Harman Accentra "Bang"

[Lucerry]

Hi. I'm experienced the "banging" noise that I've read about in one or two other posts. I don't think that loosening the auger motor screw will alter the chain at all, and that appears to be the problem.

From watching the chain rub, it seems like the teeth tend to get off kilter just a bit every once in awhile. This causes the chain to keep getting more off track, until eventually it

I've shared a video in the hopes that you can see the teeth of the gear not lining up properly, and offer a possible solution! The banging noise is not constant or regular, but boy does it startle my cat something awful!

Thanks for your thoughts.

 

[smwilliamson]

You may have a build up of fines in the collection box. Get in there and take a look. Pull out the slider plate and look at the bottom...make sure that you do not have any black crusty creosote on the bottom edge. If it all looks good, I imagine you problem will be found in the drive assembly. two new sprockets and a chain may be in order or perhaps just a simple adjustment of the tensioner. It's the white plastic donut there...7/16 nut loosen and move it up. Lastly....if you stove is an early model, you may have four rubber gromets where the auger motor mounts to the frame. They may be softening and causing the motor to torque sideways with stress. It's recommended to remove the gromets, realign the sprocket on the shaft and just hard mount the motor back with some washers.

One last bit of advice here...if you pull out the slider and you DO find creosote under the slider edge, you have to remove the auger itself and get up there in the feeder body and see what's going on. You could have "gummy stove" goin on or you may even find a foreign obstruction caught up in there...like a lego or something.

Lastly, if you have one of the few models made that had the 5 air holes at the base of the burn pot...your auger flighting itself may have worn away or broke a weld and the auger itself may need to be replaced.

You will most likely have one, some or all of the conditions listed above. attending to each and ruling others will quiet her down. FYI, if you do need new sprockets and chain...consider a new auger motor too. IF the motor has been stressed out from the chain riding up on the drive sprocket I can pretty much guarantee you'll have weaker motor coil and perhaps even some worn gear box motor gears.

 

[William Dix]

I just joined the forum this was useful to me and I wish I'd seen it earlier today. Had been trying to figure out why my brothers Harman Accentra-2 pellet stove was thunking and feeding poorly.

So this morning when the bin was empty I took a look inside and ran the stove in test mode and noted that the slide plate would barely move back and forth. Pushed l the slide plate to see if it would move at all and it would barely move. In fact was literally stuck in a half feed cycle position. I also just found (broken link removed to http://www.harmanstoves.com/Owner-Resources/~/media/Files/Site%20Downloads/HAR/CleaningInstructions/AccentraCleaningInstructions.ashx)which I will probably follow the next time I have to clean the stove.

I then opened the back it up today and took a look at the collection box . Collection box was packed solid with fines to the extent that when I opened it I had to use a small wooden stick to break up the solid mass of fines so that vacuum cleaner could pull it out. I also pulled out the slide plate out and scrubbed it clean. Then I also vacuumed the inside of the bin to get rid of any remaining fines as well as wiping down with paper towel with some alcohol on it the innermost parts of the bin.

After all that I put in a very small amount of pellets (3 cups) and started it up thunk is gone and it is feeding quietly. I currently have a half bag in it and it is running very quietly.

A couple of lessons learned:

-Have a cover cloth or plastic sheet in place to catch cascading fines when you remove the collection box lid.
-Make sure the slider plate slot hooks up with the lever that moves it back and forth. Had to take things apart again to hook it up as it would move in one direction but not cycle fully.
-The Accentra-2 Collection box lid takes a bit of fiddling to get back on as the butterfly nut is in the middle not up top as in Harmans cleaning guide.

To do next time it gets a thourough cleaning is pull the auger assembly to clean off any creosote build up on the auger, which I suspect has a creosote build up judging by the condition of the slide plate. Although the creosote build up the slide plate may be a result of the slide plate not being able to do a feed cycle.

 

[Lucerry]

Weekend update. It was finally warm enough outside to allow for a complete shutdown of the stove and give it a very thorough cleaning. Did all the usual steps, vacuuming, brushing off the heat exchangers, scraping the burn pot clean, etc. Then I pulled the auger out from back end. The auger was fine-very little gunk on it. The fines box was virtually empty, as I had emptied that just a couple weeks ago. (Side note-I agree with William Dix, above, that the wing nut is in the wrong spot, and that cover just does not come off easily, or go back on, at all!)

I was finally able to adjust the tension on the white plastic donut. That, was the key, or so I thought. Put everything back together, and the stove started up and working beautifully...for about 18 hours. Then the bang returned, although no where near as often. It's not probably ever 5-6 minutes, but sometimes it goes for 30 min. without any noise.

I think next will be getting a new chain and sprockets and swapping those out.

Thanks for the suggestions, smwilliamson!

 

[CBL]

What kind of pellets are you running? From time to time, I tend to get some significant bangs and pops when I run really long pellets that bind up the auger.

 

[Lucerry]

(broken image removed)

We're burning Geneva wood pellets..from Strong, ME. Been using them for 1.5 years. Living in ME, we strongly believe in using a Maine company, and these have been our favorite. Not too many long ones, in my unscientific analysis of watching them pour into the hopper twice per day.

 

[CBL]

(broken image removed)

We're burning Geneva wood pellets..from Strong, ME. Been using them for 1.5 years. Living in ME, we strongly believe in using a Maine company, and these have been our favorite. Not too many long ones, in my unscientific analysis of watching them pour into the hopper twice per day.

II have a stash of Maines Choice that I'll burn from time to time (that are also made by Geneva) and Ironically those are the pellets I get the most auger noises from because the pellets tend to be on the longer side..