Empress FS trouble flashing start and #3 buttons

[TriMom]

We have a new to us Empress FS stove that Scott installed in May. He did a complete cleaning at time of install.

We are just starting to use it now as the temp has gone down and are learning more about operating the stove.

Overnight stove stopped working. When I checked the hopper was close to empty but still some pellets in it but less in center where it feeds. I moved pellets around to have them be more even.

My husband then filled it up, cleaned it and tried to restart. The yellow and red light #3 were blinking before he restarted it.

In restart
Stove lit, room blower came on after fire but was weak, flame failed to lite robustly, even adjusting the damper although there was air blowing into the burn pot and burned ash flying.
The heat level moved to #2 by itself, then unable to adjust level up or down

Then, short white flash from back of the stove, all systems kept working. Concerned about operating as is, so shut shove down.

Manually turned off the stove and unplugged it to reset it. Then plugged back in.

Now when we try to restart both yellow start button and #3 heat level are still flashing, no ignitor, little or no blower.

Any ideas of what we need to do or check?

 

[ChandlerR]

Hi TriMom...Someone with more knowledge than me will check in shortly, I'm sure. What jumped out to me was the short white flash in back of the stove. Sounds like a short somewhere. Seeing as this happened the first time you've used it after a complete cleaning, I'm thinking a wire got moved, pinched, or otherwise disturbed. I'll be watching this thread with interest!

 

[TriMom]

Tried again to lite stove....but no pellets feed when we started it.

Any ideas?

 

[Bioburner]

Sounds like the wire to the auger motor shorted, best case of a bad situation, putting your first and 2nd posts together. Time to pull out and take off the panels to check the wires. Sure Scott can help if you drop a line.

 

[TriMom]

Sounds like the wire to the auger motor shorted, best case of a bad situation, putting your first and 2nd posts together. Time to pull out and take off the panels to check the wires. Sure Scott can help if you drop a line.

He took apart the stove and found the fuse F2 ws blown which by manual suggests overload with ignitor, auguer motor, high limit switch or exhaust blower. Given what happened and sounds we think it was auger. Should we try a new fuse and put it back together or investigate further?

 

[Bioburner]

Since the last activity with the stove was filling it, I would pull out all the pellets and check to see if something got stuck in the auger. KIDS, TOYS, Stove with a built in play box. You get the picture. Possible the auger with a jam put the overload on circuit. Its happened many times before and yours probably will be far from the last. Good luck, its cold out.

 

[TriMom]

We removed all the pellets and don't see anything in the auger or in the pellets. Is there a way to remove the auger to see the underneath side.

We found the right fuses at Radio Shack. Trying to get this up and running before we leave for a long weekend with twenty something kids at home.

 

[ChandlerR]

A fuse blowing will look like a flashbulb if it's protecting a dead short.

 

[TriMom]

We replaced the fuse and tried to fire it up. We could see auger was working maybe a little louder than normal but it wouldn't ignite.

Any other ideas of things to try.

We have service appt next week but it would be nice to get it running ourselves before that.

 

[Bioburner]

Did the auger feed pellets into the pot? Possible the igniter is bad now that you have made sure the auger is feeding the pellets. You could go for a manual start. To bad you don't have a Kill o watt. Could monitor the electricity as the stove starts up. Probably have about a 300 watt igniter.

 

[TriMom]

Yes pellets were fed into the pot. We are going to try to manually lite it. Any tips?

How hard is to replace the igniter?

Thanks!

 

[Bioburner]

General wisdom for a manual start is about half cup of pellets or better and stick the torch head into the pile till you get a nice ball of glowing pellets, 45 seconds or so. Have the stove already running in order to draw out smoke. Shut the door and the ball of glowing pellets will once ventilated by stove when you shut the door should take off. Hopefully the proof of fire will be activated by the time the pellets burn out or the auger feeds to continue the fire.

 

[TriMom]

Bioburner, thank you so much we were able to get our stove running!

Thanks to you and this forum we were able to problem solve. Now to get part and change it out. Time to go to Scott's new store to get the part.

 

[Bioburner]

Tell him who helped.

 

[TriMom]

Will do Bioburner!