after a cleaning than after simply shutting it down, say 15 minutes instead of 5-8 minutes. Last night, alas, it shut down, a "time out", only the second time since I've owned it. Interestingly, it shut down just as the pellets began to smoke; I was hovering over the stove in my usual paranoid way, expecting the worst, but turning the stove to OFF and back ON, it immediately fired.

I guess I'm curious, what the 'logic' is for the start-up on an Accentra... obviously, when it is turned on, it knows it has to feed pellets in prior (?) to starting the igniter so there's something to ignite. How does it decide when to try igniting the fuel, and for that matter, how does it know that it succeeded (hmm, I guess a rising temp would be a good hint).

All is well this AM, my wife lounging in front of the fire while I went off to the office, but I'd like to minimize these time-out events, if for no other reason than the fend off the panic attacks. ;em

Harman Lover 007 · Oct 20, 2015

tiger said:
Well, been keeping the house quite warm for a couple of days, the wife is home sick and she finds it comforting. After on & off use over the weekend and Monday, yesterday evening I shut it down long enough for a light cleaning; actually it looked pretty decent in there.

Turning it back on, I've always noticed that it takes longer to ignite after a cleaning than after simply shutting it down, say 15 minutes instead of 5-8 minutes. Last night, alas, it shut down, a "time out", only the second time since I've owned it. Interestingly, it shut down just as the pellets began to smoke; I was hovering over the stove in my usual paranoid way, expecting the worst, but turning the stove to OFF and back ON, it immediately fired.

I guess I'm curious, what the 'logic' is for the start-up on an Accentra... obviously, when it is turned on, it knows it has to feed pellets in prior (?) to starting the igniter so there's something to ignite. How does it decide when to try igniting the fuel, and for that matter, how does it know that it succeeded (hmm, I guess a rising temp would be a good hint).

All is well this AM, my wife lounging in front of the fire while I went off to the office, but I'd like to minimize these time-out events, if for no other reason than the fend off the panic attacks.

When you say it "times out", how long is that? The Harman time out default happens when the stove doesn't fire after 36 minutes and your status light will blink 5 times. If it happens sooner than that, I'd be suspicious of your igniter getting lazy or dirty with fines/ash in the igniter compartment. How old is the stove?

tiger · Oct 20, 2015

Harman Lover 007 said:
When you say it "times out", how long is that? The Harman time out default happens when the stove doesn't fire after 36 minutes and your status light will blink 5 times. If it happens sooner than that, I'd be suspicious of your igniter getting lazy or dirty with fines/ash in the igniter compartment. How old is the stove?

Stove is 1.5 years old. I had just vacuumed out the igniter compartment using a mini-hose attachment (always apprehensive of damaging the igniter, really cannot see it well). I did not time the initial attempt, but estimate about 20 minutes. The last time it happened, it was also about 20 minutes and I got the five-blink code; this times it was also blinking and I can only presume it was the five-blink, I did not count. I turned it off, then back on again and got a good ignition in under a minute. Definitely not as long as 36 minutes during the first attempt.

Harman Lover 007 · Oct 20, 2015

tiger said:
Stove is 1.5 years old. I had just vacuumed out the igniter compartment using a mini-hose attachment (always apprehensive of damaging the igniter, really cannot see it well). I did not time the initial attempt, but estimate about 20 minutes. The last time it happened, it was also about 20 minutes and I got the five-blink code; this times it was also blinking and I can only presume it was the five-blink, I did not count. I turned it off, then back on again and got a good ignition in under a minute. Definitely not as long as 36 minutes during the first attempt.

The good news is you are still under warranty. On a cold stove, 20 minutes is way too long so I'd be looking at the igniter to make sure it's properly mounted in the cradle and not all clogged. Tapping on the burnpot directly near the igniter usually gets the crud off. You indicate you are burning Ligs so that shouldn't be the issue but might want to buy a couple bags of something different to rule out bad pellets? The next time you fire it up make sure the igniter light stays lit the whole time too....

F4jock · Oct 20, 2015

Agreed. My Accentra Insert fires up in less than a minute. Along with the igniter cleaning are you feeding enough pellets on initial start? Dip switch settings control that. I believe it's the first three.

Tim_M · Oct 20, 2015

tiger said:
I've always noticed that it takes longer to ignite after a cleaning than after simply shutting it down, say 15 minutes instead of 5-8 minutes.

