Hello. Hope somebody has an idea.

[mrhorrible85]

Hello.
I have an Avalon Arbor Wood Pellet Stove. We recently had a situation where pellets where smoldering in the hopper. We basically barely avoided a fire.

Since then the stove has not worked. I have checked various parts of the circuit for damage.

I started with the hood switch by bypassing it. Voltage was good through to the auger.

I checked thermodisk switches, one on the hopper and one that sits closer to the backing of the hearth. I bypassed both of them and checked resistance on each of them. The resistance is at .5 ohms, so I assume those are not tripped.

Finally, with all the thermodisk switches reconnected I checked the voltage going to the auger motor. I'm getting 120 volts when the auger light turns on. The auger is not turning.

I am going to remove the motor unless anyone has any other ideas before I do this.

Also I see no movement in the auger motor at all when it is powered. I have cleaned out the auger but have not attempted to manually move it as I read that it could potentially damage the gears inside.

Thanks for any advice.
-Jake

 

[heat seeker]

I'd remove the motor, then hook it up to see if it runs. If it does, the auger is likely jammed. The fire may have carboned-glued the auger to the chute, or caused other damage.

 

[mrhorrible85]

Thanks for the reply!

I disconnected the motor and ran it. The motor turns as the auger light turns on. It seems to take approximately 16 'on' phases to make a full revolution. A fault indicator comes on after a certain amount of turns which I would assume is a safety feature as it is not connected to a load. The auger itself was very gummed up with carbon and we are in the process of cleaning it. Any suggestions on cleaners that are stove safe? Perhaps an oven cleaning solvent?

 

[heat seeker]

I have no suggestions on a solvent. Make sure you clean the auger tube also. I would not use any harsh solvent as you may etch the metal which would cause more problems in the future.
If the motor has oil holes, oil it with three in one oil in the blue can, or 20 weight non detergent oil.

 

[mrhorrible85]

Thank you so much for the help. Will let you know if everything goes back together well enough.

 

[heat seeker]

I'll be watching for your reply. Good luck!
BTW, if the auger has bushings, clean them and lube them with a dab of high-temp grease.

 

[mrhorrible85]

Hey there. Fired it up last night after a cleaning and a long dry. It seems that the exhaust duct work may have come a bit loose during the cleaning and such and was leaking a bit further up the line and around the main exhaust port. I'm going to get some hi temp silicone to caulk it up. Our house was pretty smokey for most of the night. Got pretty cold with the doors open. Thank heavens I have a kerosene burner and electric kitchen stove.

Anyway I'll seal that up today and see what happens.

 

[mrhorrible85]

BTW, we do use CO detectors around the stove and throughout the house as well just in case.

 

[heat seeker]

It's always something, eh? But it sounds like the stove is running, though trying to smoke you out...!

 

[mrhorrible85]

So the combustion blower is not running.
I have checked the wiring.
120v comes into stove and splits into black -> auger and white -> convection blower and combustion motor and green ->ground
the white is getting 120 when checked. The white then joins with a white going into the control panel and goes out to the CM.
Another wire (Brown) connects from board to Black to the CM.

There is no voltage going into the CM. Any that wires after the main are only running at .1 volts at turn on then nothing afterward. Not sure if there is some kind of safety on the board itself or if something else is making the combustion motor not work. I have yet to disconnect the motor and hook it up to 120 directly because I was not sure if that would damage the blower.

I checked resistance on the CM and it is at 15 across the in connectors.

 

[mrhorrible85]

MAIN-------(S) B, G, W
main-------BLACK--------AUGER
main-------GREEN-------GROUND
main-------WHITE--------(S)-------WHITE---||-----BLACK-----Combustion
Board -----WHITE-------- |
Board -----BROWN-----------------------------||------BLACK----Combustion


God I hope this posts right and it helps. Usually these ASCII wiring diagrams confuse me more then anything.

Edit: Didn't post right

 

[mrhorrible85]

OK. I removed the combustion blower. I hooked it up directly to 120 and it runs. That leaves the board itself. There must be a safety on this board that triggered from the fire. Either that or I am missing something completely obvious.

 

[Ssyko]

Mrhorrible i can not find a wire scematic for your stove. Does the stove have power? Is the high limit switch tripped? Can you post a picture of the control board?

 

[heat seeker]

If you have no voltage going into the control board, the motor(s) won't run. Check your overheat snap disc (if you have one). They generally must be manually reset with a tiny red button. They typically kill power to the stove when tripped, and this fits your description, although I found it rather confusing.

 

[mrhorrible85]

Hi,
Thanks for the replies.
I disconnected the combustion blower yesterday and tested it by wiring it to a wall outlet. The motor ran fine. I tested the snap discs by removing them and applying a small amount of heat to each. They both tested fine under these conditions (breaking the connection under sufficient heat). These leaves me with the board.

I am considering hard wiring the combustion blower to the wall AC with an intermediary snap disc to cut power in case of a fire or overheating scenario. The board works fine in controlling the exhaust fan as well as auger speed and such. There must have been some type of safety engaged when the fire happened, though I can find no indication of it. I've checked the board and there are not any schematics that I've found for it.
The board is a TRV-AVR 101A. By bypassing the board I should have heat at least in the coming blizzard.

We have been fortunate that temperatures here in NY have been decent in the last few days, though that is soon to change.

 

[Ssyko]

Where in NY? Again, not knowing your stove well if your definitely going to bypass the board for the combustion blower. The stoves original high limit switch will shut the power off to the feed and convection blower if an oveheat happens. But i would not run the stove unattended that way.