PELLET CLEANER VAC....

jezbo33 said:

ANYBODY HAVE THE PLANS FOR THIS ........

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are you talking about an ash vac or somthing to get the "fines" out of your pellets?

There's a guy selling plans on eBay. Search for "Pelleduster."

I built mine using ABS and some other odds and ends in the shop because in this part of the country PVC isn't certified for drain/waste so nobody carries it or the fittings. So cost was 2.5X what was advertised; total approximate cost, using my existing shopvac: $85.

Hope this helps you.

i basically dont sweat the fines as im dumping pellets in , other than if there is an obvious lump of it in the bottom of the bag i just dont dump that in, not losing much. the fines that do get into my hopper arent much of a problem as i usually every other week let the unit run dry of fuel and shut down , then i simply suck out the fines with my ash vac while im doing the rest of my cleaning , takes about 30 seconds more time , and its much easier than fighting with the fines trying to keep them out of the hopper. if the pellets you are burning have so much fines that this is impractical , switch brands as there really shouldnt be enough in a bag to load you up faster than that.

steamguy said:

There's a guy selling plans on eBay. Search for "Pelleduster."

I built mine using ABS and some other odds and ends in the shop because in this part of the country PVC isn't certified for drain/waste so nobody carries it or the fittings. So cost was 2.5X what was advertised; total approximate cost, using my existing shopvac: $85.

Hope this helps you.

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Hey Steam,

so after you built it, how well does it work? Do you think it was worth the time to build and the $$?

f

ines that do get into my hopper arent much of a problem as i usually every other week let the unit run dry of fuel and shut down , then i simply suck out the fines with my ash vac while im doing the rest of my cleaning

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Okay, help me out here...

Is having a lot of fines build up in the stove as much of a problem now as it used to be? When I bought my Austroflamm about 12-14 years ago, they warned against having the fines build up as they could cause the auger motor to jam and possibly shorten its life. On the one side of this question is that I must have been dong something right, since that stove's auger motor lasted until last October.

Also, and of probably much greater importance, now that I think about it: My Empress has the top of its hopper set to its lowest setting. I can't get my hand into it to vacuum it out, otherwise the pellet dust remover would not have been built. The old Austroflamm, no problem. I did just as you say.

I'll be interested to find this one out. Thanks for your expertise.

macman said:

Hey Steam,

so after you built it, how well does it work? Do you think it was worth the time to build and the $$?

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I modified mine somewhat since my shopvac is about 3x as powerful as the one the guy recommends using (which is 2 HP), and I didn't feel like going out and buying another shopvac just for this. I think it does a great job, with one caveat: you have to watch the feed rate. If you feed a constant stream of pellets into it from the bag - just enough to keep them going through the duster, it works perfectly.

There is a trick to it. Too slow and your arm gets tired from supporting the bag. Too fast a rate and it will clog. When it clogs, it'll suck a bunch of pellets through into the shopvac's canister. No big deal, get a margarine tub and scoop them out and run them through again.

Locally, I can get one of two kinds of pellets: really dusty, or really clean and nice. Guess which one the feed store sells out of faster...? If you put your hand into the bag of dusty pellets, it feels like you've got sand on your hand for a long time afterward. After these pellets go through the machine, it feels like you're putting your hand into a bag of marbles, they're that clean.

Couple other things: if the pellets you're using have a lot of pitch and are consequently 'sticky', then you don't need this gizmo. The sticky pellets will actually tend to clog it. But if you can put your hand into the bag and have that 'sandy' feeling, then consider it. Also, I found it's good for recovering burnable pellets from sacks that have gotten wet and then been dried out. Usually you get five pounds of fines out of one of those, but the rest is still OK to burn.

Was it worth it? I think so, because I can't get my hand into my Empress to clean out the hopper. And if it does turn out that having the fines build up isn't good for the stove, then I'd rather clean pellets than replace an auger motor. I have noticed that running clean pellets through does clean the hopper.

Hope this helps.

steamguy said:

f

ines that do get into my hopper arent much of a problem as i usually every other week let the unit run dry of fuel and shut down , then i simply suck out the fines with my ash vac while im doing the rest of my cleaning

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im bolding just to make reading easier
Okay, help me out here...

Is having a lot of fines build up in the stove as much of a problem now as it used to be? When I bought my Austroflamm about 12-14 years ago, they warned against having the fines build up as they could cause the auger motor to jam and possibly shorten its life. On the one side of this question is that I must have been dong something right, since that stove's auger motor lasted until last October.
fines, if left to build can shorten the life of a feed drive motor as it has to churn through them constantly, however , it takes a good bit of fines to cause this. if your pellets do tend to have a bunch then the gizmo you already have is not a bad precaution. with the old austro, it was easy due to its design, as is my englander, easy to get at, now the empress i guess is a different story the way you have it set up , and opening the chute bi weekly is definately more chore than you should have to deal with. here's a trick, open the front door first , then insert the vac hose (perferrably with a cone or reducer, i made a tool with a cone adapter and piece of garden hose to get into places i cant get my vac hose into works great, but back to the task , insert the hose as deep as possible , and cover the rest of the opening around the hose with your hand or a rag , this forces the fines to be pulled out , with a strong vac you can literally empty the auer tube in seconds

Also, and of probably much greater importance, now that I think about it: My Empress has the top of its hopper set to its lowest setting. I can't get my hand into it to vacuum it out, otherwise the pellet dust remover would not have been built. The old Austroflamm, no problem. I did just as you say.
ok you lost me there , im not intimately familiar with the empress, so im curious about the "hopper top set to its lowest setting" is this a shield that moves up and down above the auger to help regulate feed?

I'll be interested to find this one out. Thanks for your expertise.

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by the way , those old austro's were tanks , heck of a machine for their day, a lot of em are still out there soldiering along

stoveguy2esw said:

by the way , those old austro's were tanks , heck of a machine for their day, a lot of em are still out there soldiering along

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I'd still have mine, except it needed way too many things replaced all at once. It would have been celebrating its 14th (I think) birthday this coming December. But it was the early type and parts were very dear; shipping costs were astronomical. So we just decided to sell it to someone who needed parts.

stoveguy2esw said:

ok you lost me there , im not intimately familiar with the empress, so im curious about the “hopper top set to its lowest setting” is this a shield that moves up and down above the auger to help regulate feed?

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The Empress insert has an adjustable "top" to the hopper area to help it fit inside different fireplace sizes, so when you insert it, you can make the physical size smaller. (Hope this makes sense) However, this reduces the size of the opening to the pellet hopper inside the stove. I think they come set to the lowest position from the factory. The guy who installed mine, it was his first Empress install, and I don't think he bothered to look at how high he could raise the lid of the hopper. I will of course be checking this when I pull mine next month for a complete cleaning.

Hope this was clearer... ;-P

ok gotcha now, makes sense.