St. Croix heat level

[61snowrider]

Has anyone experienced trouble pushing the digital setting for the 1-5 heat level? Last year and this year, sometimes when trying to adust the 1-5 heat level, it does not respond. I push and push and push and nothing happens. Then I come back to it and it works fine. Just wondering if this control pad is going bad? The stove is 6 years old. Is there a way to clean the electronic pad?
Question #2: The felt that is under the combustion fan ( very thin gasket ) usually breaks or falls apart into a couple of pieces when taking out fan for cleaning. Has anyone tried making a gasket out of head gasket material that you use in a car engine? This gasket material is much cheaper. You can buy a roll of it for the same price of 1 gasket. The auto gasket withstands high heat. Would this work?

 

[Bob Sorjanen]

Has anyone experienced trouble pushing the digital setting for the 1-5 heat level? Last year and this year, sometimes when trying to adust the 1-5 heat level, it does not respond. I push and push and push and nothing happens. Then I come back to it and it works fine. Just wondering if this control pad is going bad? The stove is 6 years old. Is there a way to clean the electronic pad?
Question #2: The felt that is under the combustion fan ( very thin gasket ) usually breaks or falls apart into a couple of pieces when taking out fan for cleaning. Has anyone tried making a gasket out of head gasket material that you use in a car engine? This gasket material is much cheaper. You can buy a roll of it for the same price of 1 gasket. The auto gasket withstands high heat. Would this work?

my Lancaster about 6 years old does the same exact thing on the board. I just assumed it was something I was doing wrong. seems like when I do everything exactly the way the manual states to do it it is OK. like when I drop ash, using corn pot, when I set it to 1 to drop the ash and don't put it back up to a higher temp then it acts up like you say.

 

[hossthehermit]

The St. Croix buttons are like that. Push straight in, slowly, hold for a second or 2.
Lytherm gasket material available here, among other places .. This is the stuff you wanna use.
http://heiligkuh.com/bbandp/product_info.php/products_id/61/osCsid/ed54d03152a5e0436436eddf1555355e

 

[LuvMyPellets]

The combustion blower gasket is just over $16 at Stove King if you don't feel like making your own.

 

[imacman]

.........Question #2: The felt that is under the combustion fan ( very thin gasket ) usually breaks or falls apart into a couple of pieces when taking out fan for cleaning. Has anyone tried making a gasket out of head gasket material that you use in a car engine? This gasket material is much cheaper. You can buy a roll of it for the same price of 1 gasket. The auto gasket withstands high heat. Would this work?

The gasket material is called Lytherm. You can buy sheets of it on eBay pretty cheap & make your own:

(broken link removed to http://www.ebay.com/itm/Pellet-Stove-Gasket-Material-1-8-thick-/200860337111?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2ec43583d7)

 

[bbfarm]

We make our own gaskets out of the stuff that the pellet stove store sells. Our control works fine for adjusting the settings.

 

[heat seeker]

Some claim that putting anti seize on the gasket will prevent it from ripping next time you take it apart. I haven't tried it for myself yet.

I vaguely remember my stove's heat range buttons not responding. I think it might be dependent on what mode the stove is in - startup, SmartStat, etc, but I can't remember now. I haven't had that issue in a very long time.

The manual states that if the control is in "fault" mode, the panel won't respond. "Fault" mode doesn't necessarily mean something is wrong with the stove, however. Check your manual - mine's downstairs right now.

 

[relxn88]

Has anyone experienced trouble pushing the digital setting for the 1-5 heat level? Last year and this year, sometimes when trying to adust the 1-5 heat level, it does not respond. I push and push and push and nothing happens. Then I come back to it and it works fine. Just wondering if this control pad is going bad? The stove is 6 years old. Is there a way to clean the electronic pad?
Question #2: The felt that is under the combustion fan ( very thin gasket ) usually breaks or falls apart into a couple of pieces when taking out fan for cleaning. Has anyone tried making a gasket out of head gasket material that you use in a car engine? This gasket material is much cheaper. You can buy a roll of it for the same price of 1 gasket. The auto gasket withstands high heat. Would this work?

On my St. CROIX, (according to the manual) the buttons will NOT respond when there is a "low vacumn". For example, if you open and then close the door, the vacumn switch will prevent the buttons from working until the switch resets, after the door is reclosed. It takes about a minute for my vacumn switch to reset. Might want to check your door for leaks or the vacumn switch operating correctly.

 

[Kittery]

Has anyone experienced trouble pushing the digital setting for the 1-5 heat level? Last year and this year, sometimes when trying to adust the 1-5 heat level, it does not respond. I push and push and push and nothing happens. Then I come back to it and it works fine. Just wondering if this control pad is going bad? The stove is 6 years old. Is there a way to clean the electronic pad?
Question #2: The felt that is under the combustion fan ( very thin gasket ) usually breaks or falls apart into a couple of pieces when taking out fan for cleaning. Has anyone tried making a gasket out of head gasket material that you use in a car engine? This gasket material is much cheaper. You can buy a roll of it for the same price of 1 gasket. The auto gasket withstands high heat. Would this work?

Our St. Croix is now in it's 10th season, and on it's second control board (I replaced it a couple of years back thinking it would cure a problem I was having then; it didn't). Both control boards experienced this issue. It doesn't matter how long the stove has been running, or what setting it is on, or any other thing I can pin-point as yet. I guess I just look at it as there being so many other things that can go wrong, knock you out of service at the worst possible time, and cost many bucks to fix that I just don't pay any attention to to this one. For me it means going away from the stove for a couple of minutes to do something else, then come back and change the setting successfully. Thus far I've never had to walk away twice being successfully.
Cheers.

 

[Xena]

Like relxn88 said, if I've just had the door open it takes a minute before control board responds. In 8th seaon with my prescott.