Remote Reset Button for Quadrafire Classic Bay CB1200 FS !!! How to Remotely warm your shed with a P

I tend to agree with 'Inferno'. It shouldn't matter that it's cold in the shed the ignitor should still be able to do its job. Doing multiple refills of the pot is definately a dangerous thing. I have a friend that lives on an island off the NE coast. They get frequent 'brown outs' because their electricity comes from an old diesel generator that fails frequently. Last year they woke in the middle of the night, during one of these brown outs, and found the stove glowing cherry red because the reset cycle had re-filled the pot multiple times. I'm not suggesting the same but it does illustrate the point. I'm by no means an expert but maybe the issue is simply that the slot in the burn pot, that allows pellets direct access to the element, has closed up with clinker. This makes the ignition fail more easily. Cleaning the slot could fix it. I have certainly seen this happen with my CB.

Nope, too tame.

i dont think reseting will hurt a thing. its pretty common for quad owners to hit reset on start up. in fact i think i saw it suggested in a manual somewhere. most people i know with quads throw a couple of handfulls of pellets in on start up anyway. never heard of an overfire yet.

Thanks

The 1st time I got it going at 30 Deg F I toggled 2 times which is the same as pressing reset twice.

I will try it again doing it once to see if it starts at 30 Deg F

I sure would like to know how long the Ignitor is on during the start cycle. Can you remove the front cover and time it with a stop watch?

Hitting Reset is in the Manual. But ONLY for a stove that has an empty auger (new stove, vacuumed auger chute, ran out of fuel, etc). You are only supposed to hit the reset button until you see pellets drop... Once pellets start to drop, you hit Reset one last time and it fills pot with a normal start-up sequence. Never should you hit reset and let the stove empty another round of pellets. Not this guy anywyas. Ive seen what it does and thats why I am so against the practice.

I know one Santa Fe owner, Castile, another Classic Bay freestander, and a Classic Bay insert. Including mine, thats 5 Quads.

Not one needs pellets manually thrown in by "hand". How could you heat your house and not be there? Stove should start and stop itself.

Many, Many, Many Castile and Santa Fe owners on here and majority are running on a stat and letting the stove cycle. While Home and Away.

Just sayin.....

Check ignitor? Clean stove and venting? Ensure the feed is set properly?

Read Post above that Oldbrit posted..... Things can get ugly and the flame can reach dangerous levels.

What? ;-)

X2, I do not disagree about what the manual states and putting too many pellets into the burn pot. However the ignitor does start the stove up fine at 50 deg F and ever cycle there after all day!!

So the big unknown here seems to be:

How long is the ignitor on during startup?? (Can the front plate be removed and the ignitor be timed with a stop watch?)

Unless the ignitor is on a different timer than the 95 secs the Auger is on, It seems to be 95 secs??

At 30 deg F or below it does take longer to get a fire going Why did my old car with a carburetor take longer to start in the winter??

Hook up a DVM to the igniter leads and time the amount of time house voltage is there.

I always thought the ignitor was on for 4 minutes.

Yep. 4 minutes on the money.

Here are the Kill-a-Watt #'s.

Initial start up. Turn stat up, "Call for heat"

The Stoves combustion blower, auger, and Ignitor all start up simultaneously. Stove is drawing 445 watts and 3.8 amps.

For 95 seconds. The auger feeds. (1 min 35 seconds in)

Then 1 minute later smoke lightly starts (this time will vary) (2 min 35 sec)

Finally ignition happens 25 seconds later (3 mins)

Kill-a-Watt meter drops from 445 watts to 45 watts one minute later.
Signaling that the ignitor quit, but the auger then starts feeding its regular cycles. (4 mins)

10 sec later the stove drops from its High start mode, to Low where I have it set. (4 min 10 seconds in)

Then 5 minutes and 50 seconds after the ignitor quit and auger restarted, the convection blower comes on (11 minutes elapsed total).

The times of the convection blower will vary on fuel, heat setting, etc.

Just a test done on my stove. The actions and times leading up to convection blower start up should be similar to other Classic Bays. But the convection blower times will vary.

Excellent Information Ken.
I really appreciate that!!

I was just setting up my meter and watch when I got your post.
So I did check and absolutely agree with you on the 4 min On time for the Ignitor.

