Can't Figure It Out

[Bigman32hockey]

We have a P61A. It's about 12 years old. I take very good care of the stove and clean it thoroughly on a regular basis (burn pot, vent holes, igniter area, fines door, exhaust probe, piping, etc.). A few weeks ago we began noticing the stove would create a lot of smoke at startup before it lit. There seemed to be more pellets in the hopper than there should be, and subsequently the fire in the stove would be huge (and somewhat lazy). We then noticed smoke coming out of the vent piping. We had a stove company come out and due a professional cleaning. They said this would fix the problem. It didn't. We were told our vent piping was bad so we had that replaced, for a cost of $750! Guess what...didn't fix it. I went online and saw someone who seemed to be describing the same issue we were having at startup. He said it's a common problem for the control board to stop sending the right amount of power to the igniter. This seemed logical, so I purchased a new control board and installed it. Didn't fix the issue. My Dad has the same stove as me, so I decided to try his igniter in my stove. That seemed to do the trick...for a while. This morning the stove again filled with more pellets than normal and seemed to take longer to ignite, again causing there to be more smoke in the stove than usual. Also, the Status light was blinking twice. I checked online and it said something about a vacuum switch. I was getting ready to order one of those when I noticed that the Status light had stopped blinking and gone back to solid red. I shut the stove off and waiting for it to shut down. I started it up again and there was no Status light blinking, but when the flame first ignites, I get kind of a lazy flame for a while. No blower turns on at first and the fire just kind of burns in the pot until the blower comes and and the smoke clears out. Can someone PLEASE give me some options on what I should do here? We love the stove but have become extremely frustrated with it not running correctly. We've spent close to $1,500 on the stove and feel like we've gotten no where. Just want it to run right. Thank you.

 

[scajjr2]

So does it run ok once it gets going meaning it's just a startup issue?

sam

 

[Bigman32hockey]

Correct. Once it's up and running, and the blower is running, everything is good. It's the startup that's the issue.

 

[ARC]

. No blower turns on at first a

With the feed rate on 4 and the igniter on auto the combustion blower should be on. I would guess and say you need a new igniter and that the combustion blower is on but you can not hear it. You could also turn up the combustion blower using the combustion motor speed control. Have you tried to manual start stove with some hand sanitizer and putting stove in manual see owners manual attached? It is not the vacuum switch if it was bad auger would stop feeding and stove would go out.

 

[Washed-Up]

2 blinks can be a few things, “vacuum interruption” being one, hopper seal, door gaskets and possibly the vacuum tube by the air intake at the back of the stove…also make sure the flap on the air intake is moving freely

 

[Bigman32hockey]

OK. I will check all those things you pointed out and see if one of them may be the issue. Thank you.