Invincible RS freestanding Under burn problem

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Chettf

New Member
Jan 21, 2010
13
South Berwick ME
As you can see, Im a newbie. I have owned this old harman for about two months. Bought used and completely ripped off. I was having all sorts of problems. I have fixed all problems except one. The combustion blower does not stay on high i.e the run light is dimmer than the distro fan light. I can also tell by placing the feed knob in test and the light gets brighter on the combustion motor indicating light.

I have replaced the combustion motor, the feed motor, the feed assy, the esp probe, and the circuit board.

I run the RS on stove temp 5 distro blower high, feed rate 3, using Okanagans...When I come home from 9-10 hrs of work there is still pellets in the hopper(good thing) however, there is an over abundance of pellets in the burn pot and most of them falling into the ash pan still red hot unburned.

I have cleaned all six heat exchanger tubes till my hands bleed carbon. Even though I was ripped off because of my stupidity, I want to make this stove work well. I have put too much into it and nearly replaced everything in it.

What am I missing here? Any suggestions will help. I have used this forum religiously for the past couple weeks and now I want to be a pellet snob, I can not let this stove defeat me. I must prevail.

Thank you in advance,
Chett
Invincible RS Freestanding with 2 tons of OK's in the garage and lots of unburned pellets in the ash pan!!!
 
InvincibleRS said:
As you can see, Im a newbie. I have owned this old harman for about two months. Bought used and completely ripped off. I was having all sorts of problems. I have fixed all problems except one. The combustion blower does not stay on high i.e the run light is dimmer than the distro fan light. I can also tell by placing the feed knob in test and the light gets brighter on the combustion motor indicating light.

I have replaced the combustion motor, the feed motor, the feed assy, the esp probe, and the circuit board.

I run the RS on stove temp 5 distro blower high, feed rate 3, using Okanagans...When I come home from 9-10 hrs of work there is still pellets in the hopper(good thing) however, there is an over abundance of pellets in the burn pot and most of them falling into the ash pan still red hot unburned.

I have cleaned all six heat exchanger tubes till my hands bleed carbon. Even though I was ripped off because of my stupidity, I want to make this stove work well. I have put too much into it and nearly replaced everything in it.

What am I missing here? Any suggestions will help. I have used this forum religiously for the past couple weeks and now I want to be a pellet snob, I can not let this stove defeat me. I must prevail.

Thank you in advance,
Chett
Invincible RS Freestanding with 2 tons of OK's in the garage and lots of unburned pellets in the ash pan!!!

lol- any stove can be fixed, and those R/S's are amazing........sounds still like an ESP probe or circuitboard.....and you replaced it!
 
I'd hope you have cleaned far more than the heat exchanger tubes. The entire air path from the air intake through to the exhaust vent termination should be be cleaned.

Things to use are stiff flexible handled brushes, a good strong shop vacuum with the correct filter, and last but not least a leaf blower that has a vacuum attachment.

Tracing the airflow through the stove is a good way to find all of the ash hidey holes.

littlesmokey is likely to disallow your request to be a pellet snob, you are burning a true snob stove and that is against the principles of the non snobbyness of the pellet snobs and for heavens sake don't tell him about the large amount of Oakies. That's a no no right there.
 
I know its funny. I would think that if the probe was getting dirty that the stove would sense the decrease in exhaust temp in tell the combustion blower to work faster and to keep the feed rate going more frequently. I am really stumped. Maybe its the off chance that I got a new board with the same type of blower control issue. If Im that lucky I playing the lottery for sure.
 
SmokeyTheBear said:
I'd hope you have cleaned far more than the heat exchanger tubes. The entire air path from the air intake through to the exhaust vent termination should be be cleaned.

Things to use are stiff flexible handled brushes, a good strong shop vacuum with the correct filter, and last but not least a leaf blower that has a vacuum attachment.

Tracing the airflow through the stove is a good way to find all of the ash hidey holes.

littlesmokey is likely to disallow your request to be a pellet snob, you are burning a true snob stove and that is against the principles of the non snobbyness of the pellet snobs and for heavens sake don't tell him about the large amount of Oakies. That's a no no right there.

I hear you loud and clear. I have used the cleaning brush in the side air intakes and left the dampers removed. I also blew all air intakes out with a portable 120# air compressor. I did all my cleaning with the combustion blower removed.

For edification what pellets do you propose I use, A hardwood and what brand?

I appreciate your help. Please keep it coming.
 
