2003 st croix hastings pellet stove HELP

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great dane

New Member
Dec 11, 2021
17
west central ohio
2003 St Croix pellet stove. Have been getting a blinking 3 red light. Its been 5 weeks and no go. A new ciruit board, exhaust fan, pellet auger,4 POF switches and a new igniter. The 4 POF switches test just fine with the meter, tested each wire in the wiring harness and all have continuity ,put 900 dollars in new parts same blinking light. I put the button to the manual position. The pellets light and start to burn and the 3rd light blinks. Right after pellets start to burn I unhook the POF switch and put a jumper in. the heater blower starts to run and all works just fine. First time i had heat in weeks. Then as soon as i unhook the jumper and hook up the POF switch again number three blinks again. I just took the stove and blew it all out and exhaust pipe is clean also. I called and texted Even Temp and they dont answer or email back. Bought all new parts from east coast hearth. Had to buy a heated throw blanket just to sit in the front room. After all the new parts it should work fine. Thanks .Any help would be appreciated.
 
Sounds to me like your POF switch is wrong? It should be NO-normally open, and then close at 110f.
Perhaps this older manual can help--
blob:resource://pdf.js/ff7ee2d6-d8a9-4d08-b768-1ef21b2d2837#filename=Digital%20Control%20Board%20Service%20Manual%201_09.pdf
 
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Sounds to me like your POF switch is wrong? It should be NO-normally open, and then close at 110f.
Perhaps this older manual can help--
blob:resource://pdf.js/ff7ee2d6-d8a9-4d08-b768-1ef21b2d2837#filename=Digital%20Control%20Board%20Service%20Manual%201_09.pdf
Hello Bob,
I take my meter and touch the two probes together and have I a full meter swing, I take the probes and touch the contacts on the POF switch and no meter swing on the meter. Then i put heat on the back of the POF switch and touch the probes on the switch and i get a full meter swing. All 4 POF switches I have are working the same way. Thank You
 
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Have you tried leaf blower trick on exhaust yet. Sounds like its plugged up internally and not getting heat to proof of fire snap disk on exhaust housing.
 
Something to check. On those stoves the POF switch must be firmly against the exhaust housing.
 
Something to check. On those stoves the POF switch must be firmly against the exhaust housing.
Hello All,
OK here it goes, turn on stove and green light blinks 5 min while checking vacuum. Auger light blinks while dumping pellets, 8 mins later pellets ignite. Fan housing temp starts at 69 degrees after the 5min of dumping pellets its 73 degrees, pellets start to burn and housing is 91 degrees. Then the blinking light no.3. Kool stove down and start all over again. This time everything is the same. I took the POF switch off and clamped it to the stove. When I seen the housing temp hit 91 degrees I took a match and hit the POF switch and the room fan kicked on and is now running fine. I took this whole unit out side a week ago and spent 1 1/2 hrs blowing it out. Thought this would do the trick. Can I take the exhaust fan and fan housing off again inside the house and tell if something is wrong? Feel better now that its running. Thank You. It was a sob trying to get it off the risor and through the door on a trailer .
 
Ok. So one thing I can say for sure, it should not take 8 minutes to light. So I think you should check into that. I think the stove will time out after about 10 minutes. In other words, if it takes longer than 10 minutes for the POF switch to sense 110 degrees and close, the stove will time out, set the #3 led blinking and go into shutdown.

So now the question in my mind is, why is it taking 8 minutes to ignite? It should be more like 3 or 4 Minutes. I think you said you changed the igniter Right?

Too much air can cause the stove to ignite late (because it keeps the burn pot cool with the extra amount of cool incoming air) and also make the exhaust cooler which will make it take longer for the POF switch to get to the 110 degrees. Make sure the air inlet damper is set correctly, which for that stove is roughly 1/2 closed. (Actually a little more closed than that but 1/2 closed should get you in the ballpark and can fine tune after). Also make sure the igniter is inserted properly and the burn pot is properly positioned. Make sure the shutter under the burn pot is totally closed. This is controlled by the little rod immediately above the ash pan door. the shutter must be clear of unburned pellets and the rod must be pushed in all the way so the shutter is completely closed. This all assumes that your pellets are good. Damp or otherwise crappy pellets will take longer to ignite.

Ken
 
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Have you tried lighting the stove manually? Just thinking that it takes so long to ignite could be the problem. My Lancaster is manual light only and it gets everything going pretty fast.
Bob
 
I'm starting to think kchace is exactly right, too much air. Especially for the delayed ignition. I believe that stove has a manual damper AND you can adjust the combustion speed on the control board?
 
Close the damper onto a standard wood pencil, note there is a small allen screw on the shaft that holds damper in place. Usually this is all the air a St Croix needs to run excellent.
 
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If you have not done the leaf blower trick I would do it. There are places in that stove that can only be properly cleaned this way.
 
