# Whitfield II combustion fan won't turn on?!



## Widgeonmangh (Dec 6, 2011)

I have had this stove for a while and the combustion fan stopped working or was working intermittently.  So I saved up enough to finally replace it.

Yesterday I installed the new combustion blower and put everything back and it still will not turn on.  Thinking I may have spent a bunch of money on a fan when I needed the low limit switch, I jumped the switch thinking that the combustion fan should come on (and stay on) with the switch jumped.

It still will not come on.  What am I missing?  If it is the control box it will be fatal, so I am hoping that there is something I am missing.

In addition the auger motor/and auger seem to be on the whole time (vs. the intermittent - when the little red light comes on) I am hoping this is not a related symptom.  We love the stove but I am finding the justification for a pellet stove economically to be challenged with the expense of the electronics.

Thanks in advance.


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## SmokeyTheBear (Dec 7, 2011)

The combustion fan is not on any of the snap switches in the stove, it goes directly to the control board.

Take the old removed combustion fan and wire it up to a patch cord, (WARNING This is playing with 120 volt AC which if you do not know what you are doing or are not careful can kill you WARNING)  plug that into a house outlet.  The fan should turn at full speed.  If it does your old fan is fine and the problem lies elsewhere.


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## smwilliamson (Dec 7, 2011)

Do you own a digital multi meter? You can do a an Ohms test or continuity test through the motor (old and new) to see of there is current. Also the old motor is a servicable motor that requires oil each year...that can be sometihing to look into. However, if the new motor does not power up on start....the only control for this is the control board. there is a chance that the wires to the motor are lacking electrcity via a bad terminal connection or frayed wire. Teh good news is that if you did not need the motor you may be able to return it in lieu or another purchase or a control board, less shipping charges. Where did you get your motor? I'm guessing control board.


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## Widgeonmangh (Dec 7, 2011)

Thanks for the info.

I now seem to be at an interesting juncture.  Purchasing a control board for this type of wood stove or move to a different plan.  My thoughts in going to a pellet stove was to get something that would be reliable and more efficient in the use of wood products.  My goal is to become as self sufficient as is reasonable on a small property in the PNW. I had even planned to eventually get my own pellet making apparatus and go from there.  What I am discovering with this however is that pellet stoves are a high tech solution to a low tech need. So they will always need high tech repair.

The debate is do I go buy a used Whitfield II (there are currently 3 operational ones in Craigslist in my area for about $350) and scrap this one to parts for the one I buy or do I just go buy a traditional stand alone wood stove and be done with the nonsense of the combination of electronics and a wood stove.

My frustration is showing in my description but I will have to consider it for a bit before making a decision.  Any advise would be welcome.

ps. I will not be able to return the fan because I clipped off the plug in order to attach the new fan to the old wiring.  I wish I had discovered this forum earlier.


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## SmokeyTheBear (Dec 7, 2011)

I'm not going to comment on the straight wood vs pellet stove argument.

I will however comment on the self sufficiency side of things, that would be a lot easier via the wood stove route, no need to generate electricity by any means at all and most of those involve electronics these days.

If you have the land with standing trees you can do quite a bit to be self sufficient it is however a lot of work and takes careful planning.

That controller can be fixed and there is a woman on here Snowy Rivers who has designed and built her own off the shelf parts based controller that is currently running two different Whitfield stoves.  Most problems revolve around electrolytic capacitors or triacs all of which are standard electronic parts and with soldering skills can be replaced.


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## smwilliamson (Dec 7, 2011)

Get in touch with snowy here on the forum and check out her conversion for the Whitfield board. Its not really all that complicated and you'll learn alot. Spending hundreds on anew board is not fun...but buying a used board may not be a better experience. I have a Whitfield advantage I with a bad board and I swapped in a P20 board and just calibrated the feed settings up to meet the air flow demand. Got the p20 board for free from a junked stove on Cl.


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## Snowy Rivers (Dec 7, 2011)

Hey hey hey, the old combustion fan won't run trick  :roll: 

Lets get a tad bit of info here.  Does your stove have a heat control knob, a start button and a room air fan knob ???

