Quardra fire pellet insert not dropping pellets/staying on

[AGalS]

Ive been lurking through threads here to find some answers but our stove is still having issues.

We have a new to us Castile insert. We recieved it it last season and it needed a new control box. We changed the thermocoupler and cover as well as the ignitor and it worked very well through the whole season.

This year not so much. We've been troubleshooting for about a month.
The stove starts a cycle, and completes the whole cycle, then at some point during a later cycle the. Red call light comes on and it does nothing. A few times the cycle will start but pellets will not drop and it goes back off.
95% of the time it does it at night between 12am-3am?! It runs fine during the day and most of the night.

When it does this we hit the reset once or twice before it drops pellets again and relights.

So far we have changed:
Door gasket
Gasket around the back "firewall?"
Vaccum switch
Taken the stove completely apart and vacuumed everything
Yesterday we did blow air down the chute from the back (my fiance did it so I dont know the part) but alot of pellet dust came out the chute. It went off again this morning about 1am I resets it 2x before pellets dropped.
The person we got it from said he had changed the augur motor but I dont know when

Today we're going to try to remove the augur and clean it well to see if any pellet dust build up around it.

We are still using the same pellet brand from last year so that didnt change. Its the lowest dust ones we can find around us.

What else can we do/try?! This is getting frustrating and its our main heat source as the house only has baseboard thats way to must to run.

 

[Former Farmer]

It sounds like something obstructing the opening to the auger or in the auger. Have you tried opening the gate to the auger a little? What height is your flame when running on high? This is what you use to set the gate opening for the auger.

Even though you are using the same brand pellets as last year, pellets can differ from year to year. I am wondering if the pellets are a little longer than before. You could pick up a few bags of a different brand just to try to see if the same thing happens.

 

[AGalS]

It sounds like something obstructing the opening to the auger or in the auger. Have you tried opening the gate to the auger a little? What height is your flame when running on high? This is what you use to set the gate opening for the auger.

Even though you are using the same brand pellets as last year, pellets can differ from year to year. I am wondering if the pellets are a little longer than before. You could pick up a few bags of a different brand just to try to see if the same thing happens.

This is running it on high, the flames jump around right at the the chute hole.

I reset it 2x this morning before it started at 3am and then again at 7am i reset it 1x. Its been running through the cycles okay since that reset.

 

[Former Farmer]

Running on high, the flames should be higher above the pot. Open up the feed gate some, not too much. The owners manual should provide instructions for setting the flame height.

 

[AGalS]

We opened the feed gate and adjusted the flame height and it definitely seems to be burning better. But once it again it went out 2x last night.
Today we're going to take it apart to clean the augur.
We both grew up using woodstoves so the mechanical parts of this stove are stumping us.

 

[whit]

Any time my Quad Santa Fe fails to light, perhaps the ventilation is less than ideal due to clinkers or obstructed vent holes or for some other reason entirely, it then stops until the reset button is pressed. Fortunately, we only see this about a half-dozen times a year. It does seem most often to happen overnight. When yours stops, are there good pellets in the pot? That's what I find in such a stoppage -- pellets had dropped but not caught flame. Fortunately here it's only about once a month it stops like that.

 

[Ssyko]

check all you gaskets on the stove to ensure they are sealing good. open the feed gate about 75% and check the flame height with all settings on high

 

[stovelark]

Your stove might be short cycling. The unit is running and meets temperature, the red light goes off and the stove goes into shutdown, which takes a total of about 20 minutes or so. If the unit calls for heat while this shutdown is still happening, you'll come down to a stove that has a red light on calling for heat, with nothing else happening. The shutdown interfered with the normal startup, or short cycled itself. Very frustrating and little you can do about this, usually happens during the time its bitter out and the on cycle, off cycle interferes with each other. What heat level you running with thermostat medium or high? In order to not have this happen overnight and be frustrating, perhaps run at a low level continuously? During cold weather I find that to be more reliable, I run in low heat, continuously.
Just something to consider..

 

[lowcostheat]

Well, I am used to answering questions and now want to ask one...First, I can't believe kap is still dispensing good advice for free!! I am Servicing a quad cb 1200 stove and upon plugging the unit in it starts feeding pellets while red light is off and thermostat is down. Open the door and fuel feed stops (as it is supposed to, vacuum switch works) close the door and pellet feed auger starts again. What/why, is it the control box?

 

[AGalS]

Thank you everyone for the help!
We made it through the night last night without it going out. We adjusted the feed rate as well as cleaned out the augur tube. There was quite a bit of dust build up and looking through the pellets some longer ones in the mix. So Im wondering if a combo of long pellets and dust was blocking the chute. Were still on our toes watching it everytime it cycles but making it through the night was a huge improvement.