InvincibleRS said:
SmokeyTheBear said:
I'd hope you have cleaned far more than the heat exchanger tubes. The entire air path from the air intake through to the exhaust vent termination should be be cleaned.

Things to use are stiff flexible handled brushes, a good strong shop vacuum with the correct filter, and last but not least a leaf blower that has a vacuum attachment.

Tracing the airflow through the stove is a good way to find all of the ash hidey holes.

littlesmokey is likely to disallow your request to be a pellet snob, you are burning a true snob stove and that is against the principles of the non snobbishness of the pellet snobs and for heavens sake don't tell him about the large amount of Oakies. That's a no no right there.

I hear you loud and clear. I have used the cleaning brush in the side air intakes and left the dampers removed. I also blew all air intakes out with a portable 120# air compressor. I did all my cleaning with the combustion blower removed.

For edification what pellets do you propose I use, A hardwood and what brand?

I appreciate your help. Please keep it coming.

I just want to make certain that you understand that ash hides really well inside the air paths of pellet stoves and it sounds like you have the pusher version of a puffer pile up. Also is there an adjustment for draft on the control board? Other Harman stoves have the high draft set at the factory and the low draft is available for adjustment. Requires a magnehelic to set it up at time of install.

No no , the Oakies are just fine, it is the fact that you want to be a pellet snob and you have way too many pellets on hand and they are shall we say a snobs pellet and that is against the principles of the non snobbishness of the pellet snobs. Tell him you have a couple bags of natures heat, Maine's choice, MWP, and ACP.
 
THere is an adjuster on the board. The Harman dealer said that it is for higher elevations. I will investigate that one. Any handy tricks to clean out the air ways of the stove. I also bored out the holes on the burn pot for increased air flow. I did so much that it only comes to me when writing it all out in responses. Maybe I can borrow a boroscope from work and see if there are any types of ask deposits that I am missing.

I just tossed out all of my pellets on the driveway to help with traction on the snow/ice. Im down to a couple bags of saw dust. Am I closing in on the snob part?
 
I think you just nailed the snob part in regards to pellets, both the amount of and quality of requirements. Now the fact you are burning a Harman is left to take care of.


There is an air chamber below the burn pot on other Harman stoves, ash and crud can get there and reduce air flow. There are two vent covers on either side of the burn pot on other Harman stoves and baffles above the fire pot. I'm flying blind here because I haven't located a manual for your stove. Google Fu is not working tonight.

A leaf blower suction attachment on the exhaust vent outside your house.
 
SmokeyTheBear said:
I think you just nailed the snob part in regards to pellets, both the amount of and quality of requirements. Now the fact you are burning a Harman is left to take care of.


There is an air chamber below the burn pot on other Harman stoves, ash and crud can get there and reduce air flow. There are two vent covers on either side of the burn pot on other Harman stoves and baffles above the fire pot. I'm flying blind here because I haven't located a manual for your stove. Google Fu is not working tonight.

A leaf blower suction attachment on the exhaust vent outside your house.

The air chamber below the pot is crystal clean, its a new feed assy. I have the manual and I have cleaned the air intakes on the outside sides. I have also taken off the inside guards and the divider plate to clean the heat exchanger tubes. As for the vent, its a pellet stove liner inside an existing chimney.

After I had buyers remorse for over spending on the stove I was looking at a Enviro Omega or its little brother. Both looked great and I liked the build. When this "Harman" is working well it heats a 3000 sq ft house to 76 top to bottom with no dinosaur hurt in the process. Ill be it a lofted salt box colonial but the heat is awesome. I really dont want to waste the BTU's in the ash pan. I will let it run for a few more days. Then I am going to tear it down and do the annual cleaning again. See if the ESP is caked and try and root out the culprit.
Thanks for all the options. Time will tell.
 
Time to look up that vent then just in case it is plugged with a bird nest, a lodged tight raccoon, or a roosting wild turkey and do see about getting a mag on the stove just to see what the draft through it actually is.

You have either too much fuel being feed or too little air going through the system.

Is there a trim control for the auger?
 
SmokeyTheBear said:
Time to look up that vent then just in case it is plugged with a bird nest, a lodged tight raccoon, or a roosting wild turkey and do see about getting a mag on the stove just to see what the draft through it actually is.

You have either too much fuel being feed or too little air going through the system.

Is there a trim control for the auger?