I've noticed the same thing with my Accentra. I think it's because charred pellets will ignite much quicker than fresh ones, and with a clean burnpot there are no charred ones to mix with the new ones. I also get the occasional 'time out" when igniting right after cleaning. Mine seems to be around 25 mins.

F4jock · Oct 20, 2015

Tim_M said:
I've noticed the same thing with my Accentra. I think it's because charred pellets will ignite much quicker than fresh ones, and with a clean burnpot there are no charred ones to mix with the new ones. I also get the occasional 'time out" when igniting right after cleaning. Mine seems to be around 25 mins.

Holy smokes! Mine never took that long in eight years! Could pellet quality select this? Doubtful, as no matter what I've used if it doesn't light in two minutes at most there is something amiss.

Tim_M · Oct 20, 2015

Pellet quality probably has something to do with it. Also my Accentra has an after-market ignitor since the OEM one was burned out when I got the stove last year. Not sure if that's a factor?

F4jock · Oct 21, 2015

Tim_M said:
Pellet quality probably has something to do with it. Also my Accentra has an after-market ignitor since the OEM one was burned out when I got the stove last year. Not sure if that's a factor?

Bought mine on ebay. Don't think it's OEM.

tiger · Oct 21, 2015

Tim_M said:
I've noticed the same thing with my Accentra. I think it's because charred pellets will ignite much quicker than fresh ones, and with a clean burnpot there are no charred ones to mix with the new ones. I also get the occasional 'time out" when igniting right after cleaning. Mine seems to be around 25 mins.

So I'm not alone (although it sounds like different users are getting different results). Should I save a few charred pellets when I do a cleaning so I can "prime" the burnpot?

Anyway, I'm still trying to understand the ignition process. Does the igniter come on immediately when I turn on the stove, is there a delay, if so how long, how does the stove know if there are pellets int he burnpot and how many, etc?

Pretty sure the one other time I had a time-out I was still burning Hamers, but not 100% sure of that.

Even from Day One, it took longer to fire up after a cleaning -- no big deal. So I'm thinking that an indicator that it's not a deteriorating igniter.

Bioburner · Oct 21, 2015

If you had your stove hooked up to a Kill O Watt or a better UPS you could monitor the amperage of the ignition cycle

F4jock · Oct 21, 2015

tiger said:
So I'm not alone (although it sounds like different users are getting different results). Should I save a few charred pellets when I do a cleaning so I can "prime" the burnpot? Anyway, I'm still trying to understand the ignition process. Does the igniter come on immediately when I turn on the stove, is there a delay, if so how long, how does the stove know if there are pellets int he burnpot and how many, etc?

Pretty sure the one other time I had a time-out I was still burning Hamers, but not 100% sure of that.

Even from Day One, it took longer to fire up after a cleaning -- no big deal. So I'm thinking that an indicator that it's not a deteriorating igniter.

Far as I know the igniter comes on immediately when the stove fires. Dipswitches 1,2, and 3 control the initial pellet feed time / prime but the stove doesn't "know" how many pellets are in the firebox. I've seen mine overflow a few times if I didn't get ignition although after the initial feed, the new Platinum board seems to bump pellets for about a second every ten or fifteen until ignition instead of feeding for another 30 seconds or so as the old one did.

There is a shutdown time-out if the pellets don't ignite but no idea what controls that. Probably burned into the chip because I didn't see it in any of the dipswitch settings.

Hammerjoe · Oct 21, 2015

It's time to think about replacing the ignitor.
Your accentra is showing all the signs that the ignitor is going to heaven.

Bioburner · Oct 21, 2015

Hammerjoe said:
It's time to think about replacing the ignitor.
Your accentra is showing all the signs that the ignitor is going to heaven.

I believe the OPs stove is only a year old?

tiger · Oct 21, 2015

Bioburner said:
I believe the OPs stove is only a year old?

One season plus a couple of months, and used weekends & some evening so only about 2-1/2 tons have been through it. However, if the igniter is dying, the igniter is dying, regardless of age. Then again, and I'm repeating myself I know, except for two instances of time-out ever, the stove operates just like it did on Day One: 5-8 minutes to fire, unless it's right after a cleaning; then it's 15 minutes or so.

Interesting to know that the igniter starts up immediately. I guess I could remove the cover held on w/2 thumbscrews, turn on the stove, and watch it? Or would opening the main door of the stove tell the igniter to turn off?

