eratic auger

[ashes]

have had my accentra insert for several years and have always experienced the following.
1. my flame rises to 8-10" fan while the auger is feeding. it will then burn down to a small 1 -2" flame until the auger kicks in again. it repeats this over and over. have adjusted every thing . dosn't matter if the feed rate is 3 or 6, if temp or fan controls are on low or max. it goes back and forth from max burn to minimum burn. it is the most dramatic in the room temp mode. stove temp mode is less dramatic. on the surface it appears there is a delay in the auger.

2. the auger never,never fills the burnpot 1" from the edge and never overflows. the burnline is always 2-3" or more from the edge. the ashes build up along this burnline and result in a carbon buildup daily. some mornings, depending on pellet brand, it looks like a birdsnest in the burnpot from the buildup of ash. control settings do not affect this daily occurance.


dealership replaced the control panel circutboard, no difference. door gasket is fine, pressure is plentiful. probe,flap and chambers are cleaned monthly.

 

[lecomte38]

My insert is running just like yours. The auger runs once per minute ( EXACTLY) and depending on the setting it will run anywhere from 5 - 25 seconds. I get a much more even burn on stove temp. It seems to search for the proper feed rate on room temp with the feed and blower rate fluctuating all the time. On low I can get a big bird nest clinker.

 

[ashes]

as info, I also sent harman a abreviated email of my symptoms, below is their reply received today (11-14). their reply is almost the same as the dealership. guess my erratic stove has a unknown fluke. my stove still heats the house, but requires "high maintenance"

the below is from harman;

"Regarding potential repairs of your appliance, we recommend that you work with your local dealer. Your local dealer can provide the proper diagnosis, equipment and resources to provide the necessary corrective actions. Arriving at an accurate diagnosis can be very difficult by phone or e-mail. We ask that your dealer contact us if further assistance is needed to resolve your service issue.

During normal operation, the fire position will vary in the burnpot, because the software is adjusting the feed amount based on the heat demand. The feed adjuster is really a feed limit, the software will determine how much to feed to meet the temperature requirement, up to what you allow on the manual feed adjuster. The software runs on a 1 minute time cycle. The feeder will run for a portion of the minute and then rest until the next cycle.To achieve, and sustain a maximum burn, you would need to use stove temp mode and set your temperature knob at maximum, along with the feed adjuster at maximum.

We recommend that your appliance is serviced annually by a qualified service technician."

as info, dealership's best guess was a bad probe. told them to order me one at my expense. that was a year ago, still waiting. have read identical blogs of others, know i'm not the only one.

 

[ashes]

have identified where the problem lies concerning the small flame on the low point , which is also the cause of the burnpotfilling only halfway with pellets. the unknown is why, have it narrowed down to 2 possibilities,,still working on it. would not recommend my harman accentra to anyone. have swayed friends to purchase another brand of stove and they are quite satisfied. would not be surprised to see the harmon co. being bought out by general motors, they have so much in common. will update those who are interested.

 

[smirnov3]

Have you had your flue cleaned?

do you have a very tall flue (ie stove is on first floor, flue gous up the chimney past second floor & attic & more?)

Is the 'feed' light on when the Auger is not feeding?

If there is ash build up in the flue, it will constrict air flow. And that will cause the control board to not feed pellets even when they are called for.
The flames will still look energetic, because the control board will adjust the amount of pellets being fed not so as not to overload the available exhaust flow

also, I suspect, based on my accentra, that the combustion blower is under powered

 

[ashes]

do you have a very tall flue (ie stove is on first floor, flue go up the chimney past second floor & attic & more?) ---exactly as you described. have 40' brush/rods and clean it twice a year. pipe is kept clean and no difference in stove before or after cleaning. draft in stove appears excellent.

just cleaned the burnpot and noticed on restart the auger was not feeding at a high pellet volume. with a flashlight I could see between the 1st and second curl of the auger. all pellets were delivered to the burnpot on the left side of the auger, very very few on the right side between 1st-2nd fins/curls, had only a couple inches of pellets in the hopper and was able to feed the auger with my fingers, almost doubling the volume of pellets being fed thru the auger. continued this for quite awhile and the burnpot filled to one inch of the edge. flames on the high/low sides were great.. pulled the stove out and tookout the slidebar out to make sure it was not upsidedown. center bar on slidebar was on the up side, so i have no idea why it is feeding the auger leanly

 

[GVA]

ESP
Have the dealer come out and plug the DDM into the stove...