Cat glowing??

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scojen

scojen

New Member
Jul 21, 2010
71
Southern Maryland
I have an FPX 36 elite and have a question regarding the catylitic converter. When the Cat is engaged should the entire thing be glowing red or just portions of it? Perhaps anyone with general knowledge on this subject could shed some light for me. Thanks in advance.
 
If there is enough heat, fuel and oxygen to support it, yep, the whole thing can be lit up. Just watch your temps, sounds like you could be running it on the "high" side of things.

Re-reading your post, you don't state the YOU have a cat doing this. Please - feel free to take the question a little further.
 
On my FPX 44 I have never seen the entire Cat glowing red in my 2 years of use. About 2/3 is the peak I have seen but usually less than 1/2. Would be interested to hear what other FPX owners have seen.
 
sorry about that...I didn't specify what mine was doing. It does not glow entirely...... only portions of it. I was just wondering if the whole thing should be glowing or if something was wrong. GOT WOOD answered my question however and it appears that mine is working properly. Thanks!
 
I notice that I get more of the cat burning red and a more intense color with the really dry wood. Seems logical.
 
whats the stove top temp? Numbers might help. :)
 
Sorry but I have no clue what the temps are. My unit did not come with a gage and I have no way to measure. Funny thing is, the instruction manual just says to get the unit "hot" before engaging Cat. I usually just wait until the automatic fan kicks on before engaging the Cat. Any advice from what I am doing would be appreciated.
 
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Not sure about your stove, but my fan will come on long before its time to engage the cat. With dry wood, the cat lights off like this shortly after engaging the cat. With less than perfect wood, the light off will be spotty.
 

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Woodstock recommends 10-15 minutes after a reload to engage the cat but that is a general statement. Depending upon the wood it could take up to 30 minutes because they also recommend 250 degree stove top or 500 degree flue.

We do not always get a full glow from ours either. It depends upon the wood, how full the firebox is and the temperature of the stove. Actually, I rarely look at the cat any more but after engaging the cat, if the temperature rises fast, I know that cat is working.
 
I have FPX 36 as well...when it's buring at it's prime I have whole cat glowing, but getting to that and coming back down from fuel load I'll have only partial glows. I burn almond, usually temps 350-675 (w/IR gun).
 
I will only sometimes have the entire cat glowing during a fresh re load or getting the stove up to temp. Most of the time 1/2 -3/4 of cat is glowing.

On a cold stove I will load her up top down full air by-pass pull open.

5-10 min in 100-150 deg stove top close the by pass so half flames go straight up half go thru the cat

15 min close by pass 200-300 deg close down air 1/2 watch the flame show

30 min 500 deg close down air completely usually will get 4.5 hr peaking at about 650 deg

All depends on the fuel and the amount of heat needed.
I am still new and this is the first year I have 2 year dry supply of 1 cord oak, .5 cord Apple, 1 cord Locust, 4 cord Elm
and 1 cord soft maple.
I am still learning waiting for cold weather to start burning the higher btu still and hope for a longer burn
 
44 elite said:
I will only sometimes have the entire cat glowing during a fresh re load or getting the stove up to temp. Most of the time 1/2 -3/4 of cat is glowing.

On a cold stove I will load her up top down full air by-pass pull open.

5-10 min in 100-150 deg stove top close the by pass so half flames go straight up half go thru the cat

15 min close by pass 200-300 deg close down air 1/2 watch the flame show

30 min 500 deg close down air completely usually will get 4.5 hr peaking at about 650 deg

All depends on the fuel and the amount of heat needed.
I am still new and this is the first year I have 2 year dry supply of 1 cord oak, .5 cord Apple, 1 cord Locust, 4 cord Elm
and 1 cord soft maple.
I am still learning waiting for cold weather to start burning the higher btu still and hope for a longer burn
Click to expand...

Interesting - I have not tried the approach of shutting the bypass 1/2 way. I can see where that would be helpful in the process though. I'll give it a try.
What do you use to measure the temps? I dont have anything.
I find the FPX to pump out an incredible amount of heat and the POS pressure design works well. Though for me they tend to have shorter burn lengths (could be I'm not aggressive enough with shutting down the air) and use a lot of wood. When I hear Backwoods talking about adding 3 splits a couple times a day and that being his only heat source I am amazed. I used 5 1/2 cords last winter as my primary heat source. This winter (year 3 for me) I'm using hardwoods seasoned for 2 full years and am already seeing the improvement
 
I find it helps to get the cat up to temp while still allowing the fire to grow.

