Some oddities with my modified Pellet Pro II

[AddictiveStew]

So you may or may not know by now that my Pellet Pro II was retrofitted with what appears to be a P43 circuit board. For all intents and purposes this appears to work perfectly fine. It's hooked up to the older equipment on the stove and controls all the blowers, auger, etc fine. It even shuts down when it detects there are no pellets in the stove, just like it is supposed to. Here's the weird part... I was only getting a couple pellets at a time. This was causing the fire to go out within about 45 minutes (after the "starter load" had burned off). I removed all of the pellets from the hopper and looked down inside and low and behold, the pusher block was only moving about 1/4" if that. It was barely pushing any pellets in. So I pulled the back of the stove off to look inside and what did I find? THE OLD FEED ADJUSTER WAS STILL INTACT! Whomever retro-fit this P43 board left the old spring activated feed adjuster. Cranked that bad boy counter-clockwise and we're in business! I believe that whomever installed the new board cranked the feed adjuster in all the way to get it out of the way. So now all is well, and the best part is that the feed adjuster on the board also controls the auger correctly. The internal feed adjuster just controls how far the pusher block goes.

What am I getting at? This could be a solution for those frustrated Pellet Pro II owners with busted circuit boards. Throw a P43 board in and use the old feed adjuster and the new one together in "Harman"-y and have a good ol' time. Cheers!

Disclaimer: This works for my bizarre retro-fitted stove. Not taking responsibility if it doesn't work for yours!

 

[Don2222]

Cool Beans!

I have a customer with one and this would be a nice upgrade!

Is it not possible to put the slide plate in like the P-Series Harmans have?

 

[AddictiveStew]

Cool Beans!

I have a customer with one and this would be a nice upgrade!

Is it not possible to put the slide plate in like the P-Series Harmans have?

Sorry, I'm a bit new to the pellet world. Not sure I know what the slide plate is?

 

[Don2222]

Sorry, I'm a bit new to the pellet world. Not sure I know what the slide plate is?

The slide plate is at the bottom of the hopper. See yellow arrows in pic below. It opens and closes with 1 full revolution of the auger. This way it keeps the pellets from jamming. The slide plate slides back and forth inside the top of the fines box.

Pic 1 - Slide Plate in Harman P61
Pic 2 - Pellet Pro II original control panel with feeder knob.

 

[djhall66]

So you may or may not know by now that my Pellet Pro II was retrofitted with what appears to be a P43 circuit board. For all intents and purposes this appears to work perfectly fine. It's hooked up to the older equipment on the stove and controls all the blowers, auger, etc fine. It even shuts down when it detects there are no pellets in the stove, just like it is supposed to. Here's the weird part... I was only getting a couple pellets at a time. This was causing the fire to go out within about 45 minutes (after the "starter load" had burned off). I removed all of the pellets from the hopper and looked down inside and low and behold, the pusher block was only moving about 1/4" if that. It was barely pushing any pellets in. So I pulled the back of the stove off to look inside and what did I find? THE OLD FEED ADJUSTER WAS STILL INTACT! Whomever retro-fit this P43 board left the old spring activated feed adjuster. Cranked that bad boy counter-clockwise and we're in business! I believe that whomever installed the new board cranked the feed adjuster in all the way to get it out of the way. So now all is well, and the best part is that the feed adjuster on the board also controls the auger correctly. The internal feed adjuster just controls how far the pusher block goes.

What am I getting at? This could be a solution for those frustrated Pellet Pro II owners with busted circuit boards. Throw a P43 board in and use the old feed adjuster and the new one together in "Harman"-y and have a good ol' time. Cheers!

Disclaimer: This works for my bizarre retro-fitted stove. Not taking responsibility if it doesn't work for yours!

We were reading your original post with great interest, as we have a stove that looks exactly like yours. Bought it used as well many years ago and has been the best part of our house in the wintertime.

Last month we started having combustion blower voltage issues and it looks like (though process of elimination) we have to replace our board.

Thank you for your post, this may be the cost effective answer we're looking for.

 

[AddictiveStew]

We were reading your original post with great interest, as we have a stove that looks exactly like yours. Bought it used as well many years ago and has been the best part of our house in the wintertime.

Last month we started having combustion blower voltage issues and it looks like (though process of elimination) we have to replace our board.

Thank you for your post, this may be the cost effective answer we're looking for.

I make no guarantees, but it ran all night last night with no issues! I'm still new to pellet stoves in general, so I don't know how educated my answers will be. None-the-less, let me know if I can help!

 

[AddictiveStew]

The slide plate is at the bottom of the hopper. See yellow arrows in pic below. It opens and closes with 1 full revolution of the auger. This way it keeps the pellets from jamming. The slide plate slides back and forth inside the top of the fines box.

