1990 Whitfield Advantage II Control Panel Blew Up (pics) - Suggestions?

[DethroTJethro]

Hello all,

I have a 28 year-old Whitfield Advantage II insert (S/N: WH-12473) with the old-school dial control panel (Part Number 25250801) that sat unused for probably over 10 years.



Last year, after a visual inspection of the wiring in the back and a thorough vacuuming, I fired it up and everything worked fine for about 45 minutes. At that point, it shut off and I got a smell of burning plastic.

I removed the control panel and found quite a bit of damage, as shown in the photo. As you can see, it burned completely through the PCB pretty much eliminating my chances for a re-build.



As many of you are aware, replacements for this part number are non-existent.

I spent some time last year searching and came up empty. Frustrated, I gave up on this project and began shopping for other options. My hearth is pre-plumbed for gas, but I really, really want to keep this pellet stove as I have fond memories of this particular unit. My sentimentalism won't let me replace the old girl until I've exhausted all avenues for salvaging her.

My question is mainly whether or not the "newer" push-button (part number 12055902) control panels will work with units that are this old. I have read conflicting reports. Some say that these newer CPs only work with serial numbers greater than 18145 (with some re-wiring and disconnect of the Current Sensing Relay), yet I found a guy selling on amazon that claims his 12055902 replacement will work with all older Whitfield Pellet stoves:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005GW9LSY/?tag=hearthamazon-20

(You'll see in the Customer Q&A that someone asks, specifically, if the two part numbers are interchangeable... the seller says yes.)

SO, can anyone offer and feedback, suggestions, help, links, videos, etc that may narrow my search for resurrecting my beautiful old pellet stove?

Thank you in advance for your time!

-DTJ

 

[Stovensen]

Hello DTJ, and welcome to the forums,

Aesthetically, the controls with rotary knobs suit this line of 90's Whitfield stoves way better than the newer touch pad controls, IMHO So why not have the board repaired?
Link to a repair service close to you: http://pelletstovecontrollerrepair.com/
They charge $150,- for a standard repair. That's less than half the price of a new touch pad control.

I just found a picture of a circuit board that should be similar to yours, and from what I can see, all components are standard types. Let's have a closer look:



The burnt bypass relay on your board is a DPDT ( Double Pole Double Throw ) standard relay with PCB terminals: Idec RH2V2-U-AC120.


Galco Industrial Electronics has it in stock at $7.12 for one piece:

https://www.galco.com/buy/IDEC/RH2V2-U-AC120

If you have some skills in electronics repair it is possible to repair it yourself. I'm a retired electronics technician, and have been a radio amateur for decades, so I'll be happy to post all the tips and help, I can think of. Desoldering the burnt relay is the first challenge, but I have a very smart trick on how to do this in a semi-professional way, if you should choose to repair it yourself.

Warning! These boards have a transformerless power supply, which is normally based on a capacitive voltage divider. One of the capacitors in this
voltage divider may carry a DC high voltage even when the board is unplugged, so take care, when handling the board. The capacitor in question should be a class X or Y-type. Probably the white one next to the burnt relay ( blue on the pic I found ).
Many circuit designers choose a 1 Mohm bleeder resistor in parallel over the X-rated cap for safety reasons, but I'm not able to spot any resistors in the Mega Ohm range on the board.

Good luck and take care. Keep us posted

 

[Mt Bob]

Those old Whit's are great,almost as good as the older Integras(LOL).You could build,or have built a control panel,I will leave you a link,if the site allows it. https://firewoodhoardersclub.com/forums/threads/new-control-box-for-the-whitfield.16993/

 

[Mt Bob]

Ah,they blocked it,they do not care about helping people with older units.PM me,possibly I can send it to you.It is a shame money comes first,instead of helping people.

 

[zrock]

That board is repairable... may take a bit of work but doable... I have repaired worse

Sent from my SM-G903W using Tapatalk

 

[DethroTJethro]

Thank you for your awesome and informative reply!

Here's a full pic of my circuit board:

Since you have experience in electronics repair, do you think my board is repairable even though bypass relay burned completely through and out the backside of the board?

