Quadrafire Feed Motor Fury and the dreaded CSS - Cold Start Syndrone.

[Don2222]

The old Quadrafire Contour was humming along until the deep freeze came and it would not start when it was 23 Deg inside the workshop for 2 reasons

1. The feed motor would not turn.

The thermocouple and ignitor work fine. If I do a jump start, and fire the bugger up manually, the auger starts turning fine.

Listen to this video when turning the stove on at 20 Deg F. It has the original feed motor and gray control box vintage year 2k. Maybe CSS = cold start syndrome too?

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This was due to the old internal capacitor that was open in cold temps
A new Motor and external cap fixed it up nice

See pics
Click to Enlarge

 

[Don2222]

2. Now Stove would not start at 22 Deg F. Hit reset 3 times then it finally started. True case of CSS now! Cold Start Syndrome.

Got new universal clear control box for all Quad models today. Set rotary knob to pos 4 for Quad Contour. Replaced old gray controol box with this new one. this morning it was 23 Deg in shed. Turned on remote switch and stove fired the very 1st time! True case of CSS.

The new control box overrides the rocker switch stting I had on medium and sets the exhaust fan to high during startup. Stove fired right up. See pics below

Has anyone else seen these problems?

Stove starts like it is summer time now!

Click to Enlarge

 

[DMKNLD]

I've never had to start my Castile in that cold of temps, but when I had the original grey control box I regularly had false starts, particularly on cold start-ups. When the OE box finally croaked and I replaced it with the new style clear control box, I have never had a false start. I also replaced the burn pot at the same time with the newer version that provides better air flow by design, so that might of helped as well with the lighting and burn efficiency. But since installing the new control box, besides burning good pellets and keeping up on the cleaning, my stove has never run better.

Glad your up and running as well!!

 

[Don2222]

Thanks for your information!

We just made 2 good stoves Very, Very Good!

The new burn pot is definately worth considering too! Thanks

 

[SwineFlue]

I've never seen a failed start, though the stove has not been colder than about 55 degrees. Original 2002 control box.

What is different about the newer burn pot?

 

[rparker]

Intrigued about the new universal control box. Are there more options / control settings?

 

[DMKNLD]

I've never seen a failed start, though the stove has not been colder than about 55 degrees. Original 2002 control box.

What is different about the newer burn pot?

My OE burn pot got a stress crack in it, so I replaced it with the newer Quad model that reportedly has better airflow design through it - more holes and differently configured than the original, from what I recall.

 

[DMKNLD]

Intrigued about the new universal control box. Are there more options / control settings?

From what I know, the newer model clear control box has the option to configure the auger to dump 10% more pellets with each activation.

And as Don said, in start-up mode the new control box runs the combustion blower on high speed to facilitate pellet ignition, then kicks it down as needed to the medium or low setting fan speed setting once it confirms start up, thus eliminating the false ignition problems.

Swine Flue, what's your EVL? With my vent system I'm at the top end of the recommended EVL for my 3" pipe, so I'm guessing that reduced the combustion fan efficiency enough with my original grey control box that it caused more failed starts. 11+ years on your OE box is excellent life out of any control or circuit board component. We have lots of power surges and outages on our grid up here in Maine. I have a surge protector on it now, but the original stove owners didn't, so I'm guessing that is maybe why mine cooked at the 9 year point.

 

[SwineFlue]

Swine Flue, what's your EVL? With my vent system I'm at the top end of the recommended EVL for my 3" pipe, so I'm guessing that reduced the combustion fan efficiency enough with my original grey control box that it caused more failed starts. 11+ years on your OE box is excellent life out of any control or circuit board component. We have lots of power surges and outages on our grid up here in Maine. I have a surge protector on it now, but the original stove owners didn't, so I'm guessing that is maybe why mine cooked at the 9 year point.

I have the top-vent adapter going into about 25 vertical feet of 6" stove pipe. The people we bought the house from said that a prior owner had replaced a large wood stove with the Castile. There is a Belkin surge suppressor on it.