These Old whits had issues at times with the Triacs  (controls fan speeds) going south.

The Triac is a little chip like device that controls fan speeds by the amount of time that the power is on on both sides of the wave/

When the triac goes south the fan can either run full speed or not at all or some form of the two and can even burn up the motors.

If you need to get up and flying, there is a quick way to get you going.

WARNING  \

As was mentioned, you are dealing with 120V ac here and it can be dangerous if you are not familiar with handling such stuff.


OK now that we have mentioned the cautions.


If the room air fan and the auger are working ok then proceed as follows.

Tap into the main power feed and install a Casa Blanca fan speed controller  (just a Triac with a Knob is all)

Wire this controller directly to your exhaust fan and just bypass the feed from the board.

Tape up the original wires that fed the draft fan so they wont cause issues and keep them intact.

Now you can adjust the draft fan speed with the knob and get up and going.

Normally these fans will run at 3000 RPM on full line voltage.
During most operation the fan runs close to full speed.

You can start with the fan at full RPM and then if this is too fast for the lower fuel feed settings, just slow it down a tad until the fire is happy.

If you run too much draft at low fire settings you could burn the fire out or "Blow it out"

This is not rocket science and will take  just a little fiddling to find the sweet spot.

You can simply drill the needed holes in the side of the stove panel near the original controls.

I would say, Mark the control knob and make some sort of alignment mark with tape of ??? to allow you to be able to easily repeat the settings you find that work.

The control board has 3 major controls, the timer for the feed motor, the room air fan speed triac and the draft fan speed triac.

Just because the draft fan speed triac is gone does not mean that the other controls will fail soon or at all.

The draft fan speed and the room air fan speed are tied in with the fuel feed settings.
As the fuel feed is set higher the daft fan runs slightly faster.

The large whits generally run the draft fan at around 2600 RPM on the upper fuel ranges and down around 2500 on the low setting.

The room air fans control knob is also effected by the fuel setting. On low the fan speed can be set lower than it can on high.


If you look over the forum you can scare up the schematic that I posted some time ago for wiring up a custom control unit using off the shelf parts.

Its cheap and far better than the boards that come with these stoves.

This need not be a tedious or frantic situation and also need not cost a fortune.

If the stove is in good condition mechanically then its likely a good candidate for a refit.


Be safe and keep us posted.

OH, here is a Piccy of the needed fan speed contoller

This one is marked  FAN ONLY
There are light dimmers and fan speed controllers.  Be sure to use a fan speed controller

Just another tid bit here, turning the knob all the way counter clockwise it will "CLICK" into the OFF position. If you wire this controller in directly to the L1 line be sure to install an inline fuse ( 5 amps max)

You will need to turn the fan on and off with this control as the board will not do it.


Any questions, just ASK

Snowy


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## DirtyDave (Dec 7, 2011)

I hunted down your posting Snowy
https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/80023/


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## Snowy Rivers (Dec 7, 2011)

Thanks for running that down.


Just reread the original post.

With the red light on all the time and the motors feeding constantly, there is an issue with the board.]


Looks like its time to do the new timer thing, and add a couple triacs to run the fans.

Snowy


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## Widgeonmangh (Dec 7, 2011)

Ok you may have given me a bit more hope in restoring this machine.

This machine has the electronic push buttons not the knobs.

As far as the control board goes.  The red light does not stay on.  It cycles like it always has.  (blinks on and off)  the circulation fan ramps up when you push the button to the top or when you increase the pellets to the highest setting.  The red light does not go on until pressed on. 

However, the auger is on slowly but still on, the whole time.  Isn't supposed to be off except when the red light goes on?  Is that a control board issue?

 I will need to look at the schematics a bit more closely to see if this is something I can tackle.  I like the idea of off the shelf technology instead of these blooming chips that fail or are touchy in this kind of an "industrial" type setting.

Thanks for all the help and the suggestions!


