First off, I will start with I am obviously new to this forum. In some searching this seemed to be a useful forum to join pertaining to my recent project. I have been using an older Whitfield Optima insert for a few years as my primary source of heat. I recently took a flyer on a used $450 Harman Accentra insert manufactured May 2006 hoping to fix it up and replace the Whitfield which has some obvious functional deficiencies. This stove was in the basement of a home that was being flipped. The guy flipping the house knew nothing about it. He wasn't even aware how heavy it was because he had his contractor lift it out of the fireplace and put it in the middle of the floor. This means I have little to no history of the unit other then what I can tell through observation.
So far, I temporarily wired on another end to the power cord, for some reason the contractor cut the end of the cord. I plugged the unit in and placed it in test mode briefly to see what I was working with. When placed in test mode the control board's LED's illuminated and seemed to react to the changes in settings. When I put the dial to test the indicator lights illuminated for the motors however there was only the slight sound of an electrical buzz. My current assumption is the blower and possibly the auger are locked up from sitting and the control board is attempting to react to the test mode and the buzz is the extra current draw coming from a locked motor.
When I went to remove the cast fire deflector plates it took some coercion from a rubber mallet to free them. I’m assuming this stove sat in the basement of a foreclosed home for some period of time, which leads me to believe things just need to be gone over and freed up or replaced.
I’m not sure if this model year had the hopper vacuum sensor so before I ran the test mode I placed the lid back on the unit just to make sure if it is there it was able to sense a vacuum.
I believe my next course of action will be to place the unit in test briefly and measure to see if the motors are being driven under this condition or if they are locked up themselves. I will probably remove the auger and clear anything that may be in there unless I can get it to operate to do so on its own.
I figured this could be a useful thread to open as I proceed in tearing this thing down and getting it into service since I will admit to not having a large amount of knowledge of this stove. I am open to any troubleshooting suggestions or refurbishing areas to check out or re-seal or even problem areas to be aware of with this particular stove as it is new to me.
Please don’t spare me the technical details if you have them. I am an Electro-Mechanical engineer by trade so I’m sure I would be able to get this running on my own eventually. I am just willing to accept/admit where my knowledge and experience lack and allow others to share theirs with me to aid in my learning curve.
So far, I temporarily wired on another end to the power cord, for some reason the contractor cut the end of the cord. I plugged the unit in and placed it in test mode briefly to see what I was working with. When placed in test mode the control board's LED's illuminated and seemed to react to the changes in settings. When I put the dial to test the indicator lights illuminated for the motors however there was only the slight sound of an electrical buzz. My current assumption is the blower and possibly the auger are locked up from sitting and the control board is attempting to react to the test mode and the buzz is the extra current draw coming from a locked motor.
When I went to remove the cast fire deflector plates it took some coercion from a rubber mallet to free them. I’m assuming this stove sat in the basement of a foreclosed home for some period of time, which leads me to believe things just need to be gone over and freed up or replaced.
I’m not sure if this model year had the hopper vacuum sensor so before I ran the test mode I placed the lid back on the unit just to make sure if it is there it was able to sense a vacuum.
I believe my next course of action will be to place the unit in test briefly and measure to see if the motors are being driven under this condition or if they are locked up themselves. I will probably remove the auger and clear anything that may be in there unless I can get it to operate to do so on its own.
I figured this could be a useful thread to open as I proceed in tearing this thing down and getting it into service since I will admit to not having a large amount of knowledge of this stove. I am open to any troubleshooting suggestions or refurbishing areas to check out or re-seal or even problem areas to be aware of with this particular stove as it is new to me.
Please don’t spare me the technical details if you have them. I am an Electro-Mechanical engineer by trade so I’m sure I would be able to get this running on my own eventually. I am just willing to accept/admit where my knowledge and experience lack and allow others to share theirs with me to aid in my learning curve.
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