Quadrafire logic question: Stove shuts off after 10-15 minutes, green light on....

[jcbyrd24]

Alright Quad folks, been waiting to ask this question, trying to get all my facts straight. I've had misc shutdowns/non-starts on my Quad Castile this year, maybe a little last year. It's one year old, so manufactured summer 09, seems to be the latest model. Thorough cleaning before lighting off this year, nothing looked too bad. Tonight we paid very close attention and I've thought this was the common theme; it seems to shut down sometime after the initial start. Green light seems to be on a couple minutes after first pellet drop, no ignitor problems to speak of. Runs fine, feeding for 10 to 15 minutes. Tonight the convection fan didn't start and no green to red transition on the control box before the feed just stopped. Green light still on, exhaust still blowing, just no feed, flame goes out. It appears this is snap disc 2 or vacuum switch based on schematic, but a reset seems to solve all problems, and reset wouldn't seem to solve either of those.... The only thing I can think of, and I think I've read something about this before but not in my manual, is that the thermocouple is looking for full burn (red light on control box) after a period of time, and shutting down if not reached. This could be true, because this year, even at fully open feed, I cannot get my stove to get a nice full flame above the fire pot (running medium pretty much all the time for noise reasons, which was fine last year dialed back quite a bit of feed). I've noticed that my Maine Woods pellets are very small, 5/8" long at the largest, a lot if 1/4" chunks and broken pellets and I think the Quad auger just struggles with these, where it's designed to not clog on the large ones it doesn't handle the smalls well. I've read about the adjustment on the control box and I think I will as my next step bump this setting up to get a little more feed on the smalls, as the normal feed rod isn't helping it out even wide open, in fact it seems to feed better closed down some. Just wanting to confirm if there is some logic that happens with the full burn red light after a few minutes that will shut the stove down.

 

[jcbyrd24]

Cold house tonight, reset the stove, watched for 10-15 minutes, should have noted time, but it's early! Same thing, stove lights OK, green light, runs for 10-15 minutes, no green to red transition, feed stops. Reset again, nice big dump gives a bigger flame for a couple minutes, enough to make green go red, stove is now running, covection fan came on. Definitely seems to be a lack of fuel issue or maybe not good burning fuel. I should try another brand I guess but they burn fine when there are enough in the fire pot. I will change the control box setting to 5 in the AM (when I'm up for good), the feed rod/gate hasn't gotten me there.

 

[kilbury]

What setting are you burning on, low, med or high? Have you checked up into the drop chute to see if you may have a long pellet lodged crossways in the drop tube? How abou the vacuum hose, have you taken it off the vacuum switch and nipple on the drop tube and blown through the hose and cleaned out the nipple on the drop tube? Did you disconnect or clean the exhaust system when you clean the stove? Blocked exhause = no vacuum= no feed. After all that testing the thermocouple would be the next logical step.

 

[jcbyrd24]

Burning on med as usual, did all last year. Checked drop chute with mirror, no blockage, the Maine Woods pellets are no longer than 3/4". I do want to pull the auger out and just check for sawdust buildup, but it seems to just not be feeding as much as it should. I blew out the vacuum tube when cleaning a couple weeks ago by unhooking at switch. I did not take it off the nipple or clean the nipple, that I will try, but I'm pretty sure it's not a vacuum issue, as a reset will get me up and running until thermostat goes off, seems to be related to getting green light to go red with enough heat. I cleaned the exhaust system with a pellet/dryer brush and hooked up shop vac to it while exhaust fan was running (do this every ton, so twice last year as well), it is only 2 ft long, 1 45degree elbow (stove in corner). Tonight I will check thermocouple contact but as I said I do get the green/red lights in control box, just takes adding extra fuel via reset to get to red...seems to be getting green on the startup regularly.

I switched over to control box setting 5 this morning and we'll see how that goes. I just found a thread about the maine woods that talks about how if they get some moisture they will be crumbly and not burn well, so maybe I've got some of that going on. I need to maybe get into another bag or two.

 

[Czech]

Have you checked the thermocouple on the pot? Make sure the couple itself is making contact with the inside of the tip of the ceramic cover.

 

[jcbyrd24]

I will do that tonight just to check, I've never done that before, but it seems to be working as designed. I really just don't think my fire is where it should be (heightwise, color wise, etc), I think it just needs fuel. I'm still looking to confirm if the thermocouple indicator NOT going to red will shut down the feed after 15 minutes or so. I thought I saw someone paste a troubleshooting page out of another Quad manual that referenced 14 minutes or 18 minutes or something, but I can't find it, and my manual does not talk about that, or about if the thermocouple not getting to 600 degrees (red light) will shut down the feed.

 

[krooser]

My guess...dirty stove

 

[Augmister]

Have you checked the thermocouple on the pot? Make sure the couple itself is making contact with the inside of the tip of the ceramic cover.

I get build up of ash in the thermocouple holding next to the pot and use a vacuum to periodically clean it out. That ash creates an inter-facial resistance between the element and the pot and prevents the heat transfer.... fire goes out or does not start.

 

[Shortstuff]

jcbyrd24 I sent you a PM.

 

[jcbyrd24]

Well dinner plans interfered with my plans to check the the thermocouple connection and pull the auger, but I am happy to say that we came home to a warm house last night after work/dinner and have had 2 or more successful starts sense getting home. While I do plan to check/clean the thermocouple still and remove auger to check for anything out of the ordinary that I can't see from above/below, shortstuff confirmed for me that the service manual references shutdown after 18 minutes, so I believe my theory has been confirmed, no red thermocouple light after 18 minutes = stop feed. I'm a little confused why my fuel setting for last year did not get me the same results but this was starting to happen last year, and my fires were noticeably smaller, too small, and not throwing a lot of heat. I may be using some old pellets from last year, or it appears maybe my new batch of maine woods has moisture issues, as there are more broken pellets and fines than I remember. Hopefully I'm not looking at hauling 2 tons out of the basement!! Either way, bumping the control box to 5 has got me warming up much quicker and running great. I will report back on the auger removal to see if perhaps something in there was preventing normal feed rates.

 

[Nicholas440]

I'd say your stove is fine but your pellets are bad. From what you describe, the stove is doing what its supposed to do. If you do a reset and it starts up fine but then it goes out I say you have a load of bad pellets. Another person just a few weeks ago with a new Quad stove went nuts trying to get the problem fixed, the dealer came out finally, and it turned out to be bad pellets.

Bumpiing the setting up to 5 isnt going to do much for bad pellets. Run all your pellets out, and get another bag of good dry pellets and burn them. I'll bet you find the stove runs like new with good pellets.

 

[tjnamtiw]

I will do that tonight just to check, I've never done that before, but it seems to be working as designed. I really just don't think my fire is where it should be (heightwise, color wise, etc), I think it just needs fuel. I'm still looking to confirm if the thermocouple indicator NOT going to red will shut down the feed after 15 minutes or so. I thought I saw someone paste a troubleshooting page out of another Quad manual that referenced 14 minutes or 18 minutes or something, but I can't find it, and my manual does not talk about that, or about if the thermocouple not getting to 600 degrees (red light) will shut down the feed.

On another post with someone having similar small flame problems, it was suggested to open the door after you get the green light and toss in an extra hand full of pellets to see if red light comes on. Worth a try.

Well, I see you pretty well have confirmed it's lousy pellets. Good luck.