On A Roll, P43 Acting Up Again

Since I tried to hijack another thread , I thought I would start my own and see what you guys think. My stove started doing this. Immediately after the pellets light, the auger runs nonstop and pushes the fire and pellets out of the burn pot and into the ash pan. I immediately thought air flow problem. What is interesting is if I stop the flow of pellets, let it catch up and heat up and then resume it, it runs perfectly. If I shut it down and start it cold, we do it all over again. Needless, to say, I don't really trust it currently. I just cleaned it last Saturday, including the stove pipe, and it ran fine until Wednesday. ESP problems?

Are you running "room temp" or "stove temp" ?

When I start it it has been in room temp. After starting, and getting going, it works in either.

When you say "cleaned it" does that include the exhaust path inside the stove? The combustion fan and ESP probe are found in that path.

Yes it does, top to bottom, front to back.

Thanks.

It sounds like it could be ESP related. Do you have a spare ESP to try?

I do not, but I am in contact with the repairman, who will be getting back to me in an hour or so. I am most likely going to get a service call. It is still under warranty, otherwise, I would just go buy one and spend 2 minutes installing it. ESP is what I thought, since as soon as I assume it senses the heat from start up, it fires up the auger.

Sounds like the stove is not able to determine if it has a fire or not. When you say it dumps the pellets and fire, does it then shut down or try to reignite? When the auger is spinning is it feeding fresh pellets? I would also test a cold start on stove temp mode. You would bypass the temp probe, that would eliminate if your issue is related to input. ESP and temp probe are your possible culprits.

It just kept feeding unburned pellets in and then out of the burn pot into the ash pan, which had a nice fire going on Wednesday morning I might add. It never tried to shutdown Wednesday morning. Since then, I obviously have not let it progress that far, but far enough to have a completely full burn pot with fire, with burning pellets going over the edge, all the while with the auger running. I can also see it beginning to overwhelm what fire is going in the burn pot.

I will fire it up in stove temp tonight and see what happens, and update. At least we can eliminate one culprit. Thanks.

I have a service call scheduled for Monday.

Dip switches could be adjusted to pull back the initial load of pellets during start up, that way when it feeds the fire the pot doesn't over flow when it senses ignition and pushes in more pellets. I noticed with my new E board that it has a tendency to overfill the pot a bit, but I don't get spill over. However, if it was just fine and now it's not (unless you recently changed pellets), I wouldn't fiddle with anything because dip switch adjustment could just mask and underlying problem.

I'd lean towards no on this one. If there was an ESP issue, the stove wouldn't feed after the initial startup batch of pellets. When the target temp is hit, then the stove switches from ignition feed to set feed rate on the dial.

I started in stove temp mode last night. No change. This is moments after ignition


This is a few minutes later. Notice how fire is being squeezed into the corner of the burn pot and over the edge.





And this is 5 or so minutes later after I intervened and opened the lid to stop the flow of pellets and then closed once a lot of the pellets were burned off. This appears to be normal to me at this point.



My question is this. When heat is detected by the ESP after ignition, I assume it is then the ESP running the show as far as telling the system how many pellets to feed? Or is that handled by some other part in the system? Thanks.

I'm going with esp issue also

lets say you turn the unit off...you wait for it to shut down, you clean the burnpot, then turn it back on...how long, in rough minutes, does it take to ignite? I ask because if you have delayed ignition, and the stove begins to feed pellets (in theory to attempt ignition again) and then you get ignition, it will most certainly overfeed.

After seeing those pics it looks like your getting a late ignition. I think you said the stove runs well after everything settles? If it does then I am going to move the igniter in as suspect based on the updated info. There are a few easy things you can try. tap the top of the burn pot with the harman cleaning tool to knock off any ash that may be acumulated on the igniter. Take off the igniter access panel and clean the area under the burn pot. Also check that the none of the burnpot holes are clogged. Push a finish nail through the holes to open them up if needed.

i have also heard that some people will put the unit into "test" before they turn the unit on...do not do this, if you happen to be...only do this if you run the unit out of pellets to prime the auger.

Unfortunately, I have been through all those cleaning items previously, and numerous times, since Wednesday. I was a little foggy this morning when I said immediately after ignition. That was actually probably a minute or 2 after. I forgot to take a picture at the exact moment, but it ignited with a small amount (what I deem normal) of pellets with flame roughly 3/4 across the burn pot. Then the auger kicks in and ruins it all. It generally takes something like 5 minutes or less to light. Occasionally, it takes longer, but not recently during this episode.

The only time I use test is during cleaning to suck out the ash on the loose.

Ok. So you are getting ignition with a normal amount of pellets in the pot. The auger continues to push new pellets in and what the pictures are showing is the result. If you stop the feed of pellets and let the pellets burn down then restore the auger the stove operates without issue. The ESP is still on the radar screen for me.

Does the status light blink? What happens when you put the stove in test when stove is cold? When you put stove in test does the ignitor light on the board come on?(it should not). Does this happen in stove mode too?

Repairman showed up today with a new ESP probe. First startup and problem remained. So, he shut it down and replaced circuit board. When that was completed, and restarted, the situation appeared to be better. He asked me to test a couple more times and let him know the results. After first cold start, situation remains. He has requested a call back from the local Harman Rep. that lives close by. He says it kind of acts like an obstruction, but there isn't one anywhere that he can find. The search continues.

Is your flippen flapper flippen when it should be flappin?

No sir, my flippin flapper is flappen like the flippin flapper should. Or so it appears, it is open and flappin away.

Well that is one possible obstruction removed from the list.

Is your termination cap clean?

Yes it is. Repair guy just called and still perplexed. Wants me to look under the igniter again and root around to make sure nothing is hiding in the air passage, even though he looked earlier today. This all while I sit here with the stove going like hell on 6 with a great flame in stove temp mode. I may never shut it off again.........

Don't forget the so called muffler and the fines box.