Maybe I need a high-temp igniter-cam in there and I could watch it on my computer. ;lol

F4jock · Oct 21, 2015

tiger said:
One season plus a couple of months, and used weekends & some evening so only about 2-1/2 tons have been through it. However, if the igniter is dying, the igniter is dying, regardless of age. Then again, and I'm repeating myself I know, except for two instances of time-out ever, the stove operates just like it did on Day One: 5-8 minutes to fire, unless it's right after a cleaning; then it's 15 minutes or so.

Interesting to know that the igniter starts up immediately. I guess I could remove the cover held on w/2 thumbscrews, turn on the stove, and watch it? Or would opening the main door of the stove tell the igniter to turn off?

Maybe I need a high-temp igniter-cam in there and I could watch it on my computer.

Won't work with main door open.

Hammerjoe · Oct 21, 2015

The igniter is the weakest link of this stove.
Myself i had replaced 6 or 7 of them in about 4 years on my acentra but that was because there was a bad batch of ignitors at the time. Maybe you got a bad one too.

NHbrewer · Oct 21, 2015

Tiger, does your burn pot look like this with holes on both sides?

tiger · Oct 22, 2015

Data point. Last night, I fired it up for a while, and remembered to check the time. 4 minutes until flames.

NHbrewer said:
Tiger, does your burn pot look like this with holes on both sides?
View attachment 164732

I recall checking last year after reading about burnpot differences. I'll check again, because I'm not 100% of what I found, but I think that I do not have the hold on the vertical surfaces.

F4jock · Oct 22, 2015

Nor do I.

Tim_M · Oct 22, 2015

tiger said:
So I'm not alone (although it sounds like different users are getting different results). Should I save a few charred pellets when I do a cleaning so I can "prime" the burnpot?

I started to try that this season, just removing the ash and scraping under the partially burned pellets. Haven't had a time out since.

Avalancheman · Oct 22, 2015

My 52i is the same age as yours and it’s had issues with very slow ignition times and poor performance. However the Harman folks have been very helpful. They have a new update burn pot and new combustion fan cover. They want the stove to have ignition in under three minutes. When they installed my new burn pot, without the holes in the side wings they installed a new ignitor. The new burn pot has moved the ignitor slightly and has a new bracket to hold it into place. The new bracket should make it easier to clean the ignitor fins.

I would suggest you call Harman direct and tell them you had problems. They will make it right. They replaced several parts on my 52i and they told me if this didn’t fix it they would replace the entire unit. The only problem I have its to warm in Southwest Missouri to fire the thing up and run it for a few days straight to see if it's cured.

NHbrewer · Oct 23, 2015

Avalancheman said:
My 52i is the same age as yours and it’s had issues with very slow ignition times and poor performance. However the Harman folks have been very helpful. They have a new update burn pot and new combustion fan cover. They want the stove to have ignition in under three minutes. When they installed my new burn pot, without the holes in the side wings they installed a new ignitor. The new burn pot has moved the ignitor slightly and has a new bracket to hold it into place. The new bracket should make it easier to clean the ignitor fins.

I would suggest you call Harman direct and tell them you had problems. They will make it right. They replaced several parts on my 52i and they told me if this didn’t fix it they would replace the entire unit. The only problem I have its to warm in Southwest Missouri to fire the thing up and run it for a few days straight to see if it's cured.

This was my exact situation last year. I was having all kinds of ignition and burn problems. I'd have slow ignition on a good day but mostly would come home to an error code with unburnt pellets overflowing the burn pot. I was also cleaning the glass 2-3 times a day due to an erratic flame that was always touching the glass. The new burn pot and igniter solved all the problems I was having. I was really impressed with how helpful Harman and my dealer were. Everything was dealt with immediately, no questions asked. If only my Toyota dealer dealt with problems the same way, I'd be golden!

tiger · Oct 23, 2015

Tim_M said:
I started to try that this season, just removing the ash and scraping under the partially burned pellets. Haven't had a time out since.

... and was just kidding! ;lol

tiger · Oct 23, 2015

Avalancheman said:
I would suggest you call Harman direct and tell them you had problems. They will make it right.

Interesting. I have not called them, but left a not-quite-an-e-mail on their website about a replacement igniter, let's see if they call me back. My experience with this type of message on companies' websites is that I get an answer about 1/3 the time. If not, it's that funny thing you talk into...

A "time out" for the Accentra

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