My buddy is a chimney sweep. Ill have him run his pipe cleaner down it just to be safe. I am not really sure what a mag is though? THe feed system is just a timer for the motor. setting 3 is 30 sec running in a 1 minute span. I have no other way of adjusting. I should be able to run it in stove mode 7 without pellets dumping over the side.

I will definitely check the pipe and give the airways a good lashing.
 
InvincibleRS said:
SmokeyTheBear said:
Time to look up that vent then just in case it is plugged with a bird nest, a lodged tight raccoon, or a roosting wild turkey and do see about getting a mag on the stove just to see what the draft through it actually is.

You have either too much fuel being feed or too little air going through the system.

Is there a trim control for the auger?

My buddy is a chimney sweep. Ill have him run his pipe cleaner down it just to be safe. I am not really sure what a mag is though? THe feed system is just a timer for the motor. setting 3 is 30 sec running in a 1 minute span. I have no other way of adjusting. I should be able to run it in stove mode 7 without pellets dumping over the side.

I will definitely check the pipe and give the airways a good lashing.

A mag is a magnahelic used to measure draft. If your draft is incorrect you'll have poor burn characterisitcs.
 
InvincibleRS said:
SmokeyTheBear said:
Time to look up that vent then just in case it is plugged with a bird nest, a lodged tight raccoon, or a roosting wild turkey and do see about getting a mag on the stove just to see what the draft through it actually is.

You have either too much fuel being feed or too little air going through the system.

Is there a trim control for the auger?

My buddy is a chimney sweep. Ill have him run his pipe cleaner down it just to be safe. I am not really sure what a mag is though? THe feed system is just a timer for the motor. setting 3 is 30 sec running in a 1 minute span. I have no other way of adjusting. I should be able to run it in stove mode 7 without pellets dumping over the side.

I will definitely check the pipe and give the airways a good lashing.

mag = magnehelic which is a draft gauge it will tell you if the draft is correct, the technical manual for the stove should have the proper values for each feed rate in it.

It is common for there to be a fine adjustment on feed systems. While the timing is listed as being fixed it is still possible for the feed to be adjusted by varying the timing in very small increments or adjusting the the speed at which the auger is turning. Once again this information is likely to be in the technical manual.

Please note I'm not saying your particular stove has that ability, just that it frequently does exist and isn't always divulged in the normal manuals that the user receives with the stove.
 
rap69ri said:
InvincibleRS said:
SmokeyTheBear said:
Time to look up that vent then just in case it is plugged with a bird nest, a lodged tight raccoon, or a roosting wild turkey and do see about getting a mag on the stove just to see what the draft through it actually is.

You have either too much fuel being feed or too little air going through the system.

Is there a trim control for the auger?

My buddy is a chimney sweep. Ill have him run his pipe cleaner down it just to be safe. I am not really sure what a mag is though? THe feed system is just a timer for the motor. setting 3 is 30 sec running in a 1 minute span. I have no other way of adjusting. I should be able to run it in stove mode 7 without pellets dumping over the side.

I will definitely check the pipe and give the airways a good lashing.

A mag is a magnahelic used to measure draft. If your draft is incorrect you'll have poor burn characterisitcs.

I checked my exhaust pipe and Its not a super seal with the exhaust stub from the stove and the vent pipe. I wonder if tightening up this will help with the draft. I will look at putting a magnehelic into the vent pipe so I can see it. This would be dependent on the wind forces outside correct?
 
You also need to do the dollar bill test for proper gasket seals. I didn't see that you have replaced any of the gaskets. If these are marginal you wind up with poor air flow through the burn pot and a bad burn.
 
InvincibleRS said:
rap69ri said:
InvincibleRS said:
SmokeyTheBear said:
Time to look up that vent then just in case it is plugged with a bird nest, a lodged tight raccoon, or a roosting wild turkey and do see about getting a mag on the stove just to see what the draft through it actually is.

You have either too much fuel being feed or too little air going through the system.

Is there a trim control for the auger?

My buddy is a chimney sweep. Ill have him run his pipe cleaner down it just to be safe. I am not really sure what a mag is though? THe feed system is just a timer for the motor. setting 3 is 30 sec running in a 1 minute span. I have no other way of adjusting. I should be able to run it in stove mode 7 without pellets dumping over the side.

I will definitely check the pipe and give the airways a good lashing.

A mag is a magnahelic used to measure draft. If your draft is incorrect you'll have poor burn characterisitcs.

I checked my exhaust pipe and Its not a super seal with the exhaust stub from the stove and the vent pipe. I wonder if tightening up this will help with the draft. I will look at putting a magnehelic into the vent pipe so I can see it. This would be dependent on the wind forces outside correct?

