American Harvest 6039 auxiliary

[SidecarFlip]

Ya I put the zerks in my gear boxes years ago. I followed the thread on the old IBC forum, that was a great how to for just about any gear box for any stove. I don't remember but you might have made that one?
I haven't greased the agitator gear box for years, since I don't use it.
Ya the clinker pot is pretty much for corn only but I still have the OEM pot and a couple of spare agitators in case I ever would go back to pellets. And I might just be doing that in the next few years as pulling the clinker everyday requires me to kneel in front of the stove and my hinges (knees) are getting pretty rusty. I don't have much problem getting down, it's the getting back up that sucks. I guess it's all about gravity at this point. LOL.

Think that was my thread on IBC. OEM's put very little grease in gearboxes and the inherent heat of operation hardens what little there is in their pretty quick so adding an Alemite fitting to the top side (or close to the top) of a gearbox extends the life of it immeasurably. Grease is cheap, drives aren't. At 70 I have the same issue as you. Getting down, no issue. getting back up, always an issue, especially with my 'loving' cats milling around me. Haven't figured out that I really dislike cats, belong to my wife but think I belong to them.

Cats are only good for 3 things. They puke, pee and crap and not always in a litter box either but they came along with the marriage 34 years ago and have multiplied since then. Oh well, life goes on... Needless to say, when getting up in the morning, I'm always careful where I step in my sock feet....

 

[SidecarFlip]

LOL, it's grinning because it's nice and warm! Just remember, incoming air doesn't care if the holes are straight.

Looks like my cap kind of. I have a couple more holes but all are crooked too.

 

[SidecarFlip]

I produce my own agitators in the shop. Stainless rod is cheap and we have a couple TIG welders so I make my own. I see some enterprising individual on Flea Bay offers rods at a fairly descent price and is also offering a replacement burn pot but I don't care for their weldment at all. Looks very cobly and the top edge is too wide. Might work, might not. The OEM stainless pot is a much better fabrication. Obvious to me at least that the Flea Bay seller don't possess the proper forming rolls (capacity) to properly radius the pot and don't have the welding skills to do a good weld job. Probably using pulsed MIG with straight argon instead of the higher skill level TIG.


Not sure how any owner could destroy the OEM pot anyway. Mine is as good as it was when new after 20 years, barring the color from heat. I'd like to have a second one just to have one soaking in a bucket of water while the alternate is in the stove. the longer you soak a pot, the easier the hard carbon is to remove.

Time to fill the stove with corn / pellet mix. I make up 4 plastic garbage cans of mix at a time and take the front end loader (with pallet forks) and set the 4 cans (on a skid) on the back deck by the door. I'm lazy, don't want to go far for fuel.

What happened to the guy up your way with the grain tank besides his house and the feed setup that fed shelled corn into his basement burner? Always was impressed with that set up, especially having a grain tank beside the house, in the city. bet that was quite the conversation piece.

Nice and sunny here today and above freezing. Everything is a mud pie out here in God's country. Guess God invented mud so country folk could coat their cars in brown....

 

[SidecarFlip]

In reality, the drive modifications apply to any appliance, not just USSC's. They all have spur gear reduction drives and they all have fan motors of the shaded pole variety and all of them at some point will suffer from seized bearings and dry gearboxes and replacement parts are expensive. Nothing more than some simple modifications to insure they last about forever.

One thing about shaded pole (induction-repulsion) motors. Not extremely efficient but stone simple to work on. Least the component manufacturers wised up (for the most part) and now install shielded ball bearings instead of 660 CA bronze sleeve bearings that last maybe 2 seasons and lock up. You can still buy Chinese drives with sleeve bearings on Flea Bay but I recommend not to. Sleeve bearings operating in the adverse atmosphere of a solid fuel appliance (forced air wood stoves included) just don't last very long in a dusty and hot enviroment.

 

[Krob]

LOL, it's grinning because it's nice and warm! Just remember, incoming air doesn't care if the holes are straight.

