Mt. Vernon Classic Primes Pot But Stops Dropping Pellets Sometimes

[cparts]

I have now burned for my first season with my Mt. Vernon classic. For the most part, it worked great the whole season. No real troubles. Love pellets

Odd problems restarting sometimes, but not every time.

Stove running fine.
Thermostat shuts off if temp is reached. All is good.
Thermostat calls for heat after a bit.
Stove always drops pellets and ignites them in the firepot.
But sometimes (see more below) the pot is primed, hot, ready, whatever you call that, but no more pellets are fed, so pellets in pot burn out.
I hit restart on manual reset snap disknand it will run fine all night. Then at some point it does the fail to feed after priming thing.

It feels like something temperature based to me.
I have tried to figure out when it happens the most. Some of my observations, although take these with a grain of salt because I'm not sure if they are related or not.
Seems to happen more the longer stove gets cold.
Somtimes I hear a click when I would expect auger should begin to feed pellets after priming pot. Not sure how accurate this is or if it happens every time.
On setting 3 or 4 it does it Less than 1 or 2, but it still happpens.
Just when i think I'm going to wake up freezing in the morning, it will feed pellets fine all night (including stove cycling on off with thermostat temp)

Any ideas how to attack this problem?
Thanks

 

[kappel15]

Stove has 4 mintues, 15 seconds for proof of fire(actually a tad more). You can hear the comb fan slow down. If it does not reach temp, it will do a shutdown. Stove has to reach 200* and green light in control box comes on, for auger to feed more fuel. Seems if there is some ash in pot, it has a better chance of restarting. Things to help is to make sure all pot holes are clear, esp. the 8 small ones. 4 in pot floor and 4 across from it in front of pot wall. Make sure pot floor has no more then a dimes width opening in back. Be sure igniter slit is clear of any clinker debris, that would slow down firing process. kap

 

[cparts]

Stove has 4 mintues, 15 seconds for proof of fire(actually a tad more). You can hear the comb fan slow down. If it does not reach temp, it will do a shutdown. Stove has to reach 200* and green light in control box comes on, for auger to feed more fuel. Seems if there is some ash in pot, it has a better chance of restarting. Things to help is to make sure all pot holes are clear, esp. the 8 small ones. 4 in pot floor and 4 across from it in front of pot wall. Make sure pot floor has no more then a dimes width opening in back. Be sure igniter slit is clear of any clinker debris, that would slow down firing process. kap

Hi,

I never figured out why this was still shutting down at the end of the season. Some mornings I would wake up and it was warm, others it was cold (didn't drop pellets). It appears to always call for pellets and drop enough to prime it, but it is not continuing to drop them. I will try to verify the behavior of the green light next month, as it is in the 80's here. The pot holes were clean, no clinkers. pot floor was tight (really tight), but again it works fine sometimes.

Suppose the green light is not coming on.... what to check then?

Suppose it is coming on... what to check then?

 

[Overfireinthehole]

Sounds like either long pellets causing inconsistent startup feeds or an issue with the thermocouple not being far enough over the pot to get hot enough. I see both of those problems a lot with the heatilators. Sometimes it helps to turn the feed up.