Christmas came early, ahh sort of

Last night a fellow called me on a Craigslist Want ad I had been running, looking for Whitfield Prodigy parts

He tells me that he has an exact stove like the one I posted as an example (my stove)

We chat a few minutes and then get down to business.

Seems that the stove will not run except on the high setting.

I explain that I am looking for parts and will take it off his hands if we can come to terms.

I told him that I bought a complete working Whit prodigy in 2010 for $200 and was not interested in any big cash outlays.

He was local so I agreed to stop by and take a peek today.

I show up about 9 am and we go to take a look.

Well now, it turns out not to be a prodigy, but instead an Advantage 2 T made in 1993.

LOOKS GOOD, sooooooooooooo, I paid the man the $200 and we loaded it up.

I get it out of the Suburban and on the Patio and go after it cleaning it up.

The mechanical cabinet is chocked full of pellets, to the point that the room air fan had sucked some in and plugged the fan up.

There was a total of nearly 1/2 of a 5 gallon bucket of pellets in the mechanical cabinet

Ended up yanking the fan off to clear it all out.

The control panel was full of pellets as well.

Pulled all the sheet metal off and between the air hose and the vacuum cleaner it is now spotless.

Yanked the ash trap baffles out and cleaned there too (NOT BAD THERE )

Finally ready to plug it in.

I push the start button and the room blower comes on and the draft fan struggles and stops.

I select the 2 feed position and the exhaust fan again struggles and stops.

After getting the heat selector on 5 the draft fan finally spins up enough that I could hear some air coming out the exhaust in the back.

I select back to position 1 and again the draft fan dies

OOOOOOK

I checked the draft fan and its very stiff and will not spin free.

Gave the fan lube holes a shot of WD40 and within a few moments the fan is whizzing along like the breeze.

Tomorrow I will get some good lube in those bearings.

Would seem that nobody lubed the fan bearings recently if at all.

The stove is in really lovely shape.

I need to install a new ash pan gasket is all.

The feed cycle is spot on and all the rest of the goodies seem to work dandy

Again, another case of a complete lack of cleaning claimed it's victim.

What is really sad was the fact that the owner had called a stove tech to fix it.

I can't believe anyone would not or could not figure this situation out.

Anyway, I did not get any Prodigy parts, but did get a very lovely Advantage 2

Thanks troops

Yes, a diamond in the rough, actually a little soap and water will get this diamond shinning real pretty.

Not sure what I'm going to do with it. at at present.

It's an exact match for the stove we have in the family room on the raised hearth.

If that one has issues with the fire tubes or something that is not easily repairable we have an easy swap.

The thing that makes me shudder is losing a prime heat source and having to cut another hole in the wall for a vent.

We still have an old vent above the current big whit that was left from the Earh Stove WP50 that I installed when we built the place back in 93

I don't want a 3rd hole in the wall if we have to change stoves.

I am still on the prowl for another clean Prodigy 2.

Prices around here are all over the map, with some stuff that's just junk listed on Craigs for $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
and other times there are deals to be had.

Couple years back I scored a big whit like this one (May have been an A 2) and it was filthy.

It had been used as a green house heater.

Was fairly decent shape, and came with a half ton of pellets too, all for $250

Cleaned and sold the stove for for $500 and burned the pellets.

Then there was one this past summer at a garage sale, and the dude wants $1000 for it.
The glass is busted out, the sheet metal top is dented up badly, his grungy old dog had ate the cord off the thing and the story was that it did not run
(why they took it out)

His story was, "Ahhhhh, you can fix it easily for a few $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$"

Whats wrong with this scenario ???m

If it had been in working order and in reasonable shape, it was a $500 stove TOPS

And the earth turns on eh ??

With these old Whits getting harder to find in good shape, having a few spares is a good thing me thinks.

One thing is for sure, once they end up in a damp garage or worse yet, THE BARN, or heaven forbid the back yard, they are soon junk.

Around here the humidity is fairly low in the summer and unless a unit has been subjected to the elements they don't rust much.

As many of us have seen, the pellet stove is a much misunderstood and neglected appliance.

4 years ago we bought a little stove (Brand escapes me) but tiny parlor type at a garage sale.
The gal says, ahhh it does not work, "I turned it on when we moved in and no heat came out"

Hmmm, the thing looked like if it had had a fire in it, it was a small one to test it and the hopper and auger are completely empty with no pellets showing, or signs that any had been there.

