Ashley AP5660L - low output/ignitor issues

[Vtuni]

I have had an Ashley ap5660L for two years now, I bought it used to heat my garage. When I got the stove it was three years old and somewhat neglected. I think I have replaced nearly everything that has a motor or sensor (except control board thankfully ). Stove worked perfectly last season and this year I fired it up once temps dropped into 30’s. It started by throwing an E3 code after 30-40 min - turned out to be a bad low limit disk. I figured it was a good time to replace the not functioning ignitor. Purchased the new and improved (upgrade) ignitor , installed and the minute I turned the stove on from cold it tripped my breaker. After two tries I unplugged the ignitor and went back to manually starting the stove. Now I am noticing I am barely getting much heat one the highest setting. I have adjusted the damper to find a good setting. But honestly I feel like it is doing little to nothing for the fairly aggressive airflow. If I restrict the end of the intake I get a bit more of a yellow /orange flame that doesn’t appear like a torch. Perhaps the damper isn’t doing much. Did the usual inspection of all gaskets, door, burnpot etc all seem fine.
Thoughts on the ignitor and low heat output ?

 

[tlc1976]

Sounds like a bad igniter, shorted.

Have you cleaned everything in the stove, the pipe, passages, ash traps if it has them, blower housing, etc? Any critters or obstruction in the air intake pipe?

Have you changed pellets from before? Brands vary a lot and even some brands vary from year to year.

 

[SidecarFlip]

The venting is dirty, clean it. Only a couple things that contribute to low heat output (if the fuel is getting delivered to the burnpot in a timely manner. 1. Poor draft (usually from either a bad draft fan motor that has dry bearings or broken blades. 2. Clogged and neglected venting ( fly ash build up in the venting contributes to a poor burn. remember, it's only 3" ID. not a lot of flow room inside to pass combustion gas in the first place. 3. Poor cleaning habits (if the unit is filthy inside, the efficiency goes out the window. Fly ash is a great insulator besides clogging the works up.

You have to have good draft, clean venting, clean unit and good fuel to realize a good heat output. One of those paramaters is lacking with your stove.

 

[Vtuni]

Just thoroughly cleaned, Vertical pipe, T clean out, inside ash clean outs, burn pot (which is only 1 season old anyhow) was cleaned and holes check, The intake is a short pipe and is not clogged at all. This is installed in a garage so plenty of airflow.

However, new development. I jumped the low limit switch and it runs just fine fairly decent heat output, although not great - but better. Today a new snap-disk arrived via UPS. Installed it plugged it in and the room fan runs constantly, and i am back to low heat output and an E3 code after about 30 minutes of operation. Unplug the disk and jump the wires and it runs ok.

Thoughts ?

 

[Vtuni]

Sounds like a bad igniter, shorted.

Have you cleaned everything in the stove, the pipe, passages, ash traps if it has them, blower housing, etc? Any critters or obstruction in the air intake pipe?

Have you changed pellets from before? Brands vary a lot and even some brands vary from year to year.

Igniter was new out of the box. I will remove I guess and test for a short.

 

[Ssyko]

Here is the manual for the stove
(broken link removed)

E3 = empty hopper or bad sensor

go to page 9 it tells of the intake air damper. Adjusting it will help your burn. Maintenance & troubleshooting is in there also. Now that stove puts out 43,900 btu don’t expect it to throw hot air like a furnace. Its just a space heater. How big is the shop your heating? insulation? Drafts? It may take a couple hours to make a difference in the space.

 

[Ssyko]

Also take a look through you intake tube an make sure a mouse didn't make a home in it

 

[Vtuni]

Here is the manual for the stove
(broken link removed)

E3 = empty hopper or bad sensor

go to page 9 it tells of the intake air damper. Adjusting it will help your burn. Maintenance & troubleshooting is in there also. Now that stove puts out 43,900 btu don’t expect it to throw hot air like a furnace. Its just a space heater. How big is the shop your heating? insulation? Drafts? It may take a couple hours to make a difference in the space.

The manual (what there is of it) really didn’t help much, I have two other USSC larger furnace types stoves that seems to have much more fine tuning ability than this type. There is not feed rate adjustment and I think it might be a combination of pellets as well as a bad snap-disk. Replaced the snap disk (I did notice it ran fine with the snap disk by-passed) The garage is poor insulated and for the past three years the stove mostly kept up with the weather (down around -15F it would struggle to get above 65 inside but it did keep things from freezing. When it gets very cold I run 75/25 pellet corn mix. I get much more heat out of the corn (which I burn in my two other stoves) but to keep clincker from forming I have to run a low mix.

The shut-down after 40 min. Is puzzling. Even more puzzling is that fact that the new igniter tripped my circuit breaker not the fuse on the board. I don’t dare plug it back in, I will bench test for a short when I get a chance to pull it.