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## Widgeonmangh (Dec 7, 2011)

Snowy Rivers - 
Question on your schematic, does the exhaust fan have a control knob or are you just running that wide open in that design?


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## Snowy Rivers (Dec 8, 2011)

The exhaust fan should be adjustable to allow some control over the fan speed if need be


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## Widgeonmangh (Dec 9, 2011)

Thanks for the tips and information.  I am going to try and collect the parts for building a new control board as per the schematic with a fan controller in the exhaust fan circuit.  I have a friend who is an electrician who is going to help me out.  Should be fun and hopefully productive.

The second thing I am doing is researching the Hazelnut shells.  I have a brother who was into the ag scene at OSU. He has a hort major and has a friend who processes hazelnuts.  Depending on the price I think I will be getting a couple of barrels to do a test run!    I will be doing more searches and reading more for sure, but it sounds like it could save me some significant funds even if I rented a Uhaul to make a trip to Oregon to get them.

I will post up some pics of my new control board when I get it done.

Thanks again for all the help.


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## Snowy Rivers (Dec 9, 2011)

Rock on. Good luck

Snowy


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## Widgeonmangh (Dec 9, 2011)

Thanks!

You mentioned in one of your posts that flu fires were something to watch for. Was that as a result of burning the hazelnut shells or because you burn it on low?  Is there some advantage/need to burn it on low that is specific to the hazelnut shells as fuel?


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## Mr Whitfield (Dec 9, 2011)

I would buy a used whitfield Advantage and use it for parts. See if you can get credit for the fan you don't need. Make sure you use a surge protector.


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## Widgeonmangh (Dec 9, 2011)

I altered the plug in order to instal it so no return. In addition, storing an extra wood stove around is not really an option.  It is also $350 vs less than $100, so economically it is a better deal.  Timers and fan controllers will be easy to find until the zombie apocalypse. Used Whitfields not so much, especially with all the different serial numbers and models.  It may seem that rewiring the controllers is more complicated, but I have shown the plan to my electrician friend.  He said that it was simple and would take less than an hour.  Individual parts are less than $30 for the most expensive ones, so this seems like a much more reliable way to go.

We shall see.


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## Stovensen (Dec 9, 2011)

Thanks to Snowy Rivers for sharing her results and ideas with us here at this magnificent forum. It's always interesting and useful to read her posts.
I'm certainly inspired to start making my own control board based on her results and then keep the original just as a back up.

It will take some time and thorough preparation, though. If I get started, I sure will post my results here at Hearth.com. I'm also looking forward to read about how Widgeonmangh proceeds with his control system.

Widgeonmangh, I can imagine that you need some heat from your Whit here and now. This may be possible, provided that your circuit board issue is the same that forum member Coffeeman5 had with a Whitfield Advantage II T some weeks ago. Exactly the same stove.... and, I believe the symptoms were very similar to those of your stove.
It turned out that the remedy was very simple. Please read about it here:

https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/81284/#975466


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## Widgeonmangh (Dec 9, 2011)

Thanks for the tip.  In looking at the post, I think we have different machines.  I have the same control panel but do not have the vacuum  switch.  Our problems were a bit different.  My control panel comes on like everything is normal. I turn it on and it goes to the default where it is supposed to be (three green three red) and the blower fan comes on.  The exhaust fan does not come on, and the auger comes on (going slowly) even though I have not hit the auger button yet.  When I do hit the auger button the light does come on an off (like normal) but there is no difference in the behavior of the auger.  And the exhaust fan never comes on.  I know the fan is good because it is brand new and it did come on one time.

So I am suspecting a blown control panel.


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## Stovensen (Dec 9, 2011)

Well that's a different issue for sure.
Still, based upon your description of the symptoms, your board doesn't appear to be totally malfunctioning. Maybe it's just a bad connection somewhere. For instance, the molex connector could be oxydized or the wiring could be damaged.
BTW, you say that there's no vacuum-/pressure switch installed. Now that's strange. As far as I know all Advantage stoves, even the very first ones, had this safety device installed.
You know, the previous owner might have removed the pressure switch and jumped its wires??

