Acentra, problem with feeder when its cold

[Amaralluis]

Has anyone had this problem before?
The feeder on my accentra is very slow when the stove is cold.
It is literally stuck when it starts and gradually gets up to speed then works fine.
Is this a grease problem or is more complicated than that??

 

[Lousyweather]

ah...sounds like a classic "gummy" stove.......pull the slide plate out, and inspect. is it clean metal, or does it have a brown residue? the brown residue is hard when its cold, but softens with some heat........Accentras seemed to have the largest incidence of this......pull the plate, inspect, report back!

 

[Amaralluis]

You are right... now how do I fix this?

 

[THE ROOSTER]

ah...sounds like a classic "gummy" stove.......pull the slide plate out, and inspect. is it clean metal, or does it have a brown residue? the brown residue is hard when its cold, but softens with some heat........Accentras seemed to have the largest incidence of this......pull the plate, inspect, report back!

Side plate??? Are you talking about having to pull the stove out to see this plate??? I don't have this problem, but am just interested, the more I know about my stove the better I feel

 

[Lousyweather]

The slide plate is the plate you see at the bottom of the empty hopper...it moves back and forth slowly as the stove runs. It is accessed by the right hand side of the stove, in back- there is a cover held in place with a wing nut, remove the wing nut, then the cover, and the slide plate is house in the top of the chamber you will see. pull it out and look at it. Note: when you put it back in, make sure you re-engage the drive mechanism to the plate, otherwise it will close and wont reopen, not allowing pellets to fall onto the auger.

The gummy issue is pretty rare, but we've seen it before. Why does it happen? Not sure....some say the humidity and pellet quiality and moisture content, some say its a product of pyrolysis in the burntube, some say its simply the dynamics of airflow within the stove.....

The quick answer to a fix is to call your dealer......its covered under warrantee. If its over the warrantee, then a very invasive teardown and cleaning, as well as possibly adding an airsource to the rear of the auger. This is modification of your stove though, and unless donw by your dealer, could invalidate your warrantee. I'll not go into HOW to add the airsource for that reason. With us, what we've been doing with "gummy" stoves, is pull the unit out, bring it back to the shop, replace the augertube weldment (easier and quicker than trying to cleanit), install the airsource, and re-install the unit in the home.

Like I said, no reason to panic, its quite rare. But it doesnt "get better".....only gets worse, until the residue gets SO heavy that the stove wont run at all. Amaralluis' stove is just about there, where it will stop.....he wont make it till 2010 unless something is done.

 

[Amaralluis]

I dont think the problem is the slide plate but the auger. The slide plate moves freely and its not gunked... not that I can see anyway.
Sorry if I misunderstood your question.

 

[Lousyweather]

Auger gan be gummed, but its usually the slide plate thats the indicator. Your auger tube could be filled with carbon though.....or, your gear motor might be bad......whats the age? Sounds like a dealer issue.......

 

[Amaralluis]

The stove was made in feb/2006.

I will have to contact the dealer for sure... ignitor problems and now feeder problems, this stove is causing more trouble than I anticipated.

 

[Lousyweather]

probs a warranty issue! good luck, Am! Let us know what happens!

 

[Bxpellet]

I had a similar problem with my Advance, the feed light would go on but the auger motor would not spin unless I would flick the fins with my finger, then it would feed After a long conversation with my dealer he determine it was a sticky feed motor, He walked me through taken it apart and cleaning it, after that it has worked fine. the real test will be when the cold weather arrives

 

[Amaralluis]

Last night when I tried to start the stove, it was stone cold and I had the back cover open to look at the motor and the auger motor was working, or at least the little fan was working.

BXpellet, how did you clean it? Does it have to be completely open to clean?

 

[imacman]

Just to be sure, I'd remove the auger motor, and open the case. The gears are packed with grease. Clean as much as you can out with fingers, popcicle stick, screwdriver, or whatevers handy. Go to the auto parts store and get a can of SYNTHETIC grease, and re-pack it full (even if a little squeezes out the sides when you close the cover, that's OK....just wipe it off)

Synthetic is better than run-of-the-mill grease as temp. shouldn't affect it.

 

[Bxpellet]

The auger motor would spin intermittently, when you hit the fan it would just cycle, I had to remove the chain, (loosen the nut on the auger sprocket (it's behind it) and pull off, disconnect the wires, loosen 4 nuts with rubber bushings, slide it off the frame, when you look at it there are 2 screws that hold the bridge down that holds a drum that spins, remove tha drum and bridge, then there are 2 more screws that hold the magnet , remove them and slide off magnet. I wiped everything down, there was some dust and (Dog, cat hair). Put it back exactly how it came apart and it was good to go.

 

[Amaralluis]

Just a heads up.

Got tired of waiting for the dealer and pulled the motor out and opened the box.
What happened is that all of that blue grease over time was packed on the sides of the wheels and some of them had dried grease. I guess when the stove was not used for a certain amount of time the wheels would get 'glued' on that dried grease.
CLeaned it up as much as I could, spread the gunk of grease all over the wheels again, closed the boxed, screwed it all and its works like new again.
Good thing it was a simple fix... I was afraid it was going to be more complicated than that.