Auger won't wait for flame at restart CB1200

The smaller Quad stove owners complained about the same thing.
The green light was not going off before next call for heat. If your
green light is still on it will feed right off.

The stove is still somewhat warm probably. When it calls for heat to soon. The stovr may be "tricked" into thinking there is flame already.

Can you adjust the swing temp on your T-stat?

Have you tried running continuously on a Low setting. I have found after a few yrs, that the house is much more comfortable if I run om Low 24/7 (temps permitting). When I use the stat, I use at least a 2* swing (up and down) and sometimes 3* (milder temps).

How long between your cycles? 20 min? 40 min?

close the feed flapper in the hopper 1/4" and see if that helps. If oit does not give it 1/2 hr and try another 1/4".

Eric

Vinculum said:

I noticed this season when my CB1200 restarts, the flame is very large. I know its normal to have a large flame, but its larger than normal.

Normally what happens on startup, the ignitor turns on and the auger turns on for a bit to drop pellets into the pot. Then it stops and waits for flame. The flame sensor detects flame and the auger resumes feeding pellets periodically. What is happening is after the initial pellet drop, the auger pulses on and off like a flame is already detected and continues to add pellets. Once the overfilled pot ignites, poof.. large flame. I need to see if it behaves this way when the stove is cold. If it does I think my sensor could be bad. If it acts normal, I think the stove isn't cooling down enough between restarts. I did move my thermostat to the wall this year and its a few feet higher than when i used to lay it on the TV stand. Hmmmmmm... anyone see this one yet?

Thanks

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Hey buddy. I had the same problem with my quad recently. The system was short cycling. Pellets kept dropping before the flame was lit and when it did ignite, i had a huge flame.

I had a honeywell stat that seemed to call for heat much too often. I swapped it out for a LUX stat. The Lux stat allows you to set the swing. Mine for instance had a swing setting of 1-9 with each setting .25 degrees. I set it at 8 with a 2 degree swing. I set my stat at 70. It turns on at 68 and off at 72. This allows my stove to cool down and completely solved my problem. Give it a shot. They sell the LUX at Lowe's. I paid 30 dollars for it and it was a great investment

I think Eric is pointing you in the right direction. You may be feeding too many pellets during the burn cycle. Have you adjusted the feed rate per the manual in HIGH heat mode?
The swing is also important. With that green light still on, the stove is functioning normally. The green light tells the auger to start its normal feed. The red light tells the controller to shut off the igniter if it hasn't already been shut off by an internal timer.

tjnamtiw said:

I think Eric is pointing you in the right direction. You may be feeding too many pellets during the burn cycle. Have you adjusted the feed rate per the manual in HIGH heat mode?
The swing is also important. With that green light still on, the stove is functioning normally. The green light tells the auger to start its normal feed. The red light tells the controller to shut off the igniter if it hasn't already been shut off by an internal timer.

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But he also said that the auger starts to feed pellets again, before ignition has occurred. Under normal operating conditions, the auger does not feed any more pellets (after start-up timer of 95 seconds) until the thermocouple senses flame and then begins to cycle again.

I am not doubting that he may be feeding to many pellets. But the only time I have seen this happen, was when the stove shut off and I restarted very soon after (warm stove) or the one time I had an accident with the Reset button (both of these things were rookie mistakes and only took one time to learn my lesson). He states he has a large flame anyways, so feed should definitely be adjusted per manual instructions.

To the OP, did you let the stove cool down fully before trying again? Remember, every pellet may need a tweak or two. I tend to run on Low and just leave tue gate open for Max BTU's, as the flame just barely comes out the pot (depends on pellet quality as to height on Low).

Only a suggestion, but if you run on a Lower setting. The stove will run longer and give you a better "Soak" temp. Therefore it will stay off longer also. And will hopefully let the stove cool off a little longer before the stat calls for heat again. Even though the stove shut down, there is still a lot of residual heat left inside the firebox and may trick the Thermocouple into thinking it has a flame, when in fact, it does not.

Also, your Quad Smart-stat or Smart-batt T-stat does not have a swing option and IIRC it only has a 1* swing, which causes Lots of cycling. Buying a Lux, Honeywell, or any other Milllivolt stat that has an adjustable swing, will help. Or if your set om a wireless system, Skytech has a nice line of Programmable units. They also have an adjustable swing up to 3*.

Presto-Logs do produce a larger flame than some. They are a larger diameter pellet than most and therefore more volume gets fed into stove. As opposed to a smaller diameter pellet. IMO. Which reverts back to setting flame height. Set height and try to get the stove to cool more between cycles........

