VC Vigilant running temp

[Turkey66]

For anyone running an old Defiant or Vigilant, what temperature do you run your stove normally? What is the temp 18" above the stove on the flue pipe? I see that on my Vigilant the stove temp is quite high at about 850 or more with 500 in the flue. Is the surface temp 1/2 of the internal gas temp?

 

[fbelec]

i run a defiant 1 and my manual covers four different stoves including yours and my manual says that low is 450 on the cooktop as high as 650 that is high. but when starting the stove it can go as high as 700 cooktop temp. it doesn't say anything about the stove pipe temp. i run my defiant at 575 to 625 on the cooktop. when in secondary the cook top wil drop to about 500 to 550. also when running the thermometer on the the pipe it is usually about 18 inches from the stove mine is 15 inches due to 90 degree pipe. when running the stove the pipe on mine is run at 325 to 350 and in secondary the pipe will cool down to 275 but at that point the smoke path on my stove is 5 feet before it hits the pipe and when in secondary it throws big heat. because of the short chimney i have the colder it is outside the warmer it is on the inside of my house. i can't imagine running this stove on a 20 foot chimney it would be way to hot in here

 

[Stoney Meadow Maple]

I pay little attention to surface temp on my vigilant, i shoot for a 300-375 stack temp in bypass but cannot get 18” above my stove, so that is somewhat subjective. If the wood isn't dry enough this can be tough to achieve and maintain but we get by.
As i am heating a 2400sq ft log cabin with a vigilant, i get to experiment with playing with stack temps a bit.
As you can see it is not running right now as it is 45 degrees outside i am burning LP.

 

[fbelec]

looks good. i have my thermometer in the same spot so that 325 degrees is straight up 25 degrees up or down is good. most times it's towards the 325 end.