I use a cheap rutland and a cheap Ir gun to insure the accuracy of the rutland.
I burned about the same 5-6 cords. They do like the wood but in my eyes the look of the fpx make up for the extra consumption.
I do wish I could put a Blaze king king in my basement and then heat that with a few twigs.
I expect wood consumption to drop this year as I have found I am getting about double the burn time with higher temps using my new technique as I was last year and I am still using Elm amd Soft maple I can't wait to break into my apple,oak and locust. If I can get a 6-8 hr burn i would be very happy.


My wood this year is seasoned 2 full years as last year I was only a year and a half.
i have not noticed as big differance in the wood.
Just gotta make that Cat work
Last night I had the air full off and there was no flames off the wood just coals glowing with a flame rolling up by the cal and a occasional burst
 
44 elite said:
I find it helps to get the cat up to temp while still allowing the fire to grow.

I use a cheap rutland and a cheap Ir gun to insure the accuracy of the rutland.
I burned about the same 5-6 cords. They do like the wood but in my eyes the look of the fpx make up for the extra consumption.
I do wish I could put a Blaze king king in my basement and then heat that with a few twigs.
I expect wood consumption to drop this year as I have found I am getting about double the burn time with higher temps using my new technique as I was last year and I am still using Elm amd Soft maple I can't wait to break into my apple,oak and locust. If I can get a 6-8 hr burn i would be very happy.


My wood this year is seasoned 2 full years as last year I was only a year and a half.
i have not noticed as big differance in the wood.
Just gotta make that Cat work
Last night I had the air full off and there was no flames off the wood just coals glowing with a flame rolling up by the cal and a occasional burst
Click to expand...

Where do you take the temps from?

I love the look of the FPX too.... find myself staring at it all the time. Actually the higher consumption just allows me to process more wood which I'm addicted too as well.

I really have not burned much this year yet. Maybe 2 or 3 times have I reloaded on a bed of coals. Last fall I found myself burning way more than needed which resulted in the house being too hot and wood consumption much more needed. I'll use less wood this year just by being more practical in shoulder season.
 
I take the temp from the top right or left depending upon what door you wanted to put it on.

I am the same way enjoy the work so I have no problem burning up my hard work.
Here is the ir gun I have cheap and works well
http://www.harborfreight.com/non-contact-laser-thermometer-96451.html

Let me know how it works for you

It's only been down to the 30's so I am betting it will cange a little as it gets colder.
I have close to 30 ft straight up so she pulls
 

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So I understand, you are measuring the temp of the glass on the door then?
 
Not the temp of the glass just the temp of the door frame.

I was told by travis/FPX you wanted to take the temp at the highest point on the door frame.
 
I understand taking temps of the flue or stove top. Clearly, we cant do that with a FPX. The glass wouldnt make sense to me. Travis suggested the highest point on the door frame....hmmm. Is there any guidance as to what those temps should be at various points (like when to engage Cat, when burning too hot and need to choke down air, etc?) I would think the readings on the door would have to have its own set of parameters to make it useful.

Do you use the IR for this? Or some kind of mounted unit(magnet? would that work?

Dont get me wrong, I would like to be able to get some temp readings and have it be useful in improving my burns. Just trying to understand how it works on the zero clearance FP. I did a search on this in these forums and there was a recent thread on a different zero clearance unit and the consensus seemed to be there wasnt a good place to take the temps from.
 
I think the top of the door is the closest thing to stove top.
I have shot the temps with the IR gun and this is the hottest part of the stove.
I have the mounted magnetic I have one made by rutland but check out this one
http://www.condar.com/stove_top_meters.html

I use the magnetic most of the time and confirm temp by the IR.

