Adjustable Combustion Air?

[kenstogie]

With a car if you give it more gas you give it more air hence more cobustion and more heat too.

Why don't pellet stoves allow for more combustion air? Or maybe they do, just mine doesn't?

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Sorry you are incorrect, yours does, increase the firing rate and the combustion air also increases.

 

[briansol]

Keep in mind, more air requires more fuel to keep it burning stoichmetric, just like a car wants to be around 13:1 so it doesn't lean out and blow up, nor run pig rich and waste fuel and wash out cyl walls.

your gas pedal in the car opens the throttle body (air intake) and matches it based on o2 and other sensor readings to match the fuel delivery. But still, 100% throttle is 100% throttle. Once it's open all the way, that's it. Sure, you can talk VE, turbos, and other car nerd stuff here, but that's a different thread :D

 

[kenstogie]

Sorry you are incorrect, yours does, increase the firing rate and the combustion air also increases.

I didn't know this. Why not allow for an adjustment? Would it have a detrimental effect??

 

[briansol]

Basically, the computer is smarter than you
x air intake :: y fuel intake

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

You can also make your own adjustment it will however be still controlled by the software in the controller but the controller doesn't care if you mess things up.

Those adjustments are known as the lower three lff, lba, and aot, what they do affects things differently depending upon the revision of software in your stove.

 

[midfielder]

My stove is old school and manual. It has a butterfly valve for the draft and I have a speed control for the combustion blower. Between the two, I can control airflow through the stove to get optimum burn; however, even with a blower, flow through the system varies considerably with outside temp, stack, and stove temp. So burning at 40 deg is pretty different from burning at 0. My stove won't adjust itself at all, but seems to be pretty forgiving anyway. I can usually get away with tweaking settings once or twice a day. I kind of like it hands-on, but would like to try a stove that thinks for itself some day. Of course, the more complicated, the more there is to break... My $0.02

 

[heat seeker]

I foresee O2 sensors, and others, in our stoves' future. Similar to Harman's ESP, only even more sophisticated.

 

[briansol]

yup, o2, egt, and maybe even a complex egr system on start up to reduce emissions as the hippies take control....

 

[SwineFlue]

Keep in mind, more air requires more fuel to keep it burning stoichmetric, just like a car wants to be around 13:1 so it doesn't lean out and blow up, nor run pig rich and waste fuel and wash out cyl walls.

I thought pellet stoves had to run far leaner than stoichiometric (more air) to get the EPA exemption from the woodstove regulations.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

I thought pellet stoves had to run far leaner than stoichiometric (more air) to get the EPA exemption from the woodstove regulations.

The exempt ones do but not all pellet burners need an exemption to meet the regulations.

There is one that operates within EPA requirements at a 10:1 air to fuel ratio. It has a gasification burner and is multi-fuel.

 

[SwineFlue]

The exempt ones do but not all pellet burners need an exemption to meet the regulations.

I didn't know that they had a choice. Thanks for the clarification.

 

[DexterDay]

With a car if you give it more gas you give it more air hence more cobustion and more heat too.

Why don't pellet stoves allow for more combustion air? Or maybe they do, just mine doesn't?

That's what the bottom 3 buttons are for... LBA/LFF/AOT.

Increasing the LBA will increase burn air, decreasing the LFF will decrease feed (or make what fuel is there, seem like it has more air)

It's a fine balance of fuel to air....

To much air, and you throw heat out of the stove to quickly. To little and it's a chatty burn..