Harman P61 spilling over side of burnpot

[snocross1985]

When I light my P61 it seems to be feeding pellets into the burnpot to the point where it will overflow over the sides. It does this when running wide open i room temp mode. I don't recall it ever doing this last year. It had a full top to bottom cleaning in the summer. Control board was replaced last winter. I am running leftover FSU from last year and they never overflowed that I can remember. Any thoughts? Feed rate is set to 3.

 

[Big papa]

Try resetting the control board buy unplugging it the next time you shut down

 

[dhall28]

with a completely empty burnpot but pellets in the auger tube ready to be fed out does it overflow the pot on the intial feeding of pellets? Harmans have a "charge" amount of pellets that they feed into the pot on start up. This is timed based and can be changed by changing dipswitch setting on the control board to increase or decrease the initial feed amount to the burnpot on start up. The stove should stop feeding in pellets and try to light them for several minutes. If it does not see a rise in temperature on the ESP after several minutes 5+, idk the exact time, it will then try to feed in more pellets.
using short pellets will exaggerate overfeeding as short pellets feed in faster than long one (I have had to change the dipswitches factory settings for some harman users that had somersets as they tended to be a very short pellet and on initial feed were having slow lights and huge flames well beyond any normal operation of the stove)
-Your control board dip switch settings are telling it to feed in pellets for too long a time on the initial feed.
-Your trying to start it with some pellets already in the burnpot
-your stove isn't lighting well and taking too long causing the stove to feed in additional pellets after the initial feed.
These are the most likely culprits of overflowing pellets on start up that i can think of off hand.

 

[Phoenix Hatchling]

I think the Harmans have been internally programmed to take over the world this week! Note this thread from another poster and my experience as well!

https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/interesting-problem-with-my-p43.132890/#post-1786373

 

[RKS130]

When I light my P61 it seems to be feeding pellets into the burnpot to the point where it will overflow over the sides. It does this when running wide open i room temp mode. I don't recall it ever doing this last year. It had a full top to bottom cleaning in the summer. Control board was replaced last winter. I am running leftover FSU from last year and they never overflowed that I can remember. Any thoughts? Feed rate is set to 3.

I find I only 'overflow' when burning very short pellets. Obviously the stove has no idea how long your pellets are and the auger turns at a set rate for any given setting. With longer pellets, fewer get into each rotation; with shorter pellets there is more fuel delivered with each crank of the auger. I figured this out while burning FSUs at the settings I had for some other longer pellet. My FSUs were very short, and uniformly so. I dropped the feed rate down to about 2 and all was well.

Might be worth a try.

 

[Tonyray]

I find I only 'overflow' when burning very short pellets. Obviously the stove has no idea how long your pellets are and the auger turns at a set rate for any given setting. With longer pellets, fewer get into each rotation; with shorter pellets there is more fuel delivered with each crank of the auger. I figured this out while burning FSUs at the settings I had for some other longer pellet. My FSUs were very short, and uniformly so. I dropped the feed rate down to about 2 and all was well.

Might be worth a try.

I always lower the feed rate if I am burning shorter pellets...at least on startup.

 

[snocross1985]

I will have to give these suggestions a try. The pellets are definitely short. Worthy of note, this is an old P61 (no auto ignition, manual light only) with a new control board so the issue is not with the auto ignition since I don't have it.

 

[Tonyray]

I will have to give these suggestions a try. The pellets are definitely short. Worthy of note, this is an old P61 (no auto ignition, manual light only) with a new control board so the issue is not with the auto ignition since I don't have it.

drop the feed rate and let us know...

 

[Harman Lover 007]

I always lower the feed rate if I am burning shorter pellets...at least on startup.

Changing the feed rate during startup won't change anything. The frequency (measured in seconds) at which the auger turns during startup/ignition is completely controlled by the dipswitch settings on the CB.

I find I only 'overflow' when burning very short pellets. Obviously the stove has no idea how long your pellets are and the auger turns at a set rate for any given setting. With longer pellets, fewer get into each rotation; with shorter pellets there is more fuel delivered with each crank of the auger. I figured this out while burning FSUs at the settings I had for some other longer pellet. My FSUs were very short, and uniformly so. I dropped the feed rate down to about 2 and all was well.

Might be worth a try.

You can mess with your feed rate if you choose to but if you leave at 2, your stove will not perform well when you need it to.

 

[snocross1985]

So if adjusting the dipswitches is the best place to start, what should they be set to?

 

[Harman Lover 007]

I am not advocating that ANYONE start changing their dipswitch settings based on the above unless you are extremely comfortable in what you are doing....

 

[RKS130]

You can mess with your feed rate if you choose to but if you leave at 2, your stove will not perform well when you need it to.[/quote]

 

[Harman Lover 007]

You can mess with your feed rate if you choose to but if you leave at 2, your stove will not perform well when you need it to.

View attachment 141938[/quote]
Not looking to debate this with you, and as is said here many times, YMMV(your mileage may vary) but setting your feed rate at 2 is the same thing as putting a brick under the accelerator pedal of your car. You are holding back the full potential of your Harman Accentra, especially when you need it the most. In your case, you say it works for you...and that works for me!!

 

[Tonyray]

actually, I just looked and I am set at little past 2/half feed rate.

 

[Lerxst]

I'm having a similar problem. On start up its feeds out too many pellets, they spill over the front. I even get partially burning pellets dropping out. Sometimes the first flame can't get started good, too much fuel. I've been running the feed motor at 3.5 - 4 all season since November. No problems. Once it gets going every things fine. about a week and a half ago I switched to longer pellets. Any new suggestions?

 

[alternativeheat]

When I light my P61 it seems to be feeding pellets into the burnpot to the point where it will overflow over the sides. It does this when running wide open i room temp mode. I don't recall it ever doing this last year. It had a full top to bottom cleaning in the summer. Control board was replaced last winter. I am running leftover FSU from last year and they never overflowed that I can remember. Any thoughts? Feed rate is set to 3.

You didn't mistakenly leave out your flame guide by chance did you ( hey it can happen)? We had a guy here with a used P61 that had no flame guide and pellets spilled over the sides of the burn pot.

 

[boo boo]

I'm having a similar problem. On start up its feeds out too many pellets, they spill over the front. I even get partially burning pellets dropping out. Sometimes the first flame can't get started good, too much fuel. I've been running the feed motor at 3.5 - 4 all season since November. No problems. Once it gets going every things fine. about a week and a half ago I switched to longer pellets. Any new suggestions?

make sure your burn pot is clean down to the metal . Cool it down put your fingers down there and make sure there is no build up. make sure the igniter box is clean under the burn pot and vacuum it out and try again. hope it is this simple of an issue

 

[jimbolyard]

I had a similar problem with my P61 and it turned out to be some bad pellets. I had burnt Hamers for years but I guess I got about 12 bad bags or so. Tried another brand and all was good. Burnt the leftover Hamers and problem returned.
Jim