Please help!! Castille not feeding pellets

[stephanie]

Hi,

My husband and I have been working on this problem for days now. We have gone through the manual and in the past have been very successful with issues that we had but now we are at our wits end.

Our stove stopped feeding pellets. When connected, everything seems to start normal but the pellets never drop. We've hit the reset but, super cleaned everything. jumped the switch so that the blower starts direct. ( at one point we did have a problem that when we did this the auger started right up- that was recently too)

My husband tried jumping switch with the reset button ( i think snap disk 2) but it seems to have no power at all. Could this be our problem.

Any help is appreciated and my apologies in advance for my limited knowledge.

Thank you,
Stephanie
We own a Ca-stile insert

 

[rideboard147]

yes snap disc 2 needs power Check the orange wires. It controls the feeding of pellets in certain conditions. Is your convection blower turning on when you turn on the stove?

 

[tjnamtiw]

Hi Stephanie, sorry you are having problems.

When you first start the stove, the only thing you should hear is the combustion fan start. It is drawing a vacuum on the stove and SHOULD pull in the vacuum switch. You said that your husband 'jumped the switch so that the blower starts direct'. Which switch is this and which blower? The room blower?

What you want to do is check to see if the vacuum switch is closed, so you can do two things. First BE CAREFUL! I take it from your post that your husband has a meter so with the combustion fan running, is there voltage from both terminals of the vacuum switch to the chassis of the stove? There should be 120 on both sides. If it is only on one side, then your vacuum switch is not being pulled in. You could also with a piece of insulated wire, disconnect both leads to the vacuum switch and put the wire between them, which eliminates the vacuum switch. It should then drop pellets for the initial 60 seconds when you hit the reset button.

If the stove works with the jumper or you have voltage only on one side of the vacuum switch, then either the vacuum switch is bad or you are losing vacuum somewhere. It could be as simple as your dump gate on the bottom of the burn pot is not closed all the way. Check out the vacuum switch and get back to us.

Good luck.

 

[jtakeman]

I'm betting its the vacuum switch. Remove the hose from the switch and blow air towards the stove. Put the hose back on. Make sure the hose isn't cracked or broken.

 

[tjnamtiw]

yea, j-takeman, that would be the most obvious thing to check first. I got too technical right away.. I guess I just have been doing so much experimenting that I got carried away. I've had the nipple at the top of the feed chute clog up twice on me so I should have known better. I got a can of 'air' that I use when I do my bi-weekly deep clean. For the OP, make sure you blow AWAY from the vacuum switch and not into it.

 

[B-Mod]

yea, j-takeman, that would be the most obvious thing to check first. I got too technical right away.. I guess I just have been doing so much experimenting that I got carried away. I've had the nipple at the top of the feed chute clog up twice on me so I should have known better. I got a can of 'air' that I use when I do my bi-weekly deep clean. For the OP, make sure you blow AWAY from the vacuum switch and not into it.

Burn corn, then you don't get "pellet dust" in the nipple, lol ............

 

[tjnamtiw]

If I could, I would! Corn is just about non-existent around here. Can you burn cotton or chicken sheeet??? Unfortunately too, my piping isn't corn proof either. I or my dealer should have given me that option. I am not eager to replace two 17' lengths of flex....... :lol:

 

[B-Mod]

Yeah, that wouldn't be cheap! Corn is high priced right now. I have a "family source" so I am good for now. Corn was $1.50 9 years ago, when I started this, now it is near $7.00 in some places. Crazy......................

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Yeah, that wouldn't be cheap! Corn is high priced right now. I have a "family source" so I am good for now. Corn was $1.50 9 years ago, when I started this, now it is near $7.00 in some places. Crazy......................

The corn is now in your car's gas tank.

 

[tjnamtiw]

The corn is now in your car's gas tank.

Ain't that the truth! And it really helps so much lousy MPG, messes up small engines with very short 'shelf life', skyrockets cost of many foods that use corn or derivatives, and it is soon to be 15% in cars What a deal!

Back on topic, I wonder how the failure to feed pellets at the OP is coming along??????

 

[stephanie]

My husband is going to try everything that you are suggesting this afternoon and hopefully get it working. If not, I will let you know.

Thank you so much for your quick replies!!

Stephanie

 

[tjnamtiw]

Check the tube going to the vacuum switch, as j-takeman suggested. How old is your stove? Are you running on LOW, MEDIUM, OR HIGH? I found that on LOW sometimes, not enough vacuum is generated to pull in the switch unless you have a good draft up the flue.

Good luck

 

[stephanie]

Hi everyone,

The hose is fine cleaned out and no cracks. Snap disk 2 was tested and seems to be working. Bypassed the vacuum switch to test the auger as suggested and nothing. My husband took the auger out and did the lamp test (connected the auger motor direct ) and the motor was working but when you try holding the auger(screw part) it turns the other way. Does this sound like a bad motor?

Also, tested the wires going to the vacuum switch, the ones connected to snap disk 2, and no power. Checked to make sure that the control box was connected correctly and that the contacts were clean. Also checked the fuse.

Could it be possible that both the control box and auger are bad?

thank you,

stephanie

Ps. to emerson: Usually we run our stove on medium but right now, can't even get it to start up at all.

 

[smalltown]

stephanie would you click on the PM light flashing on the top of your screen?

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Sounds like the infamous capacitor issue. Reversing auger problem.

 

[stephanie]

Just wanted to give everyone a quick update:

I went out and bought a new auger motor. I also took in the vacuum switch, the snap disks, and the control box to get checked. I was told everything was working fine, except the auger motor... but, yes there is a but, my husband connected it last night and still no pellets. ugh.... :~(

He's going to mess with it again this afternoon so again will let you know. Also sorry for the late reply, but my husband works 12 hour days and I really hadn't had any updates till today. I really do appreciate all of the advice on this forum and thank you so much for helping us. Good thing it's been warm these past few days because with 24 ft high ceilings our central heater doesn't even begin to cut it, especially in our old house where the heat escapes everywhere. We have been slowly trying to heat our neighborhood. lol


Stephanie

 

[B-Mod]

Did your hubby replace the feeder auger capacitor? It is separate from the auger motor.........

 

[stephanie]

My husband replaced the auger motor, and the capacitor and still nothing. We also noticed that still, there is no power at all to snap disk 2 (orange wires) but my control box is good because it was placed on another pellet stove and it started right up...

???? Any other suggestions????

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Press the reset buttons on both snap disc #2, and #3 do it with the stove off and unplugged.

The wires going to the vacuum switch and then to snap disc #2 should be red and go to pin #11 on one of the connectors according to the wiring diagram.

Orange is for the thermocouple.

 

[tjnamtiw]

The wire going TO my Castile's vacuum switch is red and coming out and going to the Snap Disk #2 is orange. After reading a lot of other posts over the last months, it appears that color coding was not a priority for the Chinese! :sick:

If your husband has a resistance (ohms) scale on his meter, unplug the stove, unhook both wires going to the vacuum switch and tape them so they don't short out to the stove. Then connect both leads of the meter to the two terminals of the vacuum switch. It might take a trip to Radio Shack to get some short leads with alligator clips on both ends to do this safely. Then plug the stove in and see if the meter reads 0 ohms or close to 0, as it should. You must have the door closed and everything else in running conditions.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Consistency was never a strong suit of a lot of device builders.

There is another thread on here with the same presentation, the problem is likely in the wiring or the connector blocks. But first we have to have power in the shell. That is why I mentioned snap disc #3 which is in the hot lead (if you believe that), there is also a fuse just ahead of the #3 snap disc.

We won't go into possible hot, neutral, and ground "issues".