Fellow pellet enthusiasts!
Whitfield has a wiring harness flaw in their Profile-30 insert and likely in several other pellet stoves. Here's what happened:
A few years after purchasing my stove back in 2004, I began to have intermittent issues with the wiring. The lights on the controller would occasionally blink or turn off completely and the controller would reset and restart the burn sequence. But sometimes it would not reset - and the house would get cold! I would wiggle the 16 pin white (2x8) main harness connector on the back of the controller and eventually find a new position for it that would work for several days / a week but it would happen again. The intermittent connection problem gradually got worse.
Finally, I disconnected the 16 pin connector and inspected the controller connections side (pins, male side). I then noted pin 14 was quite burned and discolored - like arching. After inspecting all the wiring, and checking many connections with an ohm and volt meter, I found nothing wrong. So I dis-assembled the controller and starting inspecting for circuit board internals. I found nothing. I tried to get a schematic from WhitField and the controller manufacturer -- Index Controls or something. The controller manufacture referred me back to Whitfield - the service tech at Whitfield (Lennox) would only say the unit was not field serviceable and should be replaced ... at 600$! Yea, right.
Then I started ohming-out the main circuit board in the controller - and learned that pins 5, 6, 14, and 15 are all wired together under the connector at the controller printed circuit board. When I plugged the controller back in to the stove and checked the wiring harness, I reallized all these pins are the 120VAC neutral connection. Pin 14 (the 'burned' one) brings power in from the wiring harness to the control board. Pin 5 then sends that neutral on to blowers (convection and burn), pin 6 is not used on the profile 30 harness, and pin 15 sends the neutral connection on to the auger motor. So what is happening with the original wiring is all the (3) inductive motor loads are dependent on one small (0.1 inch) pin to feed current into the controller for redistribution to the 3 motors. The total current load of these 3 motors is about 3 to 5 amps - which is a bit too high for this small pin. This explains why my stove had intermittent power problems and why pin 14 on the back of my controller is all burned. Not smart, Whitfield! I think you need to hire an electrical eng.
My fix? - Easy: I modified the wiring harness on my stove by running a shunt wire between the white (neutral) wire going in to pin 14 and the black wire (a neutral output supplied by pin 14) coming out of Pin 5 to feed the fan motors. This allows the neutral current to flow directly to two of the inductive motors (the two fans) without flowing through the controller. This modification also allows neutral current to flow into the controller from both pins 14 and 6. Since this modification my intermittent wiring problem is solved and my stove works great! Wish I'd take time to dig into this years ago. Hmm.
See attached modified wiring diagram.
RonB
Whitfield has a wiring harness flaw in their Profile-30 insert and likely in several other pellet stoves. Here's what happened:
A few years after purchasing my stove back in 2004, I began to have intermittent issues with the wiring. The lights on the controller would occasionally blink or turn off completely and the controller would reset and restart the burn sequence. But sometimes it would not reset - and the house would get cold! I would wiggle the 16 pin white (2x8) main harness connector on the back of the controller and eventually find a new position for it that would work for several days / a week but it would happen again. The intermittent connection problem gradually got worse.
Finally, I disconnected the 16 pin connector and inspected the controller connections side (pins, male side). I then noted pin 14 was quite burned and discolored - like arching. After inspecting all the wiring, and checking many connections with an ohm and volt meter, I found nothing wrong. So I dis-assembled the controller and starting inspecting for circuit board internals. I found nothing. I tried to get a schematic from WhitField and the controller manufacturer -- Index Controls or something. The controller manufacture referred me back to Whitfield - the service tech at Whitfield (Lennox) would only say the unit was not field serviceable and should be replaced ... at 600$! Yea, right.
Then I started ohming-out the main circuit board in the controller - and learned that pins 5, 6, 14, and 15 are all wired together under the connector at the controller printed circuit board. When I plugged the controller back in to the stove and checked the wiring harness, I reallized all these pins are the 120VAC neutral connection. Pin 14 (the 'burned' one) brings power in from the wiring harness to the control board. Pin 5 then sends that neutral on to blowers (convection and burn), pin 6 is not used on the profile 30 harness, and pin 15 sends the neutral connection on to the auger motor. So what is happening with the original wiring is all the (3) inductive motor loads are dependent on one small (0.1 inch) pin to feed current into the controller for redistribution to the 3 motors. The total current load of these 3 motors is about 3 to 5 amps - which is a bit too high for this small pin. This explains why my stove had intermittent power problems and why pin 14 on the back of my controller is all burned. Not smart, Whitfield! I think you need to hire an electrical eng.
My fix? - Easy: I modified the wiring harness on my stove by running a shunt wire between the white (neutral) wire going in to pin 14 and the black wire (a neutral output supplied by pin 14) coming out of Pin 5 to feed the fan motors. This allows the neutral current to flow directly to two of the inductive motors (the two fans) without flowing through the controller. This modification also allows neutral current to flow into the controller from both pins 14 and 6. Since this modification my intermittent wiring problem is solved and my stove works great! Wish I'd take time to dig into this years ago. Hmm.
See attached modified wiring diagram.
RonB
