Heatilator CAB50 - Won't start sometimes

Dear God man, what are you thinking?

Eric

Eric, I know, extreme! I thought I would give it a try before installing expensive lining. Here's the scoop. Tonight when I got home from work I did this.
Fired it up, had to hit the reset twice before good burn. After the convection blower came on I let it cycle off by T-stat setting. After about 15 minutes it called for heat, fired up with no problem and has been cycling on and off with no problem now 4 times. So I think Smokey might have the solution, 4" liner. I thank you and everyone else for their input. Good to hear all kinds of views. Thanks all.

Wood stove burner Eric converting to the dark side a stove at a time.

Love the 13 good hens. But, I like a good bourbon before the stout.

It is absolutely amazing what happens when you hook up a pellet stove correctly!

Eric

Well sad to say I have to change my sig again it is only 12 good hens now, one didn't make it through yesterday.

Sorry to hear that.

How many bags are you using at medium 80 % of the time? I've adjusted my feed gate setting to 1/3 closed from fully open. My low will run only with feed gate wide open.

Question for all cab50 owners. Feed gate setting. Wide Open or on lowest opening... will medium drop the same amount of fuel on either setting? I'm thinking no. On low with Feed Gate lowest, it does not keep up and stove goes out even with it running 24/7. On medium no problem but burning more fuel.

I've been running mine just on and off. Waiting on more programmable thermostat.

On low for me doesn't seem to keep my house as warm. Waiting for programmable thermostat to come in. Gets cool at night when in the 30's and high 20's. Have to keep feed gate wide open on low or stove shuts off. On Medium runs like a champ with feed gate partial closed about a 1/3. Don't want to burn thru my fuel to fast.

I've noticed the cycle hasn't changed with the auger on any of the settings. About every 6 seconds pellets drop about 3-5 times then 12-14 secs then back to every 6 etc. Any insight?

The time will always be the same (each heat setting). Each heat setting, has a specified "On" time. The auger will be "On" for X seconds. This # only changes if you change heat setting. My Classic Bay is 6.1 seconds of "On" time. This will never change. The feed gate is an independent part that is purely manual and mechanical, and will not change this time either.

The feed gate blocks the auger cover hole. The lower you put it, the less fuel. You must watch how low.you set it, as you may go to low, and the stove will not receive enough pellets for ignition on the next Call for Heat. If you run on High a ppt, its best to set the gate to where Heatilators recommend (4"-6" above pot on High).

As for Low, if your heat loss is greater than the BTU output on the stove, then it wont get it done. The heat exchange system is about the only other thing thats different between a Quad and a Heatilator (Shell/exterior is the other). Quads have a far superior system to extract heat.

As for you not being able to adjust the gate on low (unsustainable fire)? Have you tried a different pellet? Some pellets create a Much Larger Flame than other pellets? Thats why the feed gate is there, to adjust for pellet quality, keeping.the flame 4"-6" above the pot (on high).

Here are some papers on a Quad, but same goes for your unit. Even the times should be about the same? My Classic Bay is rated at 47,500 BTU. Having the same controller, it should be very close to these #'s. Its a good troubleshooting guide.

we have the PS50,and we have pretty much settled on feed gate wide open running on low the majority of the time....This is how Dex has his Quad set up and it is working for us.......I will say that the ProPellets we just finished up a couple of bags of burned with a bigger flame than others{GT,Lignetics,Pres-to-logs,easy heats} so we did close the feed gate a bit.....We had a few misfires also,but I removed the ceramic thermocouple cover and got the ash out of it,reinstalled it{as previously mentioned making sure it is pushed up to the TC tip} No misfires since.... Good luck!

dave

http://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/...r-hopper-in-regards-to-pellets-sticking.6035/

just linking that thread because pellets sticking in the hopper is another reason for misfires with various brands of stoves.

Trying to find the happy medium. With oil we used to keep the house at 67 and that was a little chilly. Our house is 1500 sq ft and med with the cab50 kept it at 70 with the feed gate about a 1/3 closed with temps about 30. 10 hrs about a half bag on med. Flame on the low side but peaks about 4-6 when it's given a lot of fuel. Haven't gotten a programmable thermostat yet. I believe that will help. I bought 3 tons for this season and hoping not to need more. First season and have to find the right combination. Help? Using Premium wood pellets Made in Maine by TC. So to make sure I'm getting this. And thank you. on Medium.. feed open full or low it will get the same amount of fuel?

The feed amount will change, based on the gate setting. The "time" will be the same (6.1 seconds).

The gate is like a carburetor. Open the gate (slide up) and you get more fuel, close the gate (down) and less fuel. If you.look in the hopper, you will see you are only covering the auger feed hole up with the plate/gate. The more you cover the hole, the less the auger can grab.

(Example: Gate wide open on Medium. The auger will cycle on and run for 6.1 seconds and dump 3.5 lbs of pellets per hour, or 28,000 BTU's. So you are getting Max BTU's on Med.
Now close the gate and you may only get 2 lbs an hour from the same 6.1 seconds and that only amounts to 16,000 BTU.)
These #'s are just fictional #'s and are only an example.

So you get less heat from the same setting. Less fuel= less heat.
:
If you ask a dealer or a quad tech, they will probably tell you to set the gate to the specified flame height, according to the manual. No matter what setting you run on. I want max BTU from the lowest setting, so I run wide open.

Its trial and error. But remember, if you set the gate at a lower setting and you didnt check it on High (4"-6"), then your stove may not start, because the gate is set to low and not enough pellets get fed for the start up cycle. So if you set it pretty low, switch it to High and make sure your flame still reaches that set-point. Otherwise a misfire may happen.

Hope this helps.

It totally helps! All the information you've all given has been invaluable! I did the dollar bill test and it is tight on the bottom and and in between the hinges but the top middle towards latch and latch side not as tight. I can pull the dollar bill out easier than the other side. I remember reading there is an adjustment that can be done to make it tighter. But I can not find it. I also noticed the ash that sometimes builds up on the glass is always from the top right corner all the way through the middle to the hinge side and goes from top to bottom on latch side. Any ideas?

Best I can tell you is in Tennessee last winter I used 1.5 tons and that was burning and turning a constant 74 ish in the house. 1400 sq ft.

Worked for me.

Post#5 from kinsmanstoves
http://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/anyone-know-how-to-test-a-snap-disc.86248/#post-1112314

I'd do some checking. For kicks, I just started playing with my feed gate. All the way closed mine will fire up on low and cycle on and off like a champ.

Now I am trying midway on the slide for the hell of it.

Mine runs super on medium with the feed gate as closed as it can go. Tested on high and fits the bill with the pellets I'm using. 4-6 inch flame on high, and keeps the nights at 70-71 at night. Been in the high 20's. I shut off for several hours and the house kept its 70-72 for that whole time. Once sun set turned back on. We have 2 story cape and live in Central CT. Last year mild. Believe this year going to be much colder. Last year friend of mine only burned about 2 ton up here. Even he believes we may burn 3 ton +. I think I may have to get more. Trying to conserve while it's still on the mild side.