Mt Vernon Quadrafire won't ignite
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Ok, so I jumped the van switch with the hopper empty and still…..nothing. No auger movement at all
Reading the flow chart, I see "heat exchanger blockage" What exactly is that and how can I check it for blockage? I'm not sure what the heat exchanger even looks like honestly
The heat exchanger tubes above the heat shield. The entire exhaust path is what needs to be checked to make sure there is no blockage. this means thru the stove, and all exhaust pipe. If you don't have an owners manual, go to Quads website and download one so you can see what we are talking about. It takes a bit to get deflector off and panels to clean. But, with the vac switch jumped and auger still didn't run, means there is something else wrong. Jumping the vac switch tells you if there is a vacuum problem, whether it be blocked exhaust, vac hose, nipple, bad door gasket, or bad vac switch. kap
Hmm. Ok, I had the pellet stove cleaned by a local company 2 weeks ago and they took the baffles out and vacuumed everything out, but after they left it looked to me the baffles weren't put back in right. So I took an allen wrench and took the back panel off, right panel and top panel. Everything looked fine to me, so I put the panels back in place and screwed the back panel in just the way it was. Could that have had anything to do with it? I also had the pipe off to put in a pipe adaptor that these guys said I needed. So the pipe was apart and re-installed also
So should I have the vacuum switch jumped at the same time as the snap disc #2? Because I did one at a time before
xSpecBx
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What about the hopper lid switch? Or has this already been ruled out by some other piece of information?
It would still be nice for your father in law to be there with his testing equipment when the stove is calling for heat and the auger isn't running as he can trace where power is, and power isn't. If everything you guys did was correct, then all it leaves is the control box. Wire and wire connections can do strange things. kap
No hopper lid switch on this stove. I'll try jumping both the vac switch and the snap disc #2 at the same time and see what happens. The control box is about 2 months old if that. So I don't think that could be the issue. My father in law will be here thursday for thanksgiving and if I don't get it figured out by then, he will be bringing his tools/meters along to check it all out
So I tried jumping both the snap disc#2 and the vacuum switch at the same time and voila! The auger started to work. So I unplugged it again, took off the jumper from the snap disc #2 and left the vacuum switch jumped and it still worked! So I'm thinking its the vacuum switch thats the culprit. So what to do now????
Up above you said you had the vac switch jumped and it didn't work when the hopper was empty. Something is not kosher here. I would try running it a while with the vac switch jumped just to see if it does it again.(Insert non responsibility here as it is a safety feature) lol
yup, this is true, i had it jumped before and it didn't do anything. This time when they were both jumped, it worked. Then after re attaching the snap disc wires and trying again, it still worked. What is the worse case scenario running it with the vac switch jumped?
The switch is a safety feature. It shuts down the auger if there is no vacuum present in the firebox. This can be due to plugged exhaust, broke glass in door, open door. I have had people run with it bypassed to have heat. Going thru the posts on here, I am wondering if it still isn't #2 disc? It is still the common denominator here as you hit the reset on it once and things worked. Maybe try hooking switch back up and see if it works? There is a bad part, or bad wire connection somewhere. And I would be curious as to why stove shuts down. If the convection fan quits working aka #1 snap disc, the stove will get hot and #2 snap disc will shut auger off.
Ok great info kap. So I had the door gasket replaced two weeks ago when I had the stove cleaned and its very tight now. I wouldn't think that would be an issue. If it was my only source of heat, I'd run it to be warm, but I want to get it fixed properly so I don't have to worry about it. I'm thinking it could be snap disc #2 as well just because I've reset it before and it worked after. Also, just to note, the day I had to reset it was the same day it was cleaned by this company who also replaced the door gasket. Don't know if that could be a related issue or not. Anyway, I tried hooking the switch back up and it didn't start the auger unfortunately. The fan didn't ever stop working the time it shut itself down. I was in the room when it happened. The fire got real low and pellets stopped falling. I tried hitting the reset button, but nothing happened. The blower continued to blow out the warm air and the fan was still going. It slowly shut itself down thereafter. I was able to push the snap disc #2 little plastic button down which I'm guessing it "snapped" and it worked fine for days. Don't know why it snapped, but I believe it has a 200 degree limit then it pops for safety? Does that mean if it gets up to 201 degrees around the disc it will shut down? Here is another scenario, when they cleaned the stove and removed the baffles (inside walls) I'm not convinced they put them back in properly. It looks like there is a gap in the top left back corner now, almost like they weren't put back in the right order. The right side looks fine, the back panel has a lip on the top which holds the top in place, but the left side looks off to me. There is a lip at the top which appears to be holding the left wall in place, but I almost think the left side panel should be in front of the lip as opposed to behind it? If this doesn't make sense, maybe I can take a pic and post it and you can give me your opinion. I appreciate all the help guys!
