Igniter Replacement jitters.

[Tonyray]

Everyone worries so much about Igniters and truth be told, it's prob the cheapest part of most stoves to replace.
I think most of the fear is owners who are not comfortable fixing or messing with a pellet stove therefore trying to avoid looking at $100- $150.00 service call
plus 79.00 Igniter marked up to 150.00 bucks or so.. Figures are not proven but prob Ball park..
btw:
Perfectly understandable concerning owners who are leary of doing any mechanical/Electrical work on there stoves.

 

[john193]

if you can unscrew a nut, you can change an ignitor...

luckily MVAE ignitors are dirt cheap. Got a pair for 70 with shipping.

 

[kappel15]

Hardest part on an AE, is poking those ends thru the hole. lol And that is a good price on those igniters. kap

 

[smg64ct]

I always keep a spare and when it fails I just change it out.

 

[kappel15]

I just sold two, to a neighbor

 

[Harvey Schneider]

I always keep a spare and when it fails I just change it out.

I bought a spare three years ago. The igniter that came with the stove failed promptly. The replacement, lower Wattage igniter is still going and the spare has been sitting there ever since. I run my stove in manual mode with only a one degree swing. I really don't know why people are paranoid about causing the igniter to fail.
I think the replacement took me less than 15 minutes including figuring out how to run the wires. A hint, use the old wires to pull the new ones through (gently).

 

[kappel15]

I run my stove the same way. kap

 

[bogieb]

Hardest part on an AE, is poking those ends thru the hole. lol And that is a good price on those igniters. kap

For those of us that don't see too well (even with corrective lenses - and readers), that could be enough of a problem . I can tear stuff apart no problem, it is getting it back together that I have issues with

 

[moey]

I just leave my car running continuously so I don't have to replace the muffler some day. The startups cause condensation and eventually rust. Ive probably saved 2 mufflers doing that ~$300. And with gas prices down now its a no brainer.

 

[muss]

Moey, too funny

 

[alternativeheat]

Everyone worries so much about Igniters and truth be told, it's prob the cheapest part of most stoves to replace.
I think most of the fear is owners who are not comfortable fixing or messing with a pellet stove therefore trying to avoid looking at $100- $150.00 service call
plus 79.00 Igniter marked up to 150.00 bucks or so.. Figures are not proven but prob Ball park..
btw:
Perfectly understandable concerning owners who are leary of doing any mechanical/Electrical work on there stoves.

I know a guy who lives out of state from me who is not mechanically inclined at all. It's cost him $300 a pop to get his igniters changed in his XXV and apparently it likes to eat them for some reason. He's one of these office geek kind of guys who feels only a qualified dealer tech could handle such a repair to such a complex piece of equipment. A leery sort of guy one might say.

 

[Harvey Schneider]

I know a guy who lives out of state from me who is not mechanically inclined at all. It's cost him $300 a pop to get his igniters changed in his XXV and apparently it likes to eat them for some reason. He's one of these office geek kind of guys who feels only a qualified dealer tech could handle such a repair to such a complex piece of equipment. A leery sort of guy one might say.

I don't think there are too many like that on this forum.

 

[Clay H]

My ignighter took a dump last night. I have to replace them often as I buy them from Grainger but may look for another cheap solution. The grainer ignighter that fits my St. Croix is only lasting through half the season historically for the last 3 seasons. Its a snap to change though.

 

[Bkins]

The igniter in my Quad has never been changed. I do have a spare though. Probably jinxed myself now. Run the stove off a thermostat so lots of on and offs.

 

[Tonyray]

I know a guy who lives out of state from me who is not mechanically inclined at all. It's cost him $300 a pop to get his igniters changed in his XXV and apparently it likes to eat them for some reason. He's one of these office geek kind of guys who feels only a qualified dealer tech could handle such a repair to such a complex piece of equipment. A leery sort of guy one might say.

I think the Point of it all is Hardly ever running your stove in Room/ Auto JUST TO SAVE the Igniter...
Not talking about the Hardcore Stove temp guys who run in that mode for different reasons but people in General who avoid the Auto mode to save it..
I know a few here who have Auto Ignition but use Gel to manual start just to save the Igniter..... for what I ask?
I mean u paid all that money for Harman or whatever technology and you don't use it just to save an easily replaced part.
Maybe people think in Auto mode the Igniter is always firing up more than it really is..
like when the flames ramp down low.

 

[Havilcek stole the ball]

I confess to igniter jitters, but I trace the cause to Harman itself. I read over their instruction on replacing the igniter, and right at the beginning it says this:

Key Concept in this Procedure
• Make sure all the low-temperature (blue & yellow) wires are drawn to the back of the burn pot.
• Only high temperature insulation should be in the burn pot area.
• Failure to do this shorts out the igniter, likely taking the control board with it. ((broken link removed to http://www.hearthnhome.com/downloads/communications/Igniter_Replacement_HAR.pdf))

I'm game for almost whatever DIY project presents itself, but I operate best where there is the margin of error is nice and wide. In other words, ideally I like to be able to fix my mistakes with a hammer. With the igniter, if I forget to pull the blue wire all the way back or something like that I'll fry the control board, and no hammer would fix that. It's a bad risk/reward I guess, hence the jitters.