Pic 1 - Slide Plate in Harman P61
Pic 2 - Pellet Pro II original control panel with feeder knob.

Since the auger sits to the side and needs the pusher block to deliver the "goods", I'm not sure if you could get a slide plate in there. Seems pretty tight. You'd probably know better than me though! The original feeder knob still seems to have priority over the circuit board when it comes to feeding pellets. I've left the feed adjuster on 2 and controlled the pellets with the feed control knob instead. It's a PITA to reach through the back of the stove to do it, but it works. Maybe I'll fashion the circuit board on a hinge sometime. haha

 

[Don2222]

Since the auger sits to the side and needs the pusher block to deliver the "goods", I'm not sure if you could get a slide plate in there. Seems pretty tight. You'd probably know better than me though! The original feeder knob still seems to have priority over the circuit board when it comes to feeding pellets. I've left the feed adjuster on 2 and controlled the pellets with the feed control knob instead. It's a PITA to reach through the back of the stove to do it, but it works. Maybe I'll fashion the circuit board on a hinge sometime. haha

Yea, but IF you could get the New Harman UL Feeder Weld in there, then you could totally update the feed system!
See pics > > > (broken link removed to http://www.stove-parts-unlimited.com/UL_Feeder_Weldment_for_Harman_Pellet_Stoves_p/1-10-724132.htm?gclid=CN-BmbLY3rYCFYPd4AodWXkA7A)

 

[AddictiveStew]

Yea, but IF you could get the New Harman UL Feeder Weld in there, then you could totally update the feed system!
See pics > > > (broken link removed to http://www.stove-parts-unlimited.com/UL_Feeder_Weldment_for_Harman_Pellet_Stoves_p/1-10-724132.htm?gclid=CN-BmbLY3rYCFYPd4AodWXkA7A)

Interesting! Yeah that would be pretty awesome to update it. If you decide to visit Amish country and want to upgrade mine for free, let me know. haha

 

[Joe4406]

Hey Stew.. ANy idea what the rewire consists of to put that P43 board in ? or whats required besides the board to wire it..

I've got one of these and the board went this spring, hate to get ride of the stove as its a real work horse.

 

[djhall66]

Hey Stew.. ANy idea what the rewire consists of to put that P43 board in ? or whats required besides the board to wire it..

I've got one of these and the board went this spring, hate to get ride of the stove as its a real work horse.

Joe, After seeing Stew's post last year,we decided to give it a go ourselves. Purchased a new board @ (broken link removed) $250.00 this year. The difference is that the old pellet pro doesn't have an auto igniter, so there is some fine tuning you need to do with the controls (ie: distribution blower doesn't blow on high speed without shuting down, because the blower doesn't blow unless on auto). But it worked wonderful for the rest of the season . Hubby used the pics from Stew"s prior post to wire it in. I'll see if I can find them and repost.

https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/classic-new-guy-move.107460/page-3 second post has pics of rewire

 

[Joe4406]

Joe, After seeing Stew's post last year,we decided to give it a go ourselves. Purchased a new board @ (broken link removed) $250.00 this year. The difference is that the old pellet pro doesn't have an auto igniter, so there is some fine tuning you need to do with the controls (ie: distribution blower doesn't blow on high speed without shuting down, because the blower doesn't blow unless on auto). But it worked wonderful for the rest of the season . Hubby used the pics from Stew"s prior post to wire it in. I'll see if I can find them and repost.

https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/classic-new-guy-move.107460/page-3 second post has pics of rewire

If I remember correct, distribution blower should cycle from low to high when the auger kicks in. Are you running in stove mode or do you have an external thermostat on yours ? The high and low on the blower if memory is correct is run on the pro by the esp prob in the back of the stove..

 

[djhall66]

running in stove mode with the internal probe in back of stove. no external temp installed.

 

[Joe4406]

Do you have a 3 wire distribution motor ? if so one wire is for high one wire is for low and one is ground. It originaly was operated by the esp board..I would think that even with the new P43 board there has be a wire to make it go into high blower mode with out shutting the blower down.

 

[djhall66]

Do you have a 3 wire distribution motor ? if so one wire is for high one wire is for low and one is ground. It originaly was operated by the esp board..I would think that even with the new P43 board there has be a wire to make it go into high blower mode with out shutting the blower down.

yes 3 wire. we can manually adjust the blower to higher speeds with the knob we when we need to push more heat, but for some reason the blower only works when the system is set to auto, does not blow when set to manuall. if the blower is at high too long, the system shuts down and because it's an older version with no auto ignite the fire goes out.
so after a full day of babysitting the stove, I got the the dials where it pushes the right amount of heat without shuting down. perhaps esp wire is different with p43.