If you have a manual, it shows positions of panels, or start a new post on em so others with the same stove can help. And plugging switch back in and it didn't work tells us something is wrong there. If you unplugged it and the stove worked again. kap
Yes.... it's best to take a picture for us. They are not the easiest thing to put back together right. They just don't slide in like butter you know. But I doubt seriously this is of any consequence in relation to your problem. When you look at Box 5 on the diagram on the 1st page of this thread, you'll see the list of things that can affect a start up problem like yours. Everything to me points to inconsistencies in wiring connections somewhere. It's a new control box you say, so that strikes that out as the cause. I've been having similar problems with either Box 5 sequence and/or Box 3, since my stove was new 7/8 years ago. Mainly I have always had problems with the igniter relay clicking on and then off. So first question; are you getting the relay click on for igniter, when signal is sent to stove to turn on ....and does it stay on or click back off? I learned to equate this sound or not with there either being block 2 failure with pellets fed or a sometimes with no pellets fed and clicking back off or not clicking at all. This has happened at least once if not many times a year since my stove was new. The click on and click off do sound different in the control Box during that startup sequence. Note that difference for future reference. You can try to jiggle the control box or wires in the wire harness card edge slot connector at startup. To see if you get any clicking of the relay or auger movement. I'd get a click on and be good sometimes for months and sometimes just minutes, till it would click off. These startup sequences pretty much overlap.... basically mere fractions or no more than a few seconds at most apart. You get the relay click and the pellets start to drop at about the same time, within a moment of it's mv (millivolt) thermostat signal to stove. You could also jumper the thermostat connections on back and then just use the wall plug to eliminate that as one of your issues.
What could cause these 'first it's there, then it isn't' issues with then it working? I don't know for sure. But I think it all relates to inconsistent wiring connections within the wire harness slot edge connector. At least in my case. Either caused by poor wire harness assembly, the fact that they're just crimped on (rather than soldered) or a thickness difference in card edge slots sizes, between 1st and 2nd gen control boxes (latest version is clear/opaque plastic and you can see inside except for label cover). What happened when I bought mine is that it was a floor model and they had been putting both 1st/2nd gen control boxes in it from customer's to test them out.... stretched the contact points... etc I just don't know. But mine absolutely needs to be replaced at this point.
So anyway, I started jiggling the control box and wires one at a time. That's when I could get a few relay clicks the first time it happened in the first year I owned it. But it didn't fix it for long. So then I pulled it apart to diagnose the problem better. Couldn't decide whether the problem was the control box or wire harness connector. So I had a friend with the same stove bring over his Quadrafire control box, after a couple of times of this happening and it still would not start with a known good control box. After further messing with it I still had relay click, but no feed this time and relay would click off. Knew I was onto something this time, but I'd already taken it apart as far as I could to solve the problem. I then took the stove into the shop closest to me. Swapping out control box, ruled that out as the problem to me. But when they saw that I'd broke the seal on the control box, taken panels and back sheet metal off, they immediately told me that voided my warranty on a stove barely 6 month old. It was in late spring so I used a couple of electric heaters to get by that season. This is why I won't be going back to that shop ever again. Long story short along with trying to con me for a new control box and a whole new wiring harness, before even fully testing it out, I said enough. We carried it out to the loading dock. I connected it up to power outlet and jumpered the thermostat w/ a screwdriver. The igniter relay clicked on, pellets fed and it fired right up. Their jaws dropped and faces turned sour as my son and I disconnected and loaded up in the jeep and I flipped them off driving away. Some of these Pellet Stove Businesses seem to be run by scam artists to me. Charging more than it's worth for parts on such simple technology. Anyway it must have got jiggled moving it!
