Harman P68 in room temp mode manual with thermostat

[Funnydirt14]

I have been burning the stove in room temp auto mode with a Skytech 3301P hooked up set on a program during the day. The stove works fine in room temp auto. Comes on when thermostat calls for heat and off when not. Last night I wanted to try the room temp in manual mode. Flipped the switch to manual when it was calling for heat and the stove burned great and then hit the upper temp limit on thermostat and throttled down to a maintenance burn, but when the temp when to the lower limit the stove never throttled back up to meet the thermostat setting. Shut the stove off and let it go out, then restarted it in room temp auto and it lit and performed like normal. I tried same thing today and same results. Does the thermostat have something to do with it not working in room temp manual or am I missing something here?

 

[mralias]

I have been burning the stove in room temp auto mode with a Skytech 3301P hooked up set on a program during the day. The stove works fine in room temp auto. Comes on when thermostat calls for heat and off when not. Last night I wanted to try the room temp in manual mode. Flipped the switch to manual when it was calling for heat and the stove burned great and then hit the upper temp limit on thermostat and throttled down to a maintenance burn, but when the temp when to the lower limit the stove never throttled back up to meet the thermostat setting. Shut the stove off and let it go out, then restarted it in room temp auto and it lit and performed like normal. I tried same thing today and same results. Does the thermostat have something to do with it not working in room temp manual or am I missing something here?

How did you connect the 3301P to the stove? I thought the P68 uses a room sensor rather than an external thermostat. I can see how it would work in auto mode as the stove shuts down and requires full cycle to start up. In Manual mode full cycle is not required and may be why it is not working with a thermostat. Or is the connection somewhere else on the stove?

 

[corkman]

What do you have the temp dial set to on the stove. I believe you gotta jack that up around 80 or so and then set you desired temp on the Skytech

 

[Funnydirt14]

How did you connect the 3301P to the stove? I thought the P68 uses a room sensor rather than an external thermostat. I can see how it would work in auto mode as the stove shuts down and requires full cycle to start up. In Manual mode full cycle is not required and may be why it is not working with a thermostat. Or is the connection somewhere else on the stove?

https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads...ive-to-harmans-suggested-method-as-wel.74677/ This is the way I hooked mine up. It works great in auto mode.

 

[Funnydirt14]

What do you have the temp dial set to on the stove. I believe you gotta jack that up around 80 or so and then set you desired temp on the Skytech

I have it set at 80* on the dial. I have the thermostat set at 73 with a 1* swing either way. When the temp hits 72 the stove kicks in till it reaches 74* then it throttles down and shuts off. That is in auto mode. If I use manual it will go to 74* and throttle down to maintenance burn and stay there. The temperature on the thermostat was down to 70* and it stayed in maintenance burn. It would not throttle up.

 

[Funnydirt14]

Update: I thought I would try deleting the thermostat from the equation to see if the stove works without it. Unplugged the thermostat and plugged the room temp sensor back in to it's original spot and left the stove in room temp manual. I have the temp control set at 80*. When I plugged the sensor back in the stove, it throttled up from maintenance burn to full fire. So stove is working correctly with probe plugged in. So I am assuming the thermostat is not seeing the temp change in room temp manual. With the thermostat plugged in the stove is not getting the 4 blink status light in manual when it calls for heat at 72*.

 

[hockeyfan]

Update: I thought I would try deleting the thermostat from the equation to see if the stove works without it. Unplugged the thermostat and plugged the room temp sensor back in to it's original spot and left the stove in room temp manual. I have the temp control set at 80*. When I plugged the sensor back in the stove, it throttled up from maintenance burn to full fire. So stove is working correctly with probe plugged in. So I am assuming the thermostat is not seeing the temp change in room temp manual. With the thermostat plugged in the stove is not getting the 4 blink status light in manual when it calls for heat at 72*.

Hello, I have a very similar setup and I will try to understand how this might be happening.

It appears that you have set up the stove according to the excellent link

https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads...ive-to-harmans-suggested-method-as-wel.74677/

and have thermostat priority. If so, I don't think you should ever be getting a 4 blink status if the thermostat is calling for heat. If the skytech is calling for heat (indicated by a flame icon on the remote unit) and correctly communicating with the skytech control box, the relay in the control box should be closed and the 4 blink status should disappear. The stove should at that time react however the switches and dials are configured at the Harman control panel, including whether it is in either manual or auto room temp mode.

I think it's possible something is causing the relay in the skytech control box to not open/close correctly. It could be (1) batteries in either the remote or control box, (2) range of remote to control box is at its limit.

Other than that, the only thing I can think of would be somehow the thermistor wire (when the relay in the control box is open) is causing a short somewhere when in room temp manual, which doesn't make much sense.

Try troubleshooting the skytech remote unit very close to the control box, verify the flame icon on the remote is definitely calling for heat in both auto and manual room temp modes, and see if there is any change in your problem.

 

[Funnydirt14]

Well I unplugged the receiver box and plugged it back in and reset the stove settings back to where they were and now it is working correctly in room temp manual. And yes you don't get a 4 blink when it is calling for heat. Only when you reach your upper limit will you get the 4 blink. I don't know if there was a loose connection (which doesn't make sense, because it works in auto) or the batteries (which are brand new) are low. Or the signal wasn't reaching the receiver ( which if that were the case the receiver will beep until it reestablishes signal with the transmitter). Anyway it is working for now in manual. There is only one thing that I thought would happen with the thermostat connected and in manual mode, was that if I want to turn the stove off I have to physically turn the control knob to off on the stove to get the stove to shut down completely. Turning the thermostat to off in manual mode will just result in a maintenance burn in the stove till it runs out of pellets. In auto mode when you turn the thermostat off the stove goes out until you turn the thermostat back on.