Harman Invincible Insert woes

[Dadof2nutz]

New to the forum, I finally joined after searching the web & constantly being directed to the site. I have a Harman Invincible insert that I bought used in 2013. I installed it in the early fall and it worked flawlessly all last winter with routine maintenance. I gave it a real thorough cleaning at the beginning of this season & it was working fine up until about 2 weeks ago. It would not stay lit & had a lazy flame that seemed to be rolling toward the door of the insert instead of towards the flame guide. So far I have pulled the insert, cleaned every nook & cranny (including the 4" flexible flue pipe to the roof and the EGT sensor), replaced the door gasket and flame guide. The only way I can get it to stay running is to turn the temp all the way up in stove mode and crank the feed rate up all the way to 6. After searching the forum for info, I am suspect of the burn pot gasket and the auger motor. I was able to get about a quarter turn on all 4 nuts holding the burn pot in, but I am not sure how to diagnose a bad gasket without actually pulling the burn pot itself. As far as the auger goes, it is feeding pellets, but I am not sure it's feeding enough. I don't want to keep throwing parts at the thing, but I really don't want to kick my electric baseboard on either!$!$ Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Dadof2nutz]

Update. Just checked on the stove & it was out. The indicator light was flashing 6 times but my manual only has codes for up to 4 flashes???

 

[jackman]

6 blinks is for incomplete combustion. With my stove it means deep cleaning time.

 

[Dadof2nutz]

Incomplete combustion, eh? Weird because I don't think I can get the stove any cleaner. I've poked, prodded and scraped every square inch of it.

 

[miteclipse]

Make sure you have cleaned the igniter area below the burn pot. This is done by removing the two wing nuts. My guess is that this area is full of ash.

 

[bogieb]

Just a thought, have you done a dollar bill test on the door gasket?

 

[Dadof2nutz]

Make sure you have cleaned the igniter area below the burn pot. This is done by removing the two wing nuts. My guess is that this area is full of ash.

Already done, not a speck of ash down there.

 

[Dadof2nutz]

Just a thought, have you done a dollar bill test on the door gasket?

I did, that's why I replaced the door gasket. Holds tight all the way around now.

 

[bogieb]

I did, that's why I replaced the door gasket. Holds tight all the way around now.

Whoops, missed that part

 

[rickwai]

you could just have a failing auger motor. If the feed dial has a test mode setting that starts all the motors put it in test mode and turn on w/ burn pot clean. Auger should be making 1 complete turn every 15 seconds. If it is not , the motor is going bad. Is the pot full when fire goes out or pretty much empty?

 

[Bkins]

Hi,

From your picture it looks like your Invincible is a older one. If so they are very hard to get the exhaust pathways cleaned. These parhways are reached after taking off the two side panels, inside the stove. There are pathways that are shaped like a "U" but inverted with the u at the top. You have to do whatever you can to get theses areas cleaned. The top part of the u is the hardest to get to.

I've used somewhat stiff wire. I've used plastic tubing hooked to a vacumne cleaner using a hole drilled into a coark bottle stopper which was almost impossible to get to turn the corner. My last time I used a very flexible brush head, that was designed to be used in cleaning fish tanks. My point is get creative but the 2 side channels need to be cleaned until they are open.. Also I used a rubber mallet to bang on the side of the stove. I also closed up all open airways in the hopper area with high temp silicone and make sure your air flappers inlets are not frozen up. They are in the front of the stove on the bottom reached after the stop is pulled out of the fireplace. Have you cleaned your ESP probe?

If your stove isn't a older one then I'm sorry for wasting your time. Let us know the age of your stove, roughly.

 

[TStark]

If the fines box is jamed up with debri, possibly not allowing the pusher block to retract far enough to grap new pellets.

As Bkins sez, clean heat exchanger inards, clean the ESP probe, and check the three air inlet are free. Pull the combustion blower and clean inside if you havn't yet as well.

 

[Dadof2nutz]

you could just have a failing auger motor. If the feed dial has a test mode setting that starts all the motors put it in test mode and turn on w/ burn pot clean. Auger should be making 1 complete turn every 15 seconds. If it is not , the motor is going bad. Is the pot full when fire goes out or pretty much empty?

The pot is pretty much empty when the stove goes out. That's what us making me suspect the auger motor is bad. I'll time the auger when I get home from work tonight.

 

[Dadof2nutz]

Hi,

From your picture it looks like your Invincible is a older one. If so they are very hard to get the exhaust pathways cleaned. These parhways are reached after taking off the two side panels, inside the stove. There are pathways that are shaped like a "U" but inverted with the u at the top. You have to do whatever you can to get theses areas cleaned. The top part of the u is the hardest to get to.