See my pic.
The meter reads halfway which is 110vac on the 220vac scale but hard to see in the pic
You can see the glowing hot ignitor in my second pic. LOL

So that takes some suspician off the Ignitor as to my Low Temp starting problem and now I am focusing on what may be the real problem.

The Auger seems to mysteriously stop during startup cycle and the reset button gets it going again??

Also the reset button gives the Ignitor another 4 minutes of On time!!

Have you see that problem??

Find that stupid capacitor.

You think it is a BUM cap Smokey?

What do you mean by the Reset button adds 4 seconds??

4 seconds is pretty trivial.

Probly meant minutes. No?

Thanks, yes I mean minutes so I just corrected it.

Don't know but quads are noted for funnies in the feed area due to the cap.

Hello

Just did some research on the Classic Bay Capacitor.

If the capacitor starts to go, the feed motor will occasionally reverse for no good reason. (Maybe stop in my case?)
A new cap resolves this issue see http://www.iburncorn.com/new-forum/34-quadrafire/5254-quadrafire-contour-feed-motor-capacitor

Even If you have a stove with the capacitor in the junction box like a contour, the in-line capacitor part # part# 230-2150 from woodheatstoves will bypass the cap in the junction box just by plugging in the wires and resolve the issue!!

http://woodheatstoves.com/feed-motor-capacitor-p-2062.html

So this part would replace the lower connector shown with the Red Arrow in the first pic Below?

Its not "adding" anything. Your not just getting the ignitor for 4 more minutes. Your getting a whole other pellet feed cycle. So its not 4 extra minutes. Its just the same 4 minutes again..

But that still gets the buyer of your stove nowhere. That means they have to stand next to it and hit reset at the end of the 1st cycle??

I leave my house and leave my stat set. My pellet stove heats my house. If it became where I had to stand next to it for it to start. I would get rid of it (disclaimer -* Talking about an auto ignite model *)

I wouldnt want to buy an auto ignite stove, that wont auto ignite. Unless you intervene by hitting reset again. Adding a second portion of pellets and possibly overfiring the stove everytime.

Absolutely agree and it may need a new auger feed motor capacitor to completely resolve this issue. See my last post.

The capacitor is something I will agree on. If its stopping or reversing?? Then something is wrong.

I would run it through a few cycles and watch the auger very carefully. That could very well be the problem. Its not the ignitor isnt on long enough. Your not getting enough fuel?????? Possible? ?

Don, I mentioned earlier that the reason it takes 2 cycles may be associated with the slot in the burn pot being slightly blocked. This was not an idle thought but a real life experience for me. My stove started to have miss-starts a while back but it only happened early in the morning when the house was cold. In the evening it was fine. I took out the heating element with the plan of replacing it but I found that there was some clinker build up that I had missed during cleaning (you can't see the slot in the burn pot without a mirror). After a did a thougher cleaning the problem went away. It could be that you are seeing the same issue, maybe ...

I really don't believe that running 2 start up cycles would be an issue, the problem I discussed was caused by multiple start ups. It was not a CB stove, in fact I don't even know what brand it was.

Hope this is of help to you.

Thanks for the Info. I will really check that.

I also found this morning even though it was 39 Degrees, I had 2 false starts!! Finally I checked the burn pot and found the trap door stuck open! LOL The pellets were falling into the ash pan and not getting lit I really do not think that was my original problem but have to wait for a cold morning to try again.

Tomorrow it is forcasted to be 31 Deg so it may be a good test, but since you mentioned it, I will check the fire pot to assure it is real clean. Thanks again for your experience and for stating it again!

Hello

Last night I adjusted the flame height to 4-6 inches to make sure that was correct.
See http://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/91653/

Well it was 25 Deg F out this morning and not any warmer in the shed. So I flipped the remote switch in the house to turn the T-Stat on. No fire.

So I toggled it, waited a min and toggled it again. 5 mins later there was a nice fire I can see from the window in the house.

What does that tell us?

There is not enough pellets in the pot in cold weather to start the stove!

A toggle or pressing reset puts more pellets in the pot to catch?

Or that big honking burn pot is acting as a heat sink and robing all of the "hot" from your hot air blaster?

ETA: Or that nice cold honking burn pot has reduced the size of the opening the hot air goes through?

ETA: Or the auger is binding a bit due to a cold stove slowing down the pellet delivery?

ETA: Or the temperature is making that capacitor misbehave?

Need anymore things to look at Don?