Hi Dexter, he said that the green light was still on when the thermostat again called for heat, so it would start up and immediately see the green light and continue to feed. My green light stays on for a long time after it shuts off. I just thought that he was overfiring the stove and really heating it up so much that the cast iron pot never cooled down enough.
You guys definitely made a believer out of me on running on Low as much as possible now that I have my convection fan wired for high speed. Much more steady temp. Last year the stove would run for 1/2 hour and shut down for 1/2 hour and the ACTUAL swing in temp was about 2-3 degrees with a 0.7 swing setting.

tjnamtiw said:

Hi Dexter, he said that the green light was still on when the thermostat again called for heat, so it would start up and immediately see the green light and continue to feed. My green light stays on for a long time after it shuts off. I just thought that he was overfiring the stove and really heating it up so much that the cast iron pot never cooled down enough.
You guys definitely made a believer out of me on running on Low as much as possible now that I have my convection fan wired for high speed. Much more steady temp. Last year the stove would run for 1/2 hour and shut down for 1/2 hour and the ACTUAL swing in temp was about 2-3 degrees with a 0.7 swing setting.

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Never paid attention to my lights..... Just keep the stove purring and its a moot point....

I dont doubt any info you state, especially about the light timing. Im just putting out what I think "may" be happening. Is his flame to large, very possible. As the CB has a Pretty large flame with the feed plate wide open. Which is another reason I run on Low. I dont have to worry about flame height and I get Max BTU out of the setting.

As for running continuous. I bet your house feels much more comfortable. Im am a HUGE advocate of running on a lower setting when temps permit. I even made marks inside the hopper, so I can adjust accordingly to the outside temps. Took some time and experimentation, but its pretty darn close now. Even the Wife is about trained on it.

I currently have been using the furnace (Fahrenheit) for the most part (New Toy). So the Quad has seen about 15 bags (before furnace was online) without cleaning. It has been a little neglected. The glass is filthy and it needs a cleaning. Gonna try and make time tomorrow for it.

Hope things are going good down your way. Have a safe and Happy Holiday.

Your new thermostat location has a lot to do with it as do the other items folks are talking about.

The air at the new location will cool faster than closer to the stove thus the t-stat will close before it would in its old location. The stove's tc doesn't get a chance to cool off enough. There are other contributing factors that can be at play as well, if there is any buildup on the tc it will be insulated a bit more than it should be thus slower in cooling off, it is also possible that one or more of the blowers is turning off too soon, both extract heat from the stove.

You actually might have hit on something else, Smokey. If the thermocouple isn't hitting the end of the ceramic tube, would that cause it to sense a higher temperature inside the tube than the actual surface of the tube? Ceramic is a great insulator.
A 2 degree swing should have been more than enough to allow the thermocouple to cool down. I ran on High for two years with the stove cycling with .7 swing and never saw this happen.

tjnamtiw said:

You actually might have hit on something else, Smokey. If the thermocouple isn't hitting the end of the ceramic tube, would that cause it to sense a higher temperature inside the tube than the actual surface of the tube? Ceramic is a great insulator.
A 2 degree swing should have been more than enough to allow the thermocouple to cool down. I ran on High for two years with the stove cycling with .7 swing and never saw this happen.

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That would do it since the combustion blower should lower the burn pot temperature and with the tc against the burn pot it also would get lowered faster unless the burn pot was ash filled or clinkered up.

But the thermostat in a position higher and further away would be subject to drafts and apt to cool off faster thus the swing difference doesn't take place over a period of enough time for the stove's tc to cool. Sort of like opening a door near a t-stat will cause a circulation pump to come on and then cycle off fast.

ETA: The real problem here is that the systems are not properly interlocked. That leads to strange fire states.

You changed two things at once, thermocouple in ceramic housing and thermostat location, so you don't know which was the problem. My money is on the thermocouple not being against the ceramic cover. I move my wireless thermostat all over the room and have never seen the quick restart. I have it set for a 1 degree swing.

First rule in determining the primary cause of an issue is to change one thing at a time.

Then try another down the list.

Then do it in pairs if changing one item at a time doesn't take care of it.

I'm not betting on anything as all of what has been discussed can result in what you were seeing.

I've seen hot water system circulation pump motors burn out due to draft induced temperature swings at a thermostat.

Vinculum said:

Well I'd be surprised if it was the thermocouple, because it only moved maybe a millimeter. If it was that important of a tolerance it would have a retainer device on it, which it never did from factory. Its easy enough to test again...

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Hey, a mm is a mm AND don't forget our stoves were made in China!!

Vinculum said:

Well I'd be surprised if it was the thermocouple, because it only moved maybe a millimeter. If it was that important of a tolerance it would have a retainer device on it, which it never did from factory. Its easy enough to test again...

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It would not be the first time a minor adjustment to the tc position on a quad stove was all it took.