I've used somewhat stiff wire. I've used plastic tubing hooked to a vacumne cleaner using a hole drilled into a coark bottle stopper which was almost impossible to get to turn the corner. My last time I used a very flexible brush head, that was designed to be used in cleaning fish tanks. My point is get creative but the 2 side channels need to be cleaned until they are open.. Also I used a rubber mallet to bang on the side of the stove. I also closed up all open airways in the hopper area with high temp silicone and make sure your air flappers inlets are not frozen up. They are in the front of the stove on the bottom reached after the stop is pulled out of the fireplace. Have you cleaned your ESP probe?

If your stove isn't a older one then I'm sorry for wasting your time. Let us know the age of your stove, roughly.

Not sure of the actual production date, but it is an old stove. I was able to get a wire up into the heat exchangers and across the top. There wasn't much up in there. I pulled the ESP and cleaned it as well. I know of the two flapper intakes on the sides, but I'll have to check for the other ones behind the stove. Looks like I'm pulling the insert back out again tonight....

 

[Tonyray]

last time I got 6 blinks I found out I didn't have the hopper lid closed tight enough.

 

[Dadof2nutz]

Timed the auger. 4 rotations in 56 seconds in test mode and it was feeding pellets into the pot. Going to pull the insert & take a better look at the intakes and combustion blower. Anyone know what the symptoms of a bad burn pot gasket are? When I put the stove in test mode, all the ash in the burn pot blew straight out at the door. The stove went out on its own last night. No blinking light, no unburned pellets in the burn pot, yet the hopper was still full.

 

[Dadof2nutz]

If the fines box is jamed up with debri, possibly not allowing the pusher block to retract far enough to grap new pellets.

As Bkins sez, clean heat exchanger inards, clean the ESP probe, and check the three air inlet are free. Pull the combustion blower and clean inside if you havn't yet as well.

You, sir, are a genius! I forgot about the fines box. I pulled the insert, opened up the fines box & it was packed! Cleaned it out & lubed the bearings on the shaft. She's burning like a mother trucker now!

 

[Bkins]

I'll mention it even though you have probably already covered it. Is the area under the pot, I don't really call what's there a pot but rather a tray, cleaned? It goes back a good ways and although it has nothing to do with your pellets feeding this area does have a lot to do with the way the stove burns. What settings are you running your stove on?

The area I'm talking about is reachable at the front of the stove under the tray and reached by removing the 2 wing nuts and removing the door. There are also a ton of air holes on the tray as I call it that need to be made sure that they are not clogged. You might also try looking at the side stove glass. I would find something that could withstand the heat and just go around each side glass to see if you can notice any difference. Might also take a real good look at the exhaust mating surfaces on the frame and the gasket to make sure nothing is being obstructed in this area. Just throwing some guesses out there as I don't have a solid answer. I've had my stove for about 10 years and have not experienced your issue so I'm curious what the end fix might be. How old is the circuit board or you probably don't know since the stove was bought used.

By the way your stove is a tank and once you find your issue it will run and run. It's been a few years since I've run mine as I do the snowbird thing at this point in my life.

 

[Tonyray]

You, sir, are a genius! I forgot about the fines box. I pulled the insert, opened up the fines box & it was packed! Cleaned it out & lubed the bearings on the shaft. She's burning like a mother trucker now!

doesn't take long to fill up with sawdust and little broken pellets...
should clean it out once a month..
glad you found the problem.... always something little causes something big,,,

 

[Bkins]

Good to hear it's back up and running. Never mind my previous post. I've never found much in my fines box.

 

[Dadof2nutz]

Just wanted to give a big thank you to everyone who offered advice. This forum rocks! Glad I got this figured out with all your help. We're fixing to get a decent cold snap over the next few days. If I had to run my electric baseboard I'd have gone broke.

 

[Dadof2nutz]

Guess what? Stove went out again after running for less than an hour. After further digging, I realized that the push block was not being pushed in completely to feed the pellets into the auger. Is there supposed to be a return spring on the push arm to keep it pressed against the bearing on the auger motor eccentric? I rigged up a spring to keep constant pressure and it seems to be running just fine now. In all the diagrams I've seen online, none of them show a spring.

 

[TStark]

Good to hear, appears you are close

Mine is a freestanding T, your insert's mechanicals should more resemble the RS model, though they share much.

That said, mine has a spring, external, that does as you describe. I highly suspect your system should have such a spring pulling the arm agianst the roller.

 

[Harman Lover 007]

Mine is an RS and yes there should be a spring holding that lever against the little bearing on the auger.

 

[Dadof2nutz]

At least I know I'm not going crazy.. Where is the spring supposed to be? I was able to put a spring on the far end of the arm, closest to the combustion blower, going down to the bracket that the arm sits against at it's lowest point. I'm just hoping that it doesn't decide to pop off of there. So far so good though. She's been running non stop for 14 hours.