American harvest 6500 auger won't stop running at full speed

[Josh6500]

Greetings, as i am new to this forum... i habe been a proud owner of an USSC american harvest 6500 pellet stove for 7 years now... over the years i have had to replace the feed auger twice... last time was 4 years ago.. the agitator auger once and that was 6 years ago... and one room air fan... but i came how from work today and found that it tripped a breaker.. so i turned the breaker back on and went to light the stove (manual ignition) and i press the on button to make sure the auger is primed. and nothing... so i took the side cover off and the auger way laying in the bottom woth the hitch pin sheared off... so i fpind there was some fines in the auger and jambed it up.. so i took and cleaned that all our with a shop vac and a blow gun... now auger turns freely by hand...so i reinstalled it with a new pin. pluged the stove back in and an error 5... got out the trusty manual and said it blew an auger fues or auger bad... found the fues and sure enough it was blown. i happen to have spares of these fues just in case... replaced it..
and vala... plug it back in and the auger now runs at top speed continuously.. constantly feeding without even turning the stove on. O have left it unplugged for a good two hours while clean and such... the stove is cold for sure... could someone please give me some advice as to where to begin trouble shooting... i hope i don't have to replace the control board.. that will be pricey.. the manufacture date on my stove is 9/4/09 and the picture below is the control interface.

Thanks in advance

Josh

 

[FirepotPete]

Try that if you haven't already.

 

[Josh6500]

View attachment 189544

Try that if you haven't already.

Thank you Pete... i have not tried that yet... i will as soon i get home from Cub Scouts tonight. i will advise what i find out..

Thanks again

Josh

 

[Josh6500]

View attachment 189544

Try that if you haven't already.

Pete, i tried the test... and everything looks good except the auger test... the auger was running the whole time from when i started the initial test till the end... it doesnt display the out1 or the out 2... it displays short names of each item it is testing.. when it came tot he auger test it was still running an the on light was not on.... when i held the aux up and down to do a reset... everything came on... both room fans... exaust fan, agitator and the auger stayed running the whole time... but the whole display on the control went dark and the far left two digets were flashing the bottom lines back and forth like an old police light bar... no matter what i did nothing would change... so i unpluged it from the wall. when i plugged it back in the auger fired right up and stayed on still.. but everthing else seems to be functioning properly.. my neibor has the same stove... i am going to try and sweet talk him into letting me borrow his control panel and see if that changes any thing... unless you might think that my stove might put a hex on his board as well... please advise to see if this would be a good idea... i wouldn't want to have to buy two boards and still not solve the problem... thanks again in advance..

Regards

Josh..

 

[FirepotPete]

Pete, i tried the test... and everything looks good except the auger test... the auger was running the whole time from when i started the initial test till the end... it doesnt display the out1 or the out 2... it displays short names of each item it is testing.. when it came tot he auger test it was still running an the on light was not on.... when i held the aux up and down to do a reset... everything came on... both room fans... exaust fan, agitator and the auger stayed running the whole time... but the whole display on the control went dark and the far left two digets were flashing the bottom lines back and forth like an old police light bar... no matter what i did nothing would change... so i unpluged it from the wall. when i plugged it back in the auger fired right up and stayed on still.. but everthing else seems to be functioning properly.. my neibor has the same stove... i am going to try and sweet talk him into letting me borrow his control panel and see if that changes any thing... unless you might think that my stove might put a hex on his board as well... please advise to see if this would be a good idea... i wouldn't want to have to buy two boards and still not solve the problem... thanks again in advance..

Regards

Josh..

I guess if it was me, I'd put your board in his stove that way if something in your stove messed up your board you won't be messing up his board. At worse your board might cause a blown fuse or something on his stove.

 

[Mt Bob]

agree with pete

 

[Lake Girl]

...Try that if you haven't already.

Does that test work for all the boards? Where did you get that? Think that needs to be saved...

 

[FirepotPete]

Does that test work for all the boards?

As far as I know for any of the "4 button control boards" that USSC has put in their stove/furnaces no matter the actual brand of stove/furnace. I've helped people locally with many of them and it has always worked.

Where did you get that?

I figured it out myself after many hours of investigation. (Pumps chest, Tarzan yell). LOL, not really. The last couple of weeks I went through a bunch of old hard drives trying to find stuff that I wanted, I found that printout that I had copied. I believe it was sent to me from a USSC tech years ago. If I remember correctly I had helped him with a problem he was having with understanding how proportional controllers worked and he sent me that in kind. He also sent me information on how to adjust the feed rates per each HR, the exhaust fan, none of those are covered in the documentation with the stove.