The proper draft is actually a small range and it is measured where the external effects of things like wind do not play a role.

ETA Yes any spot that is supposed to be sealed that isn't can have an effect on the functioning of the stove.
 
What is the best type of connection from the exhaust pipe to the vent pipe? Should this be an air tight connection or is a couple of self tapping screws adequate?
 
The connection is supposed to be gas tight and code requires that all vent joints to be secured by three screws.

Normally there is a stove adapter which is followed by the what most folks consider to be venting, the stove adapter is part of the venting.
 
I'm certainly not an expert but have been running a harman P68 and I live in the next town over from you (Eliot). If you need a hand send me a PM. I'll help out as best I can.
JB
 
InvincibleRS,

Now that the required hit them with the importance of completely cleaning a stove, especially one that was used has been dispensed with, welcome to the forums.

Now for the next cause of burn issues. Your venting system, can you describe your vent setup. Need the size pf the pipe 3" or 4", whatever, lengths and types of bends, etc ....

This information will be converted into an effective vertical vent length (EVL), each size of pipe has a limit to the value of the EVL above which causes burn issues due to a reduction in combustion air.
 
make sure that the circuit board dip switches are set properly for you stove and for your esp probe... also check the microswitch that hits the weighted end of the feeder yoke when it is done w/ a revolution. If it does not engage, the auger will go on and on thinking the slider plate won't retract.
 
summit said:
make sure that the circuit board dip switches are set properly for you stove and for your esp probe... also check the microswitch that hits the weighted end of the feeder yoke when it is done w/ a revolution. If it does not engage, the auger will go on and on thinking the slider plate won't retract.

I was going to mention this. if you get the 2 blinky status light when you turn the unit to "off" then for sure, its the microswitch.
very astute summit.
 
if your circuitboard has the dip switches, it does NOT have the hookup for the microswitch....was phased out due to the fact it was problematic. The "new" circuitboards have the dipswitch...the "old" ones dont. Now, is the circuitboard a single board, or is it actually TWO boards (motherboard and daughterboard)? I would reccomend forgetting about the microswitch.....makes me wonder though, if the board was replaced, if the leads were hooked up in the right spot on the board......the orignal board would have ha d a hookup for the electrical bus, the room sensing probe, the ESP probe, and the microswitch. Subsequent replacement boards did away with the microswitch leads, although some were actually jumpered as well......

As for draft....VERY IMPORTANT.....depending on the range of the magnehelic, most of them should "peg" out in TEST mode if the stove is clean and there is no vent blockage and/or intake blockage.

as far as ESP's are concerned...what color is the wire? Black or red? Should be black.
 
Lousyweather said:
if your circuitboard has the dip switches, it does NOT have the hookup for the microswitch....was phased out due to the fact it was problematic. The "new" circuitboards have the dipswitch...the "old" ones dont. Now, is the circuitboard a single board, or is it actually TWO boards (motherboard and daughterboard)? I would reccomend forgetting about the microswitch.....makes me wonder though, if the board was replaced, if the leads were hooked up in the right spot on the board......the orignal board would have ha d a hookup for the electrical bus, the room sensing probe, the ESP probe, and the microswitch. Subsequent replacement boards did away with the microswitch leads, although some were actually jumpered as well......

As for draft....VERY IMPORTANT.....depending on the range of the magnehelic, most of them should "peg" out in TEST mode if the stove is clean and there is no vent blockage and/or intake blockage.

as far as ESP's are concerned...what color is the wire? Black or red? Should be black.

The board is single and its the new one with out the microswitch. I dont know what the dipswitch is? I think that there is a draft control on the board in the center. Not sure on the directional requirement for it. I dont have a magnehelic nor do I really know where to use/place it on the vent. The vent is 4" and is installed per the manual for using an existing chimney, i.e not an existing fireplace. I replaced a wood stove with this pellet stove. All vent pipes are new.

THe gasket that I will replace is the door gasket. I RTD the hell out of the window gaskets and the hopper.

The only time I can get the combustion blower into its highest speed in when I put feed knob in test. Everything electrical is hooked up per the manual. The ESP probe is new with black wires.

I am really appreciating all the help.
 
Just did the dollar bill test. I was able to put twenty dollars in the door gasket. Looks like I need some rope gasket. This will Change the "Draft" but will it change the board to tell the combustion motor to run in FAST?
 
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