My knowledge is mainly based on this .pdf which should cover Advantage stoves from serial no. 1001 and up to 75864.

http://www.hearthtools.com/parts/whitfield_wire_diagrams.pdf

In order to leave out a wiring/bad connector issue you could ask your friend, who is an electrician, to bring a voltmeter... you see, the output voltages from the control board to the auger motor, room blower and combustion blower are all very service friendly accessible underneath the nylon plugs on the front of the control board. See pic below.
With a knife they can easily be prised out, but... remember to put them back again after measuring, as they cover dangerous voltages. 

If healthy voltages are present there, then your control board is also ok.

Good luck and take care


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## Widgeonmangh (Dec 12, 2011)

I had a chance to look carefully at the components again.  There is a high temp switch between the auger and the main bus but that is it.  There is what appears to be a jumper where there might have possibly been a pressure switch. But it is not there.  Of course I didn't know that it was supposed to be there until I started fooling about with this thing.  So it has evidently run just fine for the last 5 years with out it.  

I am trying to determine the purpose of the pressure switch.  If I understand it correctly, it shuts down the auger if the exhaust pressure is negative (meaning the smoke is not exiting)??  So the safety that it provides is that if your exhaust fan shuts down then the auger will stop the fire.  Is it a redundancy of the low temp switch? Which will shut it down because the temp would go down with a smoky smoldering fire anyway??

Only asking because I have run this stove for multiple years without it and it seems fine.  I am now going to be rewiring it and to be honest, don't want to invest pay for some lawyers CYA or a feature that makes it safer in a mobil home or a small space (neither of which apply to me).  On the other hand I don't want to create a hazard.

So as per Snowy's diagram the safety features I will have (and have had for the last 5 years)  is:

A high temp switch between the auger that shuts it down when it is too hot (located in the back of the stove - I may add a second just to be redundant (as per Snowy's design) at some point $$)

A high temp switch between the main power and a bus that shuts it down if it is too hot (That one is located just above the blower ie heat that is blown into the room)

A low limit switch that shuts down the auger if the exhaust gets too cold. With the new simpler wiring the exhaust fan will run when ever the stove is on.  

The only thing I can see is that might be annoying is that if the pellets run out and the fire goes out, the auger will shut down,  but the blowers will keep going until I shut it off.   The worse case scenario then is for increased air circulation (ie one little fan blowing air up the chimney for a couple of hours until I wake up because I forgot to put pellets in).

 Not sure why I am needing the pressure switch but I am teachable, so I would love to hear your inputs.

ps. Just for orientation, the stove is located in our family room in a split level house. It is in a fully enclosed (3 sides) brick alcove that was designed into the house for a free standing wood stove and is part of the chimney (with a fireplace on the second level of the house)  So that is one safety feature that is a house design thing!


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## SmokeyTheBear (Dec 12, 2011)

Try this on for size, if the flue is blocked without that pressure switch the stove will continue to run pumping all kinds of crap into your house.

There are two safeties on a pellet stove that you never want bypassed when it is running the very first one is the pressure switch, the next very first one is the over temperature (hi limit) switch.  Note they are on the same level, one protects you from generating very large amounts of CO and the second from generating very large amounts of hot metal and likely fire outside of the firebox.

You do whatever you want it is your stove.


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## Widgeonmangh (Dec 12, 2011)

I can see how pumping smoke into your house would not be such a good idea.  I will probably replace the pressure switch as soon as I can.  The probability of the flu getting plugged at least from the chimney side of things is incredibly remote since it is a fireplace chimney.  It would be more likely as a plug from ash filling the T at the stove. Still that would take a lot to fill with ash. (if I never cleaned it, but I do).

Since it is plug and play, it won't take much to replace it. Hopefully it is an on the shelf kind of part at a wood stove dealer (as well as the hose).

Thanks for the permission.