This is why I love my stove, I got documentation that wasn't sent with it. Why USSC does that is beyond me, they would have made many more owners very happy if that was included, but, NO, it's their secret for some reason.

Think that needs to be saved...

Save it, pass it along, the more info the better.

 

[Lake Girl]

Sticky at the top of the forum similar to the one for Piazzetta and Harman?

 

[FirepotPete]

Sticky at the top of the forum similar to the one for Piazzetta and Harman?

That would be nice. It would be nice to have a sticky with general info about USSC stoves/furnaces, could additional information be added later?

 

[Lake Girl]

I would likely lock it so that general entries do not clutter it up but could arrange for special posting or PM additions... Off to town today so not around until later.

PS: Looks like I have to get webfish to start us off... will check later.

 

[FirepotPete]

I would likely lock it so that general entries do not clutter it up but could arrange for special posting or PM additions... Off to town today so not around until later.

Excellent! Have a great weekend and stay warm!

 

[jzm2cc]

Don't want to sound like a broken record screaming Triac all the time, but its a rather common issue with stoves.

Auger motor was obviously over loaded, odds are the triac that controls auger has ahorted internally due to too much current and heat, thus the continuous feeding. Not the end of the world if you can trace auger feed circuit back to this circuit board transistor (unplugged obviously)

Look up the part number on the internet, figure out which of the 3 pins is the gate, then measure resistance between the remaining two pins. Compare resistance reading to other triacs on the board, bet you'll have huge contrast in resistance with this test. Like several ohms on the bad part, verses 10,000 plus on good triac.

Order parts on ebay, Amazon, Newark, Digi-key and have it replaced by a electronic repair shop if you're not comfortable with soldering equipment. Get a couple parts since they are like $5. Much better than paying US stove prices of $300 plus for control board. Good luck.

 

[Lake Girl]

Don't want to sound like a broken record screaming Triac all the time, but its a rather common issue with stoves.

Your "broken record" is always welcome if the situation fits I prefer the KISS principle until all else fails then look at the board.

 

[Josh6500]

Sorry for taking so long to answer back. i let the stove sit all summer and winter. and i have now figured out what was wrong with it.... when the fuse blew, it must not have protected further down the line. it also took out the transistor. i found a pack of 10 of them on ebay for $3 plus shipping. the auger, agitator and the room fan all use the same one. the model numbers that i bought are "BTA12 BTA12-600B BTA12-600 12A Triac 600V TO-220 ST"

i un-soldered the bad one and soldered in the new one and vala.

Thanks jzm2cc,

 

[jzm2cc]

Glad to hear it's running well Josh. I've repaired many boards with same issue. Shame to throw out whole board over such a cheap part.

 

[Josh6500]

Glad to hear it's running well Josh. I've repaired many boards with same issue. Shame to throw out whole board over such a cheap part.

I know... I have since bought a bad board from Ebay for cheap and it turned out to be the same issue... now I have a spare for less than $20... but I do have another question... is it possible to have too much rise in a vent pipe?

 

[Josh6500]

I know... I have since bought a bad board from Ebay for cheap and it turned out to be the same issue... now I have a spare for less than $20... but I do have another question... is it possible to have too much rise in a vent pipe?

I don't want to hijack my own post... but after I got it running again I noticed that my exhaust was now blowing like I remember er it... I swept the pipes as far as I can reach... about 9ft up and.. well here is the setup.. i have a 90 clean out, out the back of the stove, then 5ft straight up then a 90 through the thimble about 2ft then a 90 clean out straight up 9ft then a 45 over and then a 45 up again... then about 5ft then the rain cap... I have brushed everything inside and up 9ft outside... but the flame is lazy and the furnace senses a low pressure until I push the dampener all the way tight... then it senses enough pressure to cycle but with no dampener I get a really lazy flame... so I took the cap off of the 90 clean out outside and it's working better than I every remember. Or I might have a blockage the 7ft that I can't reach without getting on the roof... it's too dark now and I will probably pick up some more flex rod for the brush tomorrow so I can go the other 7 ft... for now I am going to leave the clean out out side open with a sheet of metal under it as it's only about a foot off the ground.. either I have a clog up there or I have too much rise?? Long question but I might have answered it myself.. I used to borrow my neighbors rod and brush.. but he got a new job out of state and moved away... now I have to fend from myself sorta..