I have been told 2ndary's start when the cat is up to 500 deg = 250 stove top
our blower kicks on at about 325-350 stove top

I have found that I was sending a lot of heat straight up the stack by not engaging the cat until the blower had kicked on
 
I was wondering about the design of the FPX 36 elite catalytic system at my parents home. The cat is visible from the front of the insert and exposed directly to the flames as they travel up the front of the insert. I have a Country Flame stove insert at home that has a shield in place to protect the cat from direct flame contact(I am assuming this anyway). Is that right or is something missing from my parents insert?
 
44 elite said:
On a cold stove I will load her up top down full air by-pass pull open.

5-10 min in 100-150 deg stove top close the by pass so half flames go straight up half go thru the cat

15 min close by pass 200-300 deg close down air 1/2 watch the flame show

30 min 500 deg close down air completely usually will get 4.5 hr peaking at about 650 deg
Click to expand...

Last night I tried this.... I dont have a thermometer so no temps to go by
Cold start - Bypass fully open and full air - loaded with 5 med size splits of cherry, 1/4 super cedar and some splitter scraps
After about 8min with a good set of flames I moved the bypass to 1/2 open, still full air
Another 5 min (fire really going strong) I shut the bypass completely, still full air
5 more min - Cat is really glowing, shut air down to 1/2 way
fan kicked on about 2 min later - approx 20 min from cold start
5 more min - air down to 25% open - left it there (fell a sleep in my chair)

I will try this approach again, it appears that adding in the bypass 1/2 way step helped speed up the process of bringing the temps up quicker making the overall burn more efficient.

Thanks
 
I use the IR gun directly at stove top, or into cat or various parts of the fire just to see different temps. No magnetic thermo as it would scratch gold plated and uh, doesn't look good so the wife wasn't happy. About once a season I'll take out the cat and vacuum and/or air blow the ash out of it so I can see clearly thru the holes. Also, after startup and a good fire going, I keep the bypass fully closed and keep the air control down to about 25%. You only get ~ 1" movement on the air control to play with so it takes a little fine tuning to find the right spot.
 
Got Wood said:
44 elite said:
On a cold stove I will load her up top down full air by-pass pull open.

5-10 min in 100-150 deg stove top close the by pass so half flames go straight up half go thru the cat

15 min close by pass 200-300 deg close down air 1/2 watch the flame show

30 min 500 deg close down air completely usually will get 4.5 hr peaking at about 650 deg
Click to expand...

Last night I tried this.... I dont have a thermometer so no temps to go by
Cold start - Bypass fully open and full air - loaded with 5 med size splits of cherry, 1/4 super cedar and some splitter scraps
After about 8min with a good set of flames I moved the bypass to 1/2 open, still full air
Another 5 min (fire really going strong) I shut the bypass completely, still full air
5 more min - Cat is really glowing, shut air down to 1/2 way
fan kicked on about 2 min later - approx 20 min from cold start
5 more min - air down to 25% open - left it there (fell a sleep in my chair)

I will try this approach again, it appears that adding in the bypass 1/2 way step helped speed up the process of bringing the temps up quicker making the overall burn more efficient.

Thanks
Click to expand...

Happy to hear it maybe helping I also did some experimenting last night.

Another 5 min (fire really going strong) I shut the bypass completely, still full air

Did this last night but i also shut down the air to about 1/2 = Positive results
 
Chargerman said:
I was wondering about the design of the FPX 36 elite catalytic system at my parents home. The cat is visible from the front of the insert and exposed directly to the flames as they travel up the front of the insert. I have a Country Flame stove insert at home that has a shield in place to protect the cat from direct flame contact(I am assuming this anyway). Is that right or is something missing from my parents insert?
Click to expand...

What you are describing sounds exactly like mine. Doesn't sound to me like anything is missing.

-Speak
 
SpeakEasy said:
Chargerman said:
I was wondering about the design of the FPX 36 elite catalytic system at my parents home. The cat is visible from the front of the insert and exposed directly to the flames as they travel up the front of the insert. I have a Country Flame stove insert at home that has a shield in place to protect the cat from direct flame contact(I am assuming this anyway). Is that right or is something missing from my parents insert?
Click to expand...

What you are describing sounds exactly like mine. Doesn't sound to me like anything is missing.

-Speak
Click to expand...

Thanks, that is what I was hoping to hear. The insert did a fine job of roasting us out so it seemed to be working just fine.
 
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