Anyway, seven years and counting on the original igniter. Balky at times, but still going semi-strong.

 

[Tonyray]

I confess to igniter jitters, but I trace the cause to Harman itself. I read over their instruction on replacing the igniter, and right at the beginning it says this:

Key Concept in this Procedure
• Make sure all the low-temperature (blue & yellow) wires are drawn to the back of the burn pot.
• Only high temperature insulation should be in the burn pot area.
• Failure to do this shorts out the igniter, likely taking the control board with it. ((broken link removed to http://www.hearthnhome.com/downloads/communications/Igniter_Replacement_HAR.pdf))

I'm game for almost whatever DIY project presents itself, but I operate best where there is the margin of error is nice and wide. In other words, ideally I like to be able to fix my mistakes with a hammer. With the igniter, if I forget to pull the blue wire all the way back or something like that I'll fry the control board, and no hammer would fix that. It's a bad risk/reward I guess, hence the jitters.

Anyway, seven years and counting on the original igniter. Balky at times, but still going semi-strong.

Basically your just making sure the igniter wires are pulled " taunt" to back of stove so there is no slack in the Igniter compartment.[They do make it sound scary though]..
But I understand your concerns..
Excellent example btw...
[I was a Subaru Mechanic and 1st time I pulled the Engine out, I took Kodak Instamatic pictures of top and sides of the motor so I would know where the vacuum lines, electrical connections etc would go... helps to take a before/after pix when u take something..apart.

 

[alternativeheat]

Basically your just making sure the igniter wires are pulled " taunt" to back of stove so there is no slack in the Igniter compartment.[They do make it sound scary though]..
But I understand your concerns..
Excellent example btw...
[I was a Subaru Mechanic and 1st time I pulled the Engine out, I took Kodak Instamatic pictures of top and sides of the motor so I would know where the vacuum lines, electrical connections etc would go... helps to take a before/after pix when u take something..apart.

Instamatic ? You're dating yourself Tony !! lol. Hey I used to work on Detrait's toilets, the little 4-53 diesel and some what larger 8V53 back in the day ( the only engines I know of literally designed to leak oil on the ground through their Air Box drain tubes)... Cat's 3406 more recently. Then we got in the throw away little Mercedes diesels ( pure junk, EGR night mares).. But hey from those old diesels to the new, the difference was you could breath in the shop with a diesel engine running. That was unheard of back in the 70's or even 80's.

For cars we mostly had Chevy and Ford, a few Toyota's. We could squeak almost 300,000 miles out of any of them on a 4000 mile A-B-C service interval regiment... People say American cars are junk but they don't say how well they maintain them !!

 

[Wilbur Feral]

I know a guy who lives out of state from me who is not mechanically inclined at all. It's cost him $300 a pop to get his igniters changed in his XXV and apparently it likes to eat them for some reason. He's one of these office geek kind of guys who feels only a qualified dealer tech could handle such a repair to such a complex piece of equipment. A leery sort of guy one might say.

I think dealers call those guys "dessert". We have a neighbor like that. Never does anything more than take the trash to the curb and refill a bird feeder. Has a repair / service person there every day or two. I don't think I could live like that.

Then again, it'll look pretty good when I'm out there clearing the driveway off in about 30 minutes!

 

[heat seeker]

Someone (sorry, I forget who) had a good idea - put a fuse in the ignitor wire in case of a short. I put one in my ignitor feed wire, something like 4 amps. That is less than the 6 amp main fuse, and will protect the triac and control board from the stress of a short to ground. Easy enough to do, and cost something like $5.00.

I have no idea how old my ignitor is, the stove was used when I got it. It's on its third season with me, and gets used very 2 or 3 days to relight after a cleaning. One important thing is to keep the area around the ignitor clean so that it gets good airflow, which eliminates hot spots on the ignitor. I do have a spare on hand, which is probably why this one is lasting so well.

 

[Havilcek stole the ball]

Jinxed it - No sooner had I bragged on my seven year old ignitor than it gave up the ghost that same night. Maybe I will try to take a shot at putting a new one in there. Any ideas out there on where to find a compatible Harman P-68 ignitor?

 

[Tonyray]

Jinxed it - No sooner had I bragged on my seven year old ignitor than it gave up the ghost that same night. Maybe I will try to take a shot at putting a new one in there. Any ideas out there on where to find a compatible Harman P-68 ignitor?

Use Ebay...
I have just seen Harman After Market with "Exact Harman specs" stated and guaranteed..$70-80.00 bucks. they are all 15 fin Igniters for the P series..
plenty of them for sale.

 

[john193]

I got jinxed as well. Ignitor quit today after giving the "missed ignition" code. Sure enough, the multimeter agreed. Ohh well, the backup was in the garage. Only got 2.5 yrs out of the original ignitor.

Tony, i'll be sending you an invoice for this

 

[seige101]

When you do your annual cleaning remove the ignitor and look at the part numbers and do a little google magic. i Was able to get 3 replacement ignitors for my enviro empress for less than the cost of 1 from any other retail source.