Do auger motors weaken over time?

[steelman]

Have used pellet furnace for 9 years, no issues. Late last year first jammed auger.
Easy fix. This year 4 jam's in a month.
Using newer pellets brand name energy pellets of america. Seem like good pellets, also seem very hard, harder than normal box store brands like somerset, etc.
Thank you

 

[joescho]

I'm sure motors go bad. Not sure if they weaken. But you may want to check for fines. Got into a discussion with a tech one year at my house. Before I knew kinda sorta what I was doing I had them come out and make sure I cleaned it properly after the heating season was over. He said one of the killers is if you leave a pellets or fines in the hopper, or chute, or drop tube they can accumulate a lot of moisture and its like cement and will bind the auger. Just this year I had a problem with my pellet insert where it would run for 15 minutes then quit. Cost me $1000 because I thought it was the thermocouple and changed it out myself, snapping the prongs off the motherboard for the thermocouple (I've since fixed it).

Pulled the insert and cleaned it for the second time... nothing.... Pulled out all the pellets I could then shoved the vacuum cleaner down there and thoroughly cleaned out the hopper and drop tube area. Lit right up and kept on going..... Haven't had a problem since....
I think I had some crap down there that wasn't enough to jam the auger and throw an error , but the stove wasn't getting enough pellets to keep going to it never got hot enough to get to the stage of a full fire and turn the convection blower on, so it shut down.

So it could be just a pile of fines that's caked somewhere.

 

[Pellet rick]

I agree with joescho . You might also want to look at the augers. They will wear over time to

 

[steelman]

My furnace is a little different than some. It's an older treager GBU070. Corn/pellet furnace. It has a two stage pellet delivery.
First a rotating cup auger that measures and shears an amount of pellets that dumps into a conventional auger that delivers the pellets into the fire box.
It it the cup auger that is jamming. I have cleaned everything in the auger system. No binding what so ever when empty. But add pellets and binds within two rotations.
Disassemble auger gearbox, nothing wrong.
Anyway to test coil, torque output?
New auger motor gearbox are $70 or so.

 

[heat seeker]

I had an auger motor that had slowed down, and wasn't feeding properly. My burn was getting smaller day by day. Turned out to be the auger motor bushings needed oiling. The old oil had congealed, slowing the motor down noticeably. I hadn't realized the motor needed oiling, since the oil ports were on the bottom and not visible. A few drops of oil, and the motor was running up to speed. So, nothing was wrong with the motor itself, but the bushings (not ball bearings) were dragging the RPMs down.

 

[tlc1976]

I think you possibly answered your own question as you switched to a pellet that seems very hard. My stove has never had a problem with fines (but I know some do). I’ve only had 2 sheared pins and it seems like it was only a couple weeks apart, about 4 years ago. Probably had a bad batch of pellets. That was when I was burning the other pellets.

Probably depends on the motor but I’ve seen motors get weaker. One of the windings burns out and it still runs but not as strong. Or with an auger motor which has a gear case, worn gears and bushings or old thickened grease can drag it down.

Worn auger bushings can bind things up too.

 

[tbear853]

I had to replace an auger motor years ago when one of the auger bearings seized up. Was two on the auger shaft, The one nearest the fire end was almost stuck solid when it stopped. New bearings from W W Grainger and auger motor, I made a shield in case it was heat or fines from fire that lead to the previously unshielded bearing freezing up.

 

[SidecarFlip]

I had an auger motor that had slowed down, and wasn't feeding properly. My burn was getting smaller day by day. Turned out to be the auger motor bushings needed oiling. The old oil had congealed, slowing the motor down noticeably. I hadn't realized the motor needed oiling, since the oil ports were on the bottom and not visible. A few drops of oil, and the motor was running up to speed. So, nothing was wrong with the motor itself, but the bushings (not ball bearings) were dragging the RPMs down.

That covered it quite well.

Have to ask, in 9 years have you EVER cleaned and lubed the motors at all? If the answer is NO, I suggest you do them all, not just the auger motor. I have 16 years on mine (this year) and nothing has slowed down and my feed auger is nicely polished too.. Never heard of an auger failure but I suppose anything is possible.

 

[Rmay635703]

I have an old Traeger GBU070 corn and pellet stove that has never let me down

Last year we let it run out of fuel then powered down.

Now that I am trying to restart the unit I can get it up and running hot enough to kick in the blower fan but the cup and auger don’t spin.

Tried moving them by hand and both don’t appear to be locked up

Let me know, I would rather not tear the auger and cup out if it’s something simple I am missing

I would like to know where to get the motors and augers these days as my feed auger is getting pretty worn and black (26 years will do that)

Seems odd that it worked fine before being cleared out last season