New to Pellet stoves

[rwslippey]

Good morning,

I hope this is a good place to post this. I recently bought a home that came with a Whitefield Advantage II-T. (I say that because I used this website (https://woodheatstoves.com) to determine the model, but there appear to be some variations to my stove and the manual but this is normal with a lot of things these days)

So when we first moved in I tried firing up the pellet stove using some instructions here and youtube. I was able to get it to light, but it died out quickly. Doing some more research I decided to replace the door seal as it looked rather old and didn't look like it sealed well.

Last night I also did a good cleaning of the front. I removed the firebrick(?) and cleaned everything up. Vacuumed out everything as best I could in the front of the unit. I wanted to stay out of the back until I feel more comfortable with the unit. I've dealt with fireplaces and wood stoves but never a pellet stove so new territory.

Some issues and my questions.

Finally, last night after cleaning I was able to get the stove to go and it seemed to work very well. adjusting the damper it appeared the adjustments were very finicky but I was able to get the fire to burn clean. I did, however, need to keep adjusting the damper. I would get the fire burning nicely and then come back a few minutes later and it'd look like the fire was getting to much air or in one case it was the opposite where it was burning strong then started burning dirty. It didn't seem like the fire was consistent.

Is it normal to need to adjust the damper continuously?

I also noticed that the lights on my control panel are constantly blinking. All of them just keep blinking at a continuous rate. I can change the settings but it doesn't seem to do anything at all. For instance, if I change the fan speed, the fan speed never changed. If I change the heat setting, again it doesn't seem to do anything. Feed and combustion air always seem to stay the same.

Is this some sort of error code?
Do I need to look into a new control panel?

I will note that the blower speed does change at startup. It's very fast at startup then slows down after.

I'm sure I've missed a question in here somewhere but I thank everyone here for their help to begin with.

 

[bogieb]

I don't have experience with your stove, but I used to have a St Croix Hastings. As long as I burned the same brand of pellets, I didn't have to change the damper once I found the sweet spot. You should wait at least 15 minutes before adjusting the damper to let the air flow settle. Also, when adjusting the damper, a very small change can have a big impact so just perform minute changes.

You say you don't want to get to the back of the stove, but making sure the exhaust is clean is a big part of how the air flows (and also how the stove performs). I would even venture to say that exhaust cleanliness is more important than cleaning the front - but again, I don't know anything about your particular stove.

All those blinking lights are probably trying to tell you something, hopefully someone else with more knowledge will show up and be more help in this area.

 

[rwslippey]

I don't have experience with your stove, but I used to have a St Croix Hastings. As long as I burned the same brand of pellets, I didn't have to change the damper once I found the sweet spot. You should wait at least 15 minutes before adjusting the damper to let the air flow settle. Also, when adjusting the damper, a very small change can have a big impact so just perform minute changes.

You say you don't want to get to the back of the stove, but making sure the exhaust is clean is a big part of how the air flows (and also how the stove performs). I would even venture to say that exhaust cleanliness is more important than cleaning the front - but again, I don't know anything about your particular stove.

All those blinking lights are probably trying to tell you something, hopefully someone else with more knowledge will show up and be more help in this area.

Thanks for your reply... it warmed up quikc over the summer and other things took over so I'm terribly sorry for just getting back here and finally answering you.

I still haven't figured out why they blink the way they do. I also noticed what may have been a repair or might be stock. There is a jumper in the back of the unit (near the power plug, which oddly has a connector like it came from a computer, desktop type) ... the jumper appears to be a jack from the back of a speak (think red/black not phono connector)... I'm fairly savy with electrical and electronics so my biggest concern now is that someone didn't put this in place as a "solution" and it's being used as for a motor because the draw might be too much for that connector. No issues so far but still worrisome.

I did clean a bit of the sides and back. I noticed a few pellets on the inside but other than that it's just dusty.

Thanks again for the reply. I hope someone here has some more info or maybe a shematic of how it's wired so I can peak at it and see if everything looks right. Still get not real response out of the control panels other selections. heat output, blower speed don't really do anything besides change the lights that blink and they all blink in unison.


Thanks again

Rob

 

[heat seeker]

It could be a bad low voltage power supply section on the board - comes up to voltage, the load draws it down so the lights go out, then the voltage can come up again, etc. etc. I had a modem do just that. Drove me crazy until I checked the power supply.

That jumper may be installed if the stove doesn't have an external thermostat...

 

[Stovensen]

On a Whitfield, blinking LEDs and stove permanently on low, indicates a missing jumper or it has lost its connection.
Since the jumper is present on your stove, check for a bad connection somewhere. It could also be the wires leading from the thermostat terminal to the control board. Some replacement boards are delivered with the jumper connected directly to the circuit board, probably in order to rule out the issue you are having. See pic:

On pages 12 and 37 in the owners manual this issue is described more detailed. Owners manual attached below for you to study.
I hope this helps.