That hole is pretty big and looks like it ate up two of the pins on that bypass relay... Admittedly, I know nothing about this kind of repair, but to my eye it looks pretty chewed up.

I will check into the link for repair that you provided and give them a call. They are only about a 30 minute drive from my home, so hopefully they'll be able to help.

I also found a retailer/repair shop in Alabama that looks like they sell complete replacements for this part number! ($317 plus shipping) I found them through a google reverse image search, of all things. I don't know how legit they are, but I may give them a call if the link you provided doesn't pan out. Comparable price to a touch-pad panel, too.

http://www.api-assembled.com/support/whitfield/whitfield.htm

I agree that the look of this unit is more suited to the stove's style, but frankly I don't care that much since the panel is hidden behind a door 99% of the time. I'm more concerned about function than form. I just want the thing to work =)

I am NOT electronically inclined in the least... I soldered some microphone cables together and repaired some wiring inside a few of my electric guitars, but that's about it. I don't have the skill set to perform this repair myself, and as much as I would LOVE to learn (seriously, I would geek out on this stuff) I won't have any time to educate myself in the foreseeable future.

Would you know what might have caused this to happen? If there are other components to the stove I may need to check, that would be handy to know.

I really appreciate everyone's response and time spent helping me out!

-DTJ

 

[DneprDave]

The touch panel type controller is interchangeable with the older rotary switch controller.

 

[ThawMyTongue]

I would be more worried about what caused the failure in the first place. You could replace the relay by using some wire jumpers to bridge the traces in the damaged area, but may have the new one melt as well.

 

[Ssyko]

Voltage spike. Old relay, bad contacts, old motor draws to many amps, new motor draws more amps than its rated. Many things can cause the problem. Might be the best thing to do is update the board to the touch pad.

 

[Stovensen]

Hello again DTJ, and thanks for the sharp and detailed pics.

Now we see the damage more clearly. Most likely it will be more than just a $150 standard repair, as they will have to fabricate a small piece of circuitboard to cover the damaged area, and then carefully solder the new relay to this. "Time is money"

One important question arises, when studying your pics of the damaged board: Where is the fuse? On the newer touch pad controls there is an onboard fuse. See pic:

Could the fuse be an inline type installed in the wiring before the board? Example of what an inline fuse might look like:

If you don't find a fuse, you have another reason to invest in a new touch pad control.
But before installing the new board, I strongly suggest you examine everything thoroughly: Safety switches, wiring, motors, plugs, terminal block etc.

I hope you know how to use a multimeter?

I have attached the service manual below. There you will find relevant info on the motors, safety switches etc.
Note: This svc manual does not cover the oldest models fully. Yours is a 1990 model, sn12473, so I have attached another pdf document with some additional info on the oldest models.


Good luck and take care. Keep us posted

 

[371xp]

Pretty much ran into the same problem. Just got back from a 2 and 1/2 hour drive. I was able to locate one of these boards for my 1988 serial number 10553 Advantage II.

I get home I take out the old one plug in the new one and wire start getting hot and smoking so I unplug it.

My issues started when some of that insulation rotting from inside got sucked into the blower/ convection fan. Just to be clear it's the one that pushes the warm air out into the room not the one that feeds the fire.

Normally the blower fan would still be running in the morning if it ran out of pellets. I would unplug it fill it started back up.

I had one of those little power strips, well I accidentally bumped the reset button. I heard a pop, tried turning the board on and nothing.

So now hopefully I did not burn out that relay which yes I did buy a new relay for The Other Board just in case. Hopefully I should get that sometime next week.

But now I'm going to pull out the multimeter test everything make sure it's within spec and I'll be back here to bellyache about what went wrong or to celebrate what we went right.

If anybody else has had this issue please I'm begging you let me know, as well as how you fixed it.

I tried to buy one of those fancy $400 boards, I got scammed on paypal is not going to help me with it but I don't want to address that issue here.

Thanks for your help guys hopefully I hear from you. Have a wonderful 2021.

 

[371xp]

Here's some photos that may possibly help someone.