 

[Krob]

Well it’s winter again and thanks to all your advice I’ve got the stove running with no error codes. One question I have is what temperature should the air be blowing out of the vent? It doesn’t seem as hot as I expected. Mind you, it’s located in 20x40 with 14’ walls about 1/2 insulated, so not expecting to be sweating, but just don’t seem to be that hot right at the stove.

 

[SidecarFlip]

LOL, it's grinning because it's nice and warm! Just remember, incoming air doesn't care if the holes are straight.

Mine always have been wonky. No one sees them but me anyway. Air don't care. 72 in here this evening, 21 outside. I did kick it up to HR5 today, was a pretty stiff SW wind blowing. Stove is pretty hot. Put a small fan on top too. I'll probably back it back down to HR 3 tomorrow after it's mid week cleaning. It always runs better when it's clean inside.... and I need to replenish my corn pellet mix too. On my last 30 gallon trash can.

Everytime I look over at it (I can see it from where I'm sitting), I think to myself 'that was a very worthwhile investment'.

 

[SidecarFlip]

Well it’s winter again and thanks to all your advice I’ve got the stove running with no error codes. One question I have is what temperature should the air be blowing out of the vent? It doesn’t seem as hot as I expected. Mind you, it’s located in 20x40 with 14’ walls about 1/2 insulated, so not expecting to be sweating, but just don’t seem to be that hot right at the stove.

What do you expect? Put your bare finger on the outlet grill and report back.. What HR setting you on and is it clean inside or filthy and did you perform the necessary maintenance last spring? The stove is rated for 2500 square feet, not the 11,200 feet you are heating. You ain't gonna sweat unless you do some physical work....

 

[Mt Bob]

Well it’s winter again and thanks to all your advice I’ve got the stove running with no error codes. One question I have is what temperature should the air be blowing out of the vent? It doesn’t seem as hot as I expected. Mind you, it’s located in 20x40 with 14’ walls about 1/2 insulated, so not expecting to be sweating, but just don’t seem to be that hot right at the stove.

The output air temp is directly related to the incoming air.Except on high output stoves,,like the Harman P68. the air temp from the room the stove is in,the incoming air through the convection fan all relates to this.If you were doing this,before buying.installing your unit,by the BTU's advertised,go out and buy 3 farm and ranch milk house 1500 watt heaters,and that is what your stove is. As far as I can see, your older unit is equivalent to 3 milk house heaters.

 

[SidecarFlip]

I don't follow that train of thought at all. Least not with corn which has a much higher btu output per volume used as compared to processed wood pellets and with the units that a few of us have (USSC 6039-41's the PPH fuel input is user customizable so, when running corn it's quite possible to exceed the design parameters of the unit and cause the high limit snap disc to pen and shut down the stove.

I can (and I'm sure Firepot Pete can do just that). My outlet temperature for the room air can exceed 600 degrees (I've measured it with my Fluke True RMS digital multi meter with the non contact temp probe).

So hot it will singe your hair if you get too close.

I cannot run anywhere close to maximum PPH fuel input. The range on mine is 1-9 and 6 is the highest PPH fuel setting I can go using my custom algorithm for fuel delivery and my unit (I bet Pete's unit as well is more than capable of heating my entire home no matter what the ambient outside temp is. In fact, yesterday it was 19 ambient and the house (including the upstairs was at 71 and the stove maintained that all day and last night as well). Having said that I do have a couple fans strategically placed top help circulate the heat as I don't expect the room air blower to be able to move the heat around the entire house but then no stove is capable of that, Harman or not. They are all limited so far as the CFM output of the room air blowers, IOW none have the blower size of a central furnace unless the biomass stove is a central furnace add in. Then it's a different ballgame entirely.

I would never own any biomass appliance that I could not customize the fuel delivery parameters on. Just not me. Far as a Harman is concerned, my personal observation is, they are over priced and troublesome as in difficult to clean (fly ash) and maintain. I'm not into brass trim and fancy dan aesthetics, I'm into utility and user adjustability.

