# Pellet stove blowing fuse and tripping breaker



## utahdl (Feb 18, 2012)

Harman p68 is losing power. I had the serviceman come out, he said it was a bad ESP probe, replaced it only to do the same thing.  This has never happened until my burnpot was replaced due to a crack near the feeder tube, not sure if it is a coincidence or not. Any thoughts?
  Dan


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## SmokeyTheBear (Feb 18, 2012)

utahdl said:
			
		

> Harman p68 is losing power. I had the serviceman come out, he said it was a bad ESP probe, replaced it only to do the same thing.  This has never happened until my burnpot was replaced due to a crack near the feeder tube, not sure if it is a coincidence or not. Any thoughts?
> Dan



Sounds like there is a pinched wire that is shorting out.


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## utahdl (Feb 18, 2012)

He ran some tets that led him to brlieve it was the esp probe. Would a pinched  wire  still sllow the stove to run for over a day?


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## silverfox103 (Feb 18, 2012)

Hi Dan

I also have a P68 and I am an electrician.  From reading your post this is what I came up with:  If none of this happened until the service man came out, check for a pinched wire, as it is highly probable that he disturbed something.  

If your stove was losing power previous, maybe the fan motor was weakening and not blowing as hard as it should, if that's what you meant by losing power.  It finally, gave out and blew the breaker.  Try to isolate the problem by disconnecting one motor at time and test it to see if it works properly.

Tom C.


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## Lousyweather (Feb 18, 2012)

eh, my money is on a  bad circuit board, if not that, then a bad fan.......lookit the combustion fan first


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## utahdl (Feb 18, 2012)

Im sorry if i am confusing people. Last month I had an issue with my feeder tube and the entire unit had to be replaced. Since then it was working fine until last wednesday.  On Wednesday my stove had tripped a breaker and had no power.  After reseting the breaker the stove still had no power.  My dealer came out, ran some tests and concluded that the esp probe was bad causing the fuse in the stove to blow and the breaker to trip.  He replced the esp probe and the fuse. It worked fine for about one day then it  happened again (today). I only referenced the feeder tube being replaced because I have never had this type of problem until that unit was replaced about 3 weeks ago.  I was thinking there might be a connection

Thanks
Dan


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## silverfox103 (Feb 18, 2012)

Lousyweather said:
			
		

> eh, my money is on a  bad circuit board, if not that, then a bad fan.......lookit the combustion fan first



Could be, but I'm assuming the fuse he is talking about is on the circuit board.  That would blow long before the breaker ever went.

Tom


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## Lousyweather (Feb 18, 2012)

silverfox103 said:
			
		

> Lousyweather said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



yep, the fuse is on the circuit board....6 amp cartridge. Its quite odd that it would blow the breaker before it blew a fuse......usually when we see this, its most often the circuitboard (when the fuse blows)....as for a breaker blowing and NOT the fuse in the unit, possibly look at the power cord of the unit and see if there isnt anything frayed.....what about the outlet itself?


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## utahdl (Feb 18, 2012)

Outlet seems to working fine I just had a fan and light plugged into it, no problem.  The fuse was 5amps.


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## imacman (Feb 18, 2012)

utahdl said:
			
		

> .....The fuse was 5amps.



Harman owners manual calls for a 6 amp fuse on the board


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## stoveguy2esw (Feb 19, 2012)

dead short, somthings grounding. check all of the wires inside the unit. ive seen breakers trip on dead shorts before , both fuse and breaker sometmes, depends on load on crcuit at time of trip. its either in a wire inside the unit or its inside a motor's coil. if possible isolate each component to see which one is pulling the short if wire check doesnt pan out


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## AbuJas (Mar 23, 2014)

I have had this happen several times in working with Harman stoves with this scenario.  Every time it was a bare wire on the ignitor cartridge.  It grounds out and may have not been a problem on the first few ignites, then in a few weeks, the problem shows itself, and it blows fuses, trips breakers, until you pull the ignitor cartridge and replace or use elecrical tape to insulate the bare wire area.  I have solved the problem each time with a replacement catridge, but sometimes the wire is very abvious and the fix is the eletrical tape.


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