Speed alterations on Quad Castile Stove

[mgambuzza]

I was wondering if anyone has had any experience with automating the low/med/high settings on a Quadrafire Pellet Stove. I have a Thelin Parlor 3000, and when connected to a thermostat, the unit will cycle between low and high(fan and feed rate) to maintain temperature (this is not an autostart model so low will always be on as long as I have pellets in it).

What I would like to do is somewhat "automate" the blower/feed rate between low and high like the Thelin. For example - automate the increase from low to high approx 4:30 in morning so that when I get up the house is appreciable warmer than if left on low all night. Leaving on high although constantly maintaining that rate and temperature, would also substantially increase the amount of pellets burned. The ability to do this would serve the purpose of saving on pellets consumed, and maintaining desirable temperatures in the rooms affected by the stove. I really love this feature on my Thelin, and it saves a bundle on the amount of fuel that I'm using on a daily basis, and maintains respectable temperature settings on a programmable thermostat.

I understand I may be asking a bit. I think I heard the new Mt. Vernon has a similar feature with "ramping" up and down the speed and feed rate to do what I'm talking about - but the Mt Vernon (new version) is not what I want to spend after purchasing the Castile 7months ago, and it is also too large for my room.

I look forward to any comments.....

 

[Gooserider]

VERY rough guess here - do your own research on this as I won't be responsible for you blowing things up, etc...

It sounds like you have a switch that you'd manually toggle to go from low to high, etc?

I'd look at seeing just how that switch is wired in terms of things like how many poles are on the switch, which poles are connected to where in each mode, etc.

Then I'd work on doing something with a programmable thermostat and possibly a few relays to duplicate what the switch is doing. Possibly you'd need to remove the switch or otherwise come up with a method to bypass it depending on just what it's doing in the circuit. Also you would likely need to have a transformer somewheres to power the thermostat, although it might also be possible to tap into the power supply for the stove board depending on it's power and voltage.

Probably you couldn't use any existing house thermostat, since you presumably have that set for your backup heat, and the stove thermostat would be set differently.

The idea is that the thermostat would control the mode switch, with a variable set point for the temperature controlled by the programming.

Shouldn't be terribly difficult or expensive, but might be a challenge to figure out the switch circuit, and possibly a bit tricky to wire it all up.

Gooserider

 

[begreen]

I'm not convinced that for the time and expense there would be much savings. The stove is on a thermostat and cycles on an off as needed. It doesn't have to burn continuously, so there must be some fuel saved there. It will burn only as long as the thermostat demands heat, so I would think that a digital themostat with a nightime setback would acheive similar fuel savings and would keep warranty intact.