But when I got it home..... I was right back where I started with no clicks or pellets again. OMG I was ready to cry. This time I found that it was the thermostat wires being lose though and had in running in no time for months again. Then the next season I found that wires inside the stove were again not making good consistent connections. Either with the control board slot connections or the wires connecting to the contacts in the slot edge connector (defective assembly). So I finally traced out which connections weren't consistently making contact and it happened to be several wires, not just one in the card edge slot connector. The main one though, for me was the wire for getting the igniter heating up with a relay click on till thermocouple heated up, to click it off. Yours may be the vacuum and you may be not getting the igniter relay click at all or on and then off. This time I just jiggled the whole box, got a click and pellets were already feeding as it clicked off, with still no fire. Totally frustrated, I'm now thinking all my original problems relate to that card edge slot connector. All centered on the contacts inside that card edge slot connector not hitting the control board slot edge with solid contact.
So I pulled it apart, got a magnifying glass, some really bright lighting and noticed some weren't crimped on properly over bare wire. One looked like it had been crimped on without stripping insulation properly. That one turns out was the igniter relay. Plus the contacts looked to have been pushed in too far and stuck in. Possibly by a thickness variance in control box slot edges. Which would create a gap, with poor contact within the connector itself. My experience with card slot connectors of this crimp type has not been a good one. These crimped style are for automotive use and DC works different than AC. DC voltage will tend to make a connection even with a slight gap as long as connections are clean. AC has to be clean and actually making full physical contact and so it's best if they are soldered. Also be careful when you are dealing with the wiring on this stove, as it's got hot 110v AC the igniter at least. I'm not sure if there is any DC in the control box at all. From my experience you'll have better connections with wires being soldered into these card slot connectors running AC. That's why jiggling wires or the control box itself in the slot sometimes can work, to fix your problems. Just be careful is all. If you have somebody turn the lights off while jiggling/ tweaking the box, you might see sparks indicating the bad connection points. That would be your problem connection, if find that you hear igniter relay clicking on, yet get no pellets feeding the stove.
I've looked for the part number on that card slot connector for replacement. Nothing there and I've found all kinds of 2 x 15 card edge slot connectors online. After trying in vain to get another local stove shop to get one for me instead of being forced to buy a whole wiring harness and installing it. They all want to sell me the entire wire harness to fix a connector problem I've already isolated. Now what I need is the exact part number or spacing/pitch, card length and thickness to get the right one. Otherwise I'll just solder the wire harness to the control box and call it good, the next time it happens. Maybe find someone here with either the part number or the information on the proper 2 x 15 wire slot edge connector I need. Here's one to look at: Down the page you see Winchester Card Edge slot connector 8BD15DBCO https://www.surplussales.com/ComputerAccess/con_edge.html
Your problem though, may still be with that #2 snap disc, a vacuum problem or the wires connecting the disc or vacuum switch to the control board. But it sounds to me like you are having wire connection problems somewhere in your stove! .....hope you get it figured out soon, even if it's not that card edge slot connector! (between I just replaced that tadpole door gasket myself for $19 off ebay vs super expensive local pricing, to have it done for me. A 20 minute job for me!)
**Update** I had a friend of a friend who is a tech come over and check it out Tuesday night. He disconnected the vacuum hose from the auger and sucked air through it a few times, hooked it back up and it worked fine and has been working fine since. Its ran 24 hours a day since Tuesday night with the exception of one night it ran out of pellets and another time I shut it down to clean it. So far so good again fingers crossed. Thanks for the info SantaQuad
Good to hear and I hope this simple fix lasts. I kind of agree with kap.... that it doesn't make sense, but who are we to argue with success? :D
In the meantime I'm still worried about the next time my connection problem returns. Like in Murphy's Law..... it'll be when it's the coldest. But it's too bad I don't have someone like kappel 15 around here working, I'd hire them in a second. So far I've only talked to one friend that's had good experiences with stove shops and repairs where I live!
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