Reading the specs on Harman's website I don't see where you consider them to be any more (or less) efficient than what I own and certainly nowhere near as adjustable. No matter what unit you buy (don't care what brand it is, overall efficiency on biomass fuel will never exceed 80% anyway, don't matter what the input BTU is. Not in the cards with any solid fuel appliance and never will be. They are all limited in output efficiency by the way they combust fuel and the very process itself.

Comparing a biomass appliance to a 1500 watt radiant heater is pretty lame. No comparison far as heat output and the wimpy fan on a 'milkhouse' heater is incapable of moving any volume of heated air anyway. I have one in the shop and it's good for warming my legs when I'm sitting at my reloading bench and that is about it. Far as overall heat output is concerned for warming anything other than a confined space, it's basically worthless and BTU output for energy consumed, it's very inefficient.

Just my opinion on it, nothing more.

 

[Krob]

What do you expect? Put your bare finger on the outlet grill and report back.. What HR setting you on and is it clean inside or filthy and did you perform the necessary maintenance last spring? The stove is rated for 2500 square feet, not the 11,200 feet you are heating. You ain't gonna sweat unless you do some physical work....

40x20 is 800 sq. Ft. I know with the tall side walls I’ve got more cubic ft. To heat, but 40x20x14 is your 11200cubic. A 2500 sq. Ft room w/8’ ceiling would be 20,000 cubes.
But I know the high cringes are an issue. But my real concern is there’s just not much heat out of the stove. I could hold my hand in front of it all day. Not anywhere near 600 deg. You talked about in later post. And my glass doors up real fast. I’m assuming I have some kind of of a flame quality or air mixture problem? I went to a 50/50 pellet corn mix to see if that would raise the outlet temp. Thanks to all of your replies (everyone). I bought this stove used and packed full, like it had never been cleaned. Thanks to all the advice I’ve got rid of all the error codes and can keep her burning. Figure I need a few tweaks and be good to go.

 

[Krob]

40x20 is 800 sq. Ft. I know with the tall side walls I’ve got more cubic ft. To heat, but 40x20x14 is your 11200cubic. A 2500 sq. Ft room w/8’ ceiling would be 20,000 cubes.
But I know the high cringes are an issue. But my real concern is there’s just not much heat out of the stove. I could hold my hand in front of it all day. Not anywhere near 600 deg. You talked about in later post. And my glass doors up real fast. I’m assuming I have some kind of of a flame quality or air mixture problem? I went to a 50/50 pellet corn mix to see if that would raise the outlet temp. Thanks to all of your replies (everyone). I bought this stove used and packed full, like it had never been cleaned. Thanks to all the advice I’ve got rid of all the error codes and can keep her burning. Figure I need a few tweaks and be good to go.

I need to proof read better. High ceilings and windows soot up fast.

 

[ARC]

just don’t seem to be that hot right at the stove.

Do you have a thermostat hooked to the stove? If not is there a thermostat jumper in place, little copper colored wire in the first two pictures. Looks like the black piece with penny when you take it off.

 

[FirepotPete]

Do you have a thermostat hooked to the stove? If not is there a thermostat jumper in place, little copper colored wire in the first two pictures. Looks like the black piece with penny when you take it off.

View attachment 269901 View attachment 269902 View attachment 269950

Just to clarity what ARC is saying, is that if you are not running a thermostat, then that jumper needs to be in place closing the circuit. If not in place the stove will remain at one heat setting, I believe the lowest. It doesn't matter if you change the HR on the control board, nothing will happen you stay at that lowest HR.

 

[SidecarFlip]

Pete nailed it. Without the jumper in place, the stove (board) thinks it's in constant ramp down so it will only feed pellets at the bottom end of the PPH algorithm
Don't matter what you set the HR at, the stove will stay at idle because the control board thinks there is a thermostat attached.