Erratic Pellet Feed-Quadrafire Castille Insert

[DannyF]

I am experiencing erratic pellet feed on start up of my Quadrafire Castille insert. It mostly occurs when the stove has been shut down for an hour or more.

The failure symptoms are as follows:

The stove will go through its start up process as normally as soon as the thermostat call for heat.

The first load of pellets will drop down

The pellets will ignite and start to burn.

As the first load of pellet begins to burn out, I hear click in the background, which I assume is the control system
telling the auger to drop another load of pellets, but nothing happens.

If I don't intercede the fire will die out.

If I hit the reset button, more p-eelets will immediately drop;and then the feed process will continue normally.

I asked my dealer about this, and was told that problem was improper cleaning.


I don't understand this. The stove is only two months old. I clean the fire pot, and sweep out the ash daily. I use the rods to clean the baffles every day; and I remove the baffle pan to clean out the ash buildup there weekly.


Can anyone out there help me understand what going on here?

 

[jtp10181]

Watch the lights on the control box on a cold start where you would expect to see a problem. You should get a red call for heat light on the stove itself, watch for lights INSIDE the control box. When you first call for heat there will be no lights in the control box. After it gets up to a certain temp it will turn on a green light and continue feeding pellets. Eventually it will go to red. If the light never turns green its possible the thermocouple is bad. If it turns green but pellets wont drop then I am confused.

 

[DannyF]

Watch the lights on the control box on a cold start where you would expect to see a problem. You should get a red call for heat light on the stove itself, watch for lights INSIDE the control box. When you first call for heat there will be no lights in the control box. After it gets up to a certain temp it will turn on a green light and continue feeding pellets. Eventually it will go to red. If the light never turns green its possible the thermocouple is bad. If it turns green but pellets wont drop then I am confused.

Thanks for your input.

I've been watching for several days now to see when the green & red lights come on inside the control box. It seems to be erratic. Sometimes the green light comes on,and the pellets feed normally.. Sometimes the green light does not come on before the first batch of pellets has burnt out; and I need to hit the reset button to make more pellets drop. When I do that, the green light seems to come on immediately;and the process proceeds normally from that point on.

I have been scrupulously cleaning the stove each night,so that it would be in the same condition each morning.

Does it still seem to you that the problem is with the thermocouple?

 

[Czech]

Is the ceramic cover on the thermocouple made up all the way? The thermo should be all the way into the cover. I wonder if it is not getting up to temp on the first go around, then by the second try it is?

 

[jtp10181]

Well the thermocouple heat sense controls the lights, so its related for sure. As Gotz suggested, make sure the thermocouple tip is touching the end of the ceramic cover or else it does not get good heat transfer. Only other problem could be if its a feed problem, not dumping enough fuel on the startups. Check the thermocouple cover first.

 

[slls]

Try emptying the hopper and vacuum out the finds, I use a clean vacuum and sift to use again.