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## SmokeyTheBear (Dec 12, 2011)

Widgeonmangh said:
			
		

> I can see how pumping smoke into your house would not be such a good idea.  I will probably replace the pressure switch as soon as I can.  The probability of the flu getting plugged at least from the chimney side of things is incredibly remote since it is a fireplace chimney.  It would be more likely as a plug from ash filling the T at the stove. Still that would take a lot to fill with ash. (if I never cleaned it, but I do).
> 
> Since it is plug and play, it won't take much to replace it. Hopefully it is an on the shelf kind of part at a wood stove dealer (as well as the hose).
> 
> Thanks for the permission.



I just wanted you to understand why it is there and what could happen without it.  After that it is up to you, but from the sounds of things you got the message loud and clear.   I'd watch out for animals crawling into the chimney as well.  Plenty of things have found their way into pellet stoves from the vent system.

It is never a stove operating properly that causes an issue it is always when something out of the ordinary happens that they cause issues.  Frequently multiple things have to happen before things get really bad and the funny thing is it is always a bad or bypassed safety in the mix somewhere.

Enjoy your restoration project, you'll learn a lot about the stove doing it.


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## Widgeonmangh (Dec 12, 2011)

I am convinced!!

I know why they jumped it out.  The factory replacement part was $88 YIKES, the fan I replaced didn't even have the nipple for the hose on it.  The new fan does however.  I am finding generic ones for $39. 

Not too worried about critters but planning for the unexpected is always important.  I have learned a lot about how the stove works. And my electrician friend is buying parts and building the new control board today.  I will be happy to have it on more manual settings and to have it be bomb proof vs. these solid state high tech control boards.  I will be able to replace any component that goes wrong with very little fuss.  And having spare parts on the shelf will not be a big deal either.

I really appreciate this board and all the advice!


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## Snowy Rivers (Dec 12, 2011)

If your worried about the stoves fans running on after a "out of fuel shut down" you can wire the "one shot timer" and the low limit switch in so that the power feeds through the low limit switch to feed the entire system.

The one shot timer will fire up the entire system when you press the start button and then once the low limit switch closes (with heat) then the power load will transfer through it and to the fans.

With this you can do the wiring so that the main switch just shuts off the feed.

With this set up, the start button will work just like the factory one did, when pressed, the one shot timer is activated, then the fans start and power is fed to the entire stove.

Once the timer runs out, the stove will shut off unless there is heat enough to close the low temp switch.

With this option of wiring, you will simply shut off the fuel feed and the fans will run on until the Low limit switch opens then things will shut off completely.


I prefer to use a master switch to run the exhaust fan and the room air fans and keep the Low limit strictly in the feed circuit.

This makes a diagnostic of troubles easier and also takes the load off the low limit switch.

Just my choice was all.

I would definitely keep the pressure switch in the system.

A vacuum switch the measures the low pressure in the pot area is even better.

Just don't leave it out, as this is a major safety item.

Good luck

Snowy


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## bjr23 (Dec 14, 2011)

Can you tell us how long the one shot timer is set for? Did you use the internally or externally adjustable timer or a preset timer? I mean what times to call out for when ordering the timer? I'm assuming at least a 10 minute one so that the stove has time to warm up and close the "low limit" switch?  Also I'm drawing schematic up (I'm a draftsman) ,very limited electrical drawing experience though, with a bill of materials for reference then I'll PDF it and send it to Snowy and let him mark it up and I'll correct it and then it can posted if anybody is needing it. As everyone knows with the usual Disclaimers. bjr23


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## Snowy Rivers (Dec 14, 2011)

I use a timer with the adjustment on the unit.

Set the one shot for about 15-20 minutes depending on the stove and how long it takes it to warm up and the low side snap switch to close.

Get your timer made so that the adjustment is variable from 5 to 30 minutes approx.

The timer can be made so that it has two spades to connect your push button switch to.

Place the timer inside the mechanical cabinet and start the adjustment at around 20 minutes.

Better to be a tad long rather than too short.

If you go short the timer may run out before the low snap switch closes.

Snowy


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