Quadrafire newbie seeking answers/advice

At least on my Quad, there should be nothing there. It looks like half of your drop area is blocked by some nasty looking 'stuff', which would explain why it doesn't feed enough. If you get a few long pellets (another common cause of poor feeding) bridging over that area, your feed rate will suffer. Get up there with a long screw driver and see if you can knock that loose. It almost looks like a chunk of fused pellet dust that got pushed up to the end of the auger and is just rotating around with it now. I've had an aluminum safety plate mashed and pushed up there as well as a Hot Wheels (not mine). You might have found at least one of your problems.
The fact that you have 4 year old pellets makes one wonder just how much the previous owner used the stove and if he had problems like this that he just gave up on.

That pic looks like the top of the auger assembly. All looks normal to me. They use that shaft to have support to weld the feed spring to. I agree on the old pellets. Get those worked out and you should see some improvement. I would also think if your ash dump plate was too far down, you should be getting incomplete combustion.

Looking at the pictures of the fire it is obvious that there are very few pellets in the pot.

Plugged air holes will yield a lazy sooty fire, and this is not the case.

For whatever reason, be it a plugged auger tube, slow feed motor, control board issue or ???? the stove is not getting enough fuel to the fire.

After reviewing the 1200i operation description it really seems that the issue may well be one of two things, either the auger motor has an issue, or the control system is not running the motor long enough during the cycles to keep enough pellets in the pot.

The stove is supposed to start on high and run there for 4 minutes to allow the unit to reach operating temp and then it will operate at the heat range selected.

If the unit is only producing a tiny fire, then fuel or lack of it is the reason.

Make sure the auger and tube are not fouled, and if this checks out the issue then goes towards the feed motor or the control.

I don't have a repair manual, so does anyone have the specs on the feed rate on high medium and low for this unit.

The fact that it feeds and does run makes me suspicious of the controller.

Snowy

kilbury said:

That pic looks like the top of the auger assembly. All looks normal to me. They use that shaft to have support to weld the feed spring to. I agree on the old pellets. Get those worked out and you should see some improvement. I would also think if your ash dump plate was too far down, you should be getting incomplete combustion.

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Is see that your feed motor is on the top while mine is on the bottom. Wrong - mine is on top too but it sure doesn't look nasty like that after 5 years. Perhaps that 'blob' is a weldment but everything up there looks nasty. Like it hasn't been used or cleaned in years. It's definitely time to pull the auger. It almost looks like sometime in the past there was an auger tube fire or close to it. You should see the end of the auger where it meets the output of the motor.

Here's the manual, Snowy. I have the service manual too, if you want it.

CHECK CONTROL BOX FEED TIMES
*HIGH ------- (7.5 SECOND ON TIME)
*MEDIUM -- (6 SECOND ON TIME)
*LOW --------(4.7 SECOND ON TIME)

QuadraPelletNewb said:

Hey Kilbury...I see you're in the southerntier. I'm in clarence...the pellets the previous owner left are InstantHeat from route 417 in Addison NY. Just curious if you use these or a different brand. Thanks.

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There you have it, I'd be on my way for new pellets. I've nicknamed them instant clean wood pellets. May me just my opinion but they probably weren't that good 4 years ago when fresh and unlike wine, pellets don't get better with age.

From the looks in your pic of the auger chute, it has gotten real rusty at one time or another. With some time and use, it may get polished back up again, which will also improve fuel speed. kap

QuadraPelletNewb said:

An update:

After replacing the door gasket, the unit does ignite and flame up on the first try. So that part is solved, thanks to all for the info with that. The flames however still are pretty low. I've checked everything from exhaust path to auger rotation. The auger is not reversing and it does seem to drop a steady amount of pellets. I don't have anything to compare it to unfortunately but I can't imagine it dropping any more pellets than it is otherwise it would go through 2 bags a day. If the pellets did absorb some moisture while sitting for a few years, would this cause less of a flame? Sounds obvious, as damp campfire wood isn't gonna do much either, but I'm not sure if it makes a difference in this closed vacuum environment?

Thanks again. One problem down, one to go.

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On high this stove should be able to burn 120 lbs of pellets if run non stop for 24 hrs

Check the feed times before spending any $$$$ or running around chasing your tail.

If the times are good, then Yard the stove out and get the auger assembly out for a thorough cleaning and LOOK SEE

The pellets dont look bad.

Snowy

I am looking at the pix up the feed tube ?????????????????????

Something looks strange.

Get the hopper clean down to the auger entry point and clear it well.

Get us a pix of the entry to the auger tube inside the hopper.

I am very suspicious that there is something in the top of the auger tube that does not belong there.

Snowy

OK

I think a got this thing scoped out.

You have something stuck in the auger tube.

Here is a piccy looking up my Quads drop tube (Real groan to get a view up there)

Notice that you can see the feed auger (Spring) in this piccy, and yours has something blocking the drop tube.
Get the hopper cleaned out completely and remove the auger. (Take top off stove and auger motor is right there)

I suspect what is blocking the tube is the feed gate.
Possibly long before you were its master the gate fell into the auger and got pulled up to the top of the tube, blocking the port.

Once the auger is out and the tube is cleaned out, whatever is in there should fall down to the bottom, or be easily poked back down.

Good luck

Is the first piccy you posted looking into the hopper ???

If so then the feed gate is nearly closed

snowy's pic has the very end/top of the tube obscured.
*but* if that cylindrical piece of metal isn't supposed to be there (on
QuadraPelletNewb's), then perhaps it is some sort of kluge/jury rig of a different part or repair/joining of auger to the mount.

i'm just speculating from what i can and can't see on those pics.
seems to me the question is, is that bit of metal supposed to be there.

it seems reasonable to think the screw should continue over that whole opening.

again, i'm just spitballing here.

I agree

That piece of metal is closing off the port.

Things need to come apart to see wassssup

my piccy is shot looking from the fire pot end of the drop tube looking UP

Hard to get a good piccy up the tube.

We all need to be on the same page with pix shot from the same angle and location to diagnose this beast.

I am still suspicious that the metal piece in the one pix is not supposed to be there.

this is a mt. vernon replacement. but you can see on image search, they (the quads) all are joined to a slender post that fits inside the curve of the screw

https://www.google.com/search?q=qua...ChMI3q_WiPeDyQIVyhcsCh1ldwOg&biw=1280&bih=627

YUP
Just the same as my 1000

I wrote on the original pix

The part marked with red text.
WHAT IS IT

Are you sure you have the feed gate fully opened? With the hopper lid open, pulling it out (towards you) opens the gate.