Well, the gal hated the thing and wanted it gone REAL BAD

Lets just say that free would not have been much better than what I paid her (she priced it)

Took it home, tossed in some pellets and hit the go switch, within a few minutes it was happily burning away.

Very strange market place out there.

Back to the big Whit

When the guy tells me that the thing only runs on high, I'm of the mind set that it's got a bad board in it.

But after finding the huge mess inside it was easy to get the picture.

REAL LUCKY that they did not have a cabinet fire and burn the house down, considering the amount of pellets in the back.

Still not sure how that much got in there.

There is no easy way to get a half bucket of shells in the mechanical cabinet.

Even the fan was full.

??????????????????????

Burn on troops

Snowy

Got busy yesterday fooling with the new unit,

Decided to check out the controls and see if they were working correctly.

The voltage to the draft fan was pretty near spot on with what the service manual says it should be.

70 volts on 1 and on up to 107 volts on the 5 heat setting

The feed cycles on and off correctly at the proper times as well.

The room air blower adjusts properly through the entire range on the control.

The only issue is that the unit will not shut off after a bit with no fire present.

Seems that the time cycle is not working.

Certainly not real hot on messing with the board, but this unit will be a great test bed for adapting my new controller.

The large Whit needs a couple different things added to the controller that the Prodigy does not have, but it's no biggy to do.

Still have not solved the mystery of how the mechanical cabinet got full of pellets ????????????????

Got more work done on the A2T

The latch on the ash drawer cover was all fouled up and bent ????????????????

Had to drill out the pop rivets and remove the latch, but once apart it became obvious that somebody had been there before.
The latch bolt had been put back in backwards, plus being bent all to !@#$%

The latch was a total loss.

The name southco was stamped on the thing, so off to the net to snoop.

Found the thing at Southco site.

Found a surplus supplier that had them for sale for $1.50 each, so I bought a few.

Be here Monday

Started in earnest doing the spec sheet on the new controller, as the A2T is going to need a few changes to my controller design to work like it is supposed to.

The draft fan needs to be a variable speed and the low limit actually monitors the fire and shuts the stove off if there is no fire, (Prodigy does not, was a shut off thing only)

So, will build a complete controller and test it on the new A2T

One thing I discovered was that our current A2T in the house does not vary the draft fan as it's supposed to ???

Works fine running at line speed, so I will take this into account during the design and build of the new unit.

More to come.

Thanks

I spent the afternoon today working out the details on the controller.
I am using the same 12 conductor cable to feed the stove from the panel.

With this I kept the same wire colors feeding the various components as I used on the Prodigy.

The A2T needs a low temp power feed plus a one shot timer to route power around the low temp snap switch until the unit is warm.

Very simple, but requires a separate timer and more wire.

I decided to add Green panel lights for Main power, Draft fan power, Room air fan power, Burner feed power and then a Red light that shows when the auger is on.
The is also a green light that will come on as soon as the low temp switch makes contact and sends power through around the start timer.

These extra lights will make easy diagnostics of any failures.

This stuff adds a bit more complexity to the build, but the package will be bomb proof.

All off the shelf parts.

The same feed timer and latchout as I used on the Prodigy to keep it simple.

The fuel feed rate resistors will be slightly different as the feed rate is different on the A2T

The A2T needs 7 seconds on low and no less than 4 seconds on high

Likely will use 7- 6-5-4 (seconds off time)

This equates to 700K ohms on low, the 600K on 2, 500K on 3 and 400K on 4

Will use a 4 position rotary switch with a common and 4 poles

Easy to assemble a small PC board with the various resistors then put the assembly in a little box and pour it full of potting compound.

That makes a real nifty resistor pack that is fully sealed and selected by a rotary switch.

Pretty easy to build once all the details are thrashed out.

Going to use an Enclosure by LMB Heeger that is 13" x 10" x 4 "

Nice little aluminum box, very similar to the one I used on the Prodigy controller, only a bit larger.

Got to start ordering the rest of the components to build this beast.

I have the One shot timer and the relay to feed the main after the low limit closes, but need the on off timer for the auger feed, and the lockout relay.

I have the large 14/12 cable to connect the stove to the panel, but still need panel lamps, buss bars and jumpers.

Ahhhh yesssss, great fun.

Yesssss, happy to get the unit.
They paid over $3K for the new stove they bought to replace it with

Snowy