Ecofan RIP 2008-2011

[stoveguy2esw]

you guys got me thinking , i might play around with a "teg" powered pellet stove, maybe a battery onboard and teg recharge off exhaust heat to hold the battery at a charged level. would be pretty cool to have a self powered pellet stove, im gonna have to play with that idea some

Brilliant. It would (if feasible/doable) eliminate the single most frequently mentioned drawback to pellet stoves...no heat when the power goes out. Nice to "see" you, Mike. Rick

thats kinda the idea's birth, i have to research power needs and see if it can be done effectively. obviously would want to keep costs down to make it practical gonna need to look at DC motors (all we currently use are AC , as well as a simple control system. its just an idea at this time but im grinding on it when i have timwe to think about it. if i can run everything off a 12 volt battery like a lawn motor sized one (aproved for indoors is gonna be an issue as well but im sure they are availible) then rack up a few of these teg generators to soak heat from the exhaust to constantly top off the battery when in use im thinking i can come up with a self sustaining power source generated by the stove itself. maybe come up with a connection to tie into PV as well my want is to make this thing not have to use any house power at all. i think i can do it but i gotta talk the boss into letting me spend some money on somthing completely new to us in order to make it happen

Cool idea....you would probably need some sort of small battery just to get the pellet stove running, but a small dc motor should keep it operable while the pellet stove is at running temps....how cool would that be, a pellet stove that has its own power source.

yeah , thats kinda the idea. im thinking if i can teg recharge a battery and the battery run the unit as long as i can replace what the batery uses to run on an equal basis it should work, now im thinking only feed motor and exhaust fan on the battery and a seperate teg just for the room fan so as the stove heats up the teg starts the room fan and it just blows on whatever the heat provides it

 

[Jags]

yeah , thats kinda the idea. im thinking if i can teg recharge a battery and the battery run the unit as long as i can replace what the batery uses to run on an equal basis it should work, now im thinking only feed motor and exhaust fan on the battery and a seperate teg just for the room fan so as the stove heats up the teg starts the room fan and it just blows on whatever the heat provides it

Mike, not knowing your pellet stoves - is your room fan an A/C or D/C fan? If D/C you might be Okay with this approach. Not so much with A/C (I know you would have to convert the TEG D/C to A/C first, but my concern would be with low voltage to an A/C motor ....baaaad.

 

[begreen]

More TEG talk in the Green Room:
https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/82494/

 

[stoveguy2esw]

yeah , thats kinda the idea. im thinking if i can teg recharge a battery and the battery run the unit as long as i can replace what the batery uses to run on an equal basis it should work, now im thinking only feed motor and exhaust fan on the battery and a seperate teg just for the room fan so as the stove heats up the teg starts the room fan and it just blows on whatever the heat provides it

Mike, not knowing your pellet stoves - is your room fan an A/C or D/C fan? If D/C you might be Okay with this approach. Not so much with A/C (I know you would have to convert the TEG D/C to A/C first, but my concern would be with low voltage to an A/C motor ....baaaad.

our pellet stoves are all A/C at the moment but if this happens its gonna have D/C motors in it, energy budget too important to try to invert to A/C our current control system is out also will have to do somthing else. probably a simpler switch type setup at least in the prototyping

 

[Jags]

our pellet stoves are all A/C at the moment but if this happens its gonna have D/C motors in it, energy budget too important to try to invert to A/C our current control system is out also will have to do somthing else. probably a simpler switch type setup at least in the prototyping

D/C could work to your advantage on the room blower. If you setup the fan size properly the fan speed could increase/decrease proportional to the heat output. Sounds like a cool project Mike.

 

[pen]

So is this thing fixed yet?

pen

 

[BrowningBAR]

So is this thing fixed yet?

pen

Not yet. Haven't ordered the part yet.

 

[kallsop]

The CARFAMO module, according to the specs listed on the ebay auction, is rated to 180C. The module on Amazon is rated to 138C. That's a big difference and might be important. You could try the cheaper module and find out if it works or melts

 

[GAMMA RAY]

So is this thing fixed yet?

pen

Not yet. Haven't ordered the part yet.

I sense procrastination Browning....you better "git on the stick" before the cold weather sets in....once you have those 3 stoves going you aren't gonna feel like tinkering around with that thing.... :smirk:
just sayin... :lol:

 

[BrowningBAR]

So is this thing fixed yet?

pen

Not yet. Haven't ordered the part yet.

I sense procrastination Browning....you better "git on the stick" before the cold weather sets in....once you have those 3 stoves going you aren't gonna feel like tinkering around with that thing.... :smirk:
just sayin... :lol:

Sense it? Dear woman, I wallow in it like a pig in mud.

Honestly, though, I don't actually need the air movement anymore. I only used it since I paid for. It seemed to help with the Intrepid, but just a little. I will probably purchase the part in December and it'll give me something to do during the holidays.

 

[stoveguy2esw]

our pellet stoves are all A/C at the moment but if this happens its gonna have D/C motors in it, energy budget too important to try to invert to A/C our current control system is out also will have to do somthing else. probably a simpler switch type setup at least in the prototyping

D/C could work to your advantage on the room blower. If you setup the fan size properly the fan speed could increase/decrease proportional to the heat output. Sounds like a cool project Mike.

yeah im kinda leaning towards the room fan having its own TEG that way the fan will run off its own energy when needed if it can be done that way it takes the load off the battery, may not work that way but we'll see