New Installed Harman P35i Vibration

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f29pc

New Member
Jan 2, 2022
3
Maine
(I first posted this under the wrong forum sorry for dupe until I figure out how to delete the first one)
I just had a new P35i installed 2 weeks ago, love the heat, hate the noise. I have a P43 it the basement and its run for years without issue so I am familiar with noises that are associated with Harman stoves. The P35 has a loud vibration during the auger operation, very similar to the one in this post.
https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/harman-p35i-auger-vibration.172600/#post-2314187
(mine is louder!)
After checking the obvious, the stove is level, its not the enclosure, and I have reset the plates (several times). I went to the dealer showed them the video, they said it was a bad auger motor. Like everyone else, they are backed up and couldn't come out for a month to replace it, they aren't hard to do and they gave me a motor and said I could do the swap, I did and the vibration was still there (if not a little louder). I checked both motors on the bench and my original motor ran a little quieter and had less vibration, so I re-installed my original motor and back to square one.
With the stove pulled out and unplugged, I ran the motor (installed) directly with an ac adapter cable I made. I have isolated the the source of the vibration coming from the feeder arm and the cam bearing. When the cam bearing contacts the feeder arm and starts lifting it, its quiet, as the cam bearing reaches about the 10 o'clock position the vibration starts and continues to about the 3 o'clock position then stops as the arm starts to close. This is 100% repeatable, if I put light pressure on the feed arm with my finger, the operation is quiet throughout except for the slight hum from the motor. Now that I know what it is, not sure what the fix is, kind of looks like a poor design to me.
Has anyone else experienced this with a Harman, it looks like a common setup in the P series?
Harman's logo is "built to a standard, not a price." but if you read it backwards, you pay the "price" for the "standard". I may be a little impatient wit the dealer, 4 to 6 week wait for a maintenance call after spending over 6K for a new install, its kind of disappointing having to shutdown a new stove every night so you can get some sleep..
 
Here is a short video with the vibration. I know Harman stoves are not the quietest, but I don't think this is acceptabel for a new stove.
 
The video did not load. Very poor response from your dealer. I have noticed the P35 is louder than others. Nice find on the exact source of the noise! Seems like if you had a rubberband that kept some down pressure on the slide plate arm the noise would go away?
 
I can't get the video to upload, but it's the exact same vibration in the linked video in my first post. The start and stop of the vibration is directly related to the cam moving the feed arm, just after you hear the pellets drop, the cam bearing comes off the feed arm, and the vibration stops. At the start of the next feed cycle, the auger motor starts, you can hear it running with no vibration for a few seconds, the vibration starts when the cam bearing comes in contact with the feed arm. I have the stove running on room temp and the auto igniter off so when at temp the stove will reduce to it's low "maintenance" burn until it calls for heat again. The vibration is there and loud when the stove is in its low burn mode on almost every run of the auger motor, when the stove is running strong, the vibration is more intermittent, not gone but less frequent. There aren't too many pieces involved with the design of the feed arm operation, and something isn't right with this one.... I guess I'm looking for other Harman user opinions if this is the "new norm" from Harman, or did I get a lemon. My older P43 had been running great for years with just normal maintenance.
I have thought abut the rubber band, even a weight or spring to hold tension on the arm, and it probably would stop the vibration, but I just can't accept having to use a 5 cent fix on a new 5K stove
 
I was going to say pull out the slide plate, look for burrs or rough edges, but, you might want to run hopper low, dump in a few bottles of powdered graphite. add more pellets and run stove.
 
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