2003 St Croix pellet stove. Have been getting a blinking 3 red light. Its been 5 weeks and no go. A new ciruit board, exhaust fan, pellet auger,4 POF switches and a new igniter. The 4 POF switches test just fine with the meter, tested each wire in the wiring harness and all have continuity ,put 900 dollars in new parts same blinking light. I put the button to the manual position. The pellets light and start to burn and the 3rd light blinks. Right after pellets start to burn I unhook the POF switch and put a jumper in. the heater blower starts to run and all works just fine. First time i had heat in weeks. Then as soon as i unhook the jumper and hook up the POF switch again number three blinks again. I just took the stove and blew it all out and exhaust pipe is clean also. I called and texted Even Temp and they dont answer or email back. Bought all new parts from east coast hearth. Had to buy a heated throw blanket just to sit in the front room. After all the new parts it should work fine. Thanks .
 
What is reposting your original post? are you still looking for answers?
 
Hello,
Well I unhooked this cast iron stove and took it out side. Instead of using my big air compressor on the stove I used a electric leaf blower. I stuck it in the exhaust at the back of the stove and opened the front door. Got some more stuff out the front door. I blew inside the front and the two ash clean outs and repeated this process twice. I watched a few you tube videos and if i had the right blower I could have done it from outside and not remove the stove. So I got it back together. I got out my meter to check amps at the brown wires for 5 amps. Nothing. So it was just starting to burn the pellets and the fan housing got up to 94 degrees and stared blinking a number three again. I to a jumper between the two brown wires and the room fan came on. So I am back to square one. CRAP. Thanks Again for the imput
 
the snap disc you used the jumper on is bad or not the correct one. it sounds like it is opening on rise instead of closing on rise.
 
Do you have a large flame when it starts up? Thinking if not then POF snap disk won't get up to temp quick enough and #3 sets. At this point it won't run right by just shorting across POF snap disk.

I'm basing the large flame comment on how my Prescott starts up, large flame and POF and room fan are activated quickly.
 
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with the stove off and no flame put the jumper on again and start the stove. and see if it goes into run mode normally
 
the snap disc you used the jumper on is bad or not the correct one. it sounds like it is opening on rise instead of closing on rise.
Ok, I shut down the stove and waited a few mins. Turned it on again. When I started it again this time the fan housing was 84 degrees. It took 7 mins for pellets to burn. This time the fan housing was at 107 degrees when it started blinking. I have a number one light with solid red light, then the green light is blinking at the same time as the 3rd light is blinking. Only thing I did this time was to hit the auger button a few times to ad more pellets to heat it up faster { my thinking ha ha }. All 4 snap disc are the same numbers, 80P20038. I appreciate all the help. One dumb question do they make an adjustable POF switch to set it at a lower number? Thanks again. Calling it a day. Enough aggravation for today.
 
your manual HERE check the parts breadown they are not all the same part numbers.
 
Did you clean out the to holes that are covered behind the firebrick on the back wall? If yours has them, my Lancaster has them and they very crudded up. I take off the two caps and run a cable up there and also blow that out with my compressor. After I do all that cleaning I hook up the leaf blower and suck everything out from the exhaust. I unhook the vacuum sensor and close the doors.
 
with the stove off and no flame put the jumper on again and start the stove. and see if it goes into run mode normally
OK, just put the jumper on it. Turned the stove on and it ran for 15 mins and just dumped pellets it the pot till it over ran. Said this is not good. Pulled the brown wires off the jumper and put them on the POF switch and number three started blinking. Too bad they did not have plates to unbolt and get to the hard spots and clean them out. I called Don enough to talk to him and thinking we were related as much as I called. Thanks
 
Did you clean out the to holes that are covered behind the firebrick on the back wall? If yours has them, my Lancaster has them and they very crudded up. I take off the two caps and run a cable up there and also blow that out with my compressor. After I do all that cleaning I hook up the leaf blower and suck everything out from the exhaust. I unhook the vacuum sensor and close the doors.
On my st croix I took out the fire brick and had to drill two holes so I could clean it out. The tech gave me the measurements as to where to drill them.
 
the snap disc you used the jumper on is bad or not the correct one. it sounds like it is opening on rise instead of closing on rise.
Yes, I could not get any voltage out of them. The two wires are brown. It shows on the diagram either one could be used. I have continuity between the wires from the plug in on the chip board to both brown wires.
 
Ok, I shut down the stove and waited a few mins. Turned it on again. When I started it again this time the fan housing was 84 degrees. It took 7 mins for pellets to burn. This time the fan housing was at 107 degrees when it started blinking. I have a number one light with solid red light, then the green light is blinking at the same time as the 3rd light is blinking. Only thing I did this time was to hit the auger button a few times to ad more pellets to heat it up faster { my thinking ha ha }. All 4 snap disc are the same numbers, 80P20038. I appreciate all the help. One dumb question do they make an adjustable POF switch to set it at a lower number? Thanks again. Calling it a day. Enough aggravation for today.
Hello a good update,
Think I might have found my problem. I found out that if I put a handfull of pellets in the pot before I turn on the stove its starts up and runs just fine. So now when the auger light starts to blink from that point on
it now takes 3 or 4 mins for the stove to light and a few mins more for the fan to come on and NO blinking three light. I tried this both ways several times and works great with a handful of pellets in the pot. Any adjustment on the control board to put a few more pellets in the pot might take care of the problem. I seen a page on adjustment rate some where but did not know when I can try this and how to set it up. Thanks Again. gaining a little ground now