harman accentra pellet feed

[tammybrian2]

I have a harman accentra, where I just corrected an issue I had with the combustion motor not working. I replaced that motor and the stove is working again.
one new issue that came up. if I open the lid to add pellets or to intentionally let the fire go out to clean the stove, pellets continue to feed. any ideas what to check to correct this? - -Brian

 

[jackman]

With my freestanding Accentra it will continue feeding if the hopper door is opened. That is normal. It will stop feeding if the front door is opened.

 

[tammybrian2]

I guess I should have mentioned that I have the Accentra Insert. on these the feeding should stop when the hopper lid is opened.

 

[Overfireinthehole]

Not necessarily. Do you have a hopper lid switch? Some of those had them and some didn’t. If you don’t have one, it will only stop feeding pellets when you open the lid if you are low enough on pellets to cause the vacuum switch to open due to a loss in unit vacuum. Any particular reason you’re using the lid to shut the unit down? Using the lid to break the vacuum can cause smoke to draft back into the hopper and into the home. It’s rare but I’ve seen it.

 

[bdud]

I have an Accentra insert which has no lid switch but the pellets stop feeding when it is open, it does not make a difference of how full it is. Mine has a vacuum sensor with an orange 'nozzle' on the left inside the hopper. If your Accentra has the orange 'nozzle', maybe it is just blocked. If I open the lid while the pellets are burning the flame in the hopper gets a bit more intense. You should get it working correctly. The vacuum switch I think is on the left, its visible when you slide the stove out.

 

[tammybrian2]

I cant say that I've heard of a lid switch. the accentra insert I have doesn't have any switch i'm aware of. a relative has the accentra insert purchased the same year as mine, from the same dealer. I'm not aware of any kind of lid switch on that one either. my lid lifts up and a couple of silver balls on a spring pop out to hold the lid open. pellets no longer feed with the lid open.

bdub - yes mine works the same way, open lid- pellets stop feeding, flame gets a little more intense. I will check this out tonight, and let you know.

 

[tammybrian2]

stove was full of pellets so could not check for this nozzle. I know I don't have any kind of nozzle in my stove. if the stove that i'm working on does not have this nozzle, would it be safe to assume that there could be an issue with the differential pressure switch? there is a rubber hose that connects to the switch which I disconnected and blew in to and there appeared to be no blockage.

 

[jp0469]

I have an Accentra insert that was manufactured in 2006. It has the same ball detent style of lid that you mentioned. Opening the lid on my stove has never stopped the stove from feeding pellets. Maybe your original combustion fan wasn't operating at peak efficiency and opening the lid caused enough of a pressure change in the firebox to trip the DP switch. Now that you have a new motor, it's able to maintain enough DP to keep the switch satisfied.

 

[tammybrian2]

the stove I have is from 2008, opening the lid since day one has stopped pellets from feeding. I cleaned mine today since it ran out of pellets, and I did see the 'nozzel' bdub mentioned. mine is yellow and is inside the hopper on the back panel and I assume goes through that back panel to the back of the stove. I noticed, as I was replacing my igniter tonight, and had the stove pulled out, that there's a rubber tube that runs from the pressure switch to that nozzle.
so for those whose pellets don't stop feeding when the lid is opened, how do you turn your stove off/stop pellets from feeding? my sister in laws stove, the one I've been working on, does not stop feeding when lid is open. if you turn the stove temp/room temp knob to 'OFF', it will still feed pellets to keep the fire going. so the only thing we could do to stop pellets feeding is unplug the stove.

 

[railfanron]

There are several ways to shut down a Harman stove with the standard control board.
Turn the stove to the off position and that will initiate a shutdown. Pellets will feed and gradually slow to a stop.

Put the stove into room temp with the igniter setting on auto and the temp knob to it's lowest setting. Stove will shut down automatically. I haven't watched my shut down for quite a while but I believe pellets will feed gradually to maintain a controlled shut down.

Pull the sensor tube off the low draft pressure switch. This will stop pellet feeding and stove will immediately shut down the pellet feed.

Haven't timed my shutdown procedure but I believe it's 30 or 40 minutes.
Ron

 

[tammybrian2]

thank rons, all these years of using the stove and I did not know it could be shut down that way, I just always opened the lid. of course the only time I opened the lid was to let the fire go out so it could be cleaned. thanks again!

 

[MarkF48]

Lately I've had some shutdowns on an XXV that seem to take a long time (have cleaned the ESP) and I've used the open lid with its switch to stop the auger motor and pellet feed. I did a cleaning yesterday, had the back opened, and it appears the wiring from the lid switch is easily accessible where spade connectors of the wires tie into the auger feed motor. Contemplating the addition of a toggle switch mounted in an easy to access location and wiring it in series with the lid switch which would ensure a shutdown by running out of pellets.
I really don't understand why the shutdown process allows pellets to feed, as this simply prolongs the shutdown and I don't like going to bed at night and not being sure if the stove is eventually going to extinguish or not.

 

[railfanron]

I find a no shutdown interesting. I run in room temp auto pretty much all the time so the stove stops and starts several times a day 7/24s. Over five years I imagine it has shut down at least a thousand times with no issues. The length of the shutdown does vary but I'm pretty sure it's connected to the outside temperature. The colder it is the faster it shuts down leading me to believe the ESP temp is responsible for the shutdown.
Ron

 

[MarkF48]

I find a no shutdown interesting. I run in room temp auto pretty much all the time so the stove stops and starts several times a day 7/24s. Over five years I imagine it has shut down at least a thousand times with no issues. The length of the shutdown does vary but I'm pretty sure it's connected to the outside temperature. The colder it is the faster it shuts down leading me to believe the ESP temp is responsible for the shutdown.
Ron

Somewhere on this forum I think I had read the ESP needs to get down to 90 deg F at which point the pellet feed stops. If the ESP was gunked up I suppose the ESP might take longer to get to that temperature and perhaps as a few suggest here that shut down issues could be a dirty ESP.