Englander pellet grill, have a short, testing help please.

[Highbeam]

Englander pellet grill, have a short, testing help please.

Folks, I have had the englander pellet grill for a few years now and for no apparent reason it started tripping the GFCI every so often. Weird. I plugged it into a nonGFCI outlet and everything worked fine for several cooks. Then I popped the 6 amp fuse on the control board. Uh oh, this isn't good. I checked all wires for pinching or chafing, removed all pellets from the auger tube and verified that everything is free to move. Replaced the 6 amp fuse. Put a small amount of pellets in the burn pot and test fired the stove. Popped the GFCI, so I moved to the nonGFCI plug, stove finished igniting itself and ran as normal before shutting off. 6 amp fuse popped again.

At this point I think I need to test the motors. There's not much to this pellet burner. Ignitor, combustion fan, auger motor. Short wires that are all visible.

Please offer any advice, Thanks!

 

[Highbeam]

Well, in case a future reader looks at this, it appears to be a bad igniter shorting to ground. A really bad short as it heats up but bad enough short when cold to trip the GFCI. A new igniter is on the way. It's cheap. Same igniter as most englander stoves.

 

[Highbeam]

Yup, new igniter was super easy to pop in and no ground faults or popped fuses anymore. Works like new. 15$ igniter may not last 2-3 years like the original or maybe it will.

I added a 3 amp fuse to the igniter circuit so in the future I will know when the igniter fails and the fuse will also prevent big draws through the circuit board.