blower problem

[GVA]

Guys.... Guys...... a little help here MSG what do you think.

Well maybe my new avatar has people running away..

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that your stove could have significant diferences from the newer ones.

1) your stove could have an RTD and the new control board is set for a Thermister
ie: your stove thinks the room is at temp and the blower will not go any faster..

2) the wiring diagram has a note that if you have a square block mounted at the bottom of the stove just behind the convection blower that has wires that lead to the auger and the vacuum switch than you need to change the wiring around. Did yours have this? If so this is important, If it's not there then answer me a couple of questions first when you changed the control board what wires, plugs were unplugged and then reconnected. did you have to unplug the thermister/rtd whatever it is.

I'm hoping that someone that has done the control board swap will help shed some light here on this subject I am not a whitfield rep or anything but i just looked up your stove and found those sites maybe e-mail them if we can't help you but I can't help until I get an idea of what the controlboard is like. The diagram also showed a thermostat jumper does this get removed and the thermister connected????


Any way if you had to remove the thermister whatever thingy your stove has try switching the two wires, on certain industrial heat controllers it will actually read cooler as it is heating up. so your stove could think it is at temp. does the fire start to die down?

 

[MountainStoveGuy]

I wish hearthtools would look at this. I only knew enough to know it was the control board. If no one answers, i will call my whitfied tech tommorrow. When you have auger on high, and fan on high, how much lower is it then the max speed used to be? The new micro processor is the only option you have now. You cant get the regular control bord. Have you ran the unit for a while on full burn? the fan doenst have a snap disk so it should be able to be turned up and down without the presence of heat. Percentage wise, how much slower is the fan speed?

 

[Robbie]

MountainStoveGuy, you did good, it's the first time I've ever been wrong...............

Robbie. ;-)

 

[billc]

The blower is significantly slower. Hard to say how much, but just to throw out a number, I would say about 5 times slower. This is when the controls are set at full blower speed and full heating (auger feed) speed. If there is a difference between the lowest setting and the highest setting, it ain't much. I let it run for about an hour and did not notice any difference.

 

[billc]

OK. I finally pulled out the entire unit. Looked at the wiring strip at the bottom right (facing the front of the stove). There are 6 wires connected to the strip and several spots with nothing connected. At the far right end are two next to each other with nothing connected. Is this where the jumper should be connected? There is no jumper as far as I can see and I have not external thermostat.

 

[Homefire]

Can you post pics?

 

[MountainStoveGuy]

Ok, the tech is here next to me. First of all there is only one plug to the board. And one red jumper at the top. Thats all for plugs. The wacked out contrtol board you had could have been spiking voltages to the convection blower and messed up the windings. Only way to find out is to put a multi meter in the plugs in the front of the control board on common and convection and check voltage on high and low. It should max somewhere around 110 volts, if not, that board could be bad, if so, the motor could be shot. Hope that helps.

 

[billc]

I would like to post a picture, but don't have a camera. So I did a rough sketch of what I see when facing the front of the stove. The panel depicted is located at the bottom right side in the back. I would like to try a 'jump' before trying other things. If this sounds sensible perhaps someone can tell me where it goes.

 

[MountainStoveGuy]

I would like to post a picture, but don't have a camera. So I did a rough sketch of what I see when facing the front of the stove. The panel depicted is located at the bottom right side in the back. I would like to try a 'jump' before trying other things. If this sounds sensible perhaps someone can tell me where it goes.

Im confused. The control board has ONE terminal block. The stove has a wireing harness that plugs into it. Thats it. There is a little red jumper wire at the top, other then that there are no connections.
Check your voltages on the front of the control panel where the little black plugs are.

 

[billc]

The control panel does, indeed, have a wiring block. No problem there. The picture I sent is the wiring harness and indicates where the wires go. The NEW control panel has a connection (maybe for the jumper, I don't know.) at the BOTTOM of the panel. The OLD panel does not have that connection.

 

[MountainStoveGuy]

then that connection needs to be jumped. it should have came with a red wire for that purpose.

 

[billc]

No red jumper came with it. But I can quickly put one together.

 

[MountainStoveGuy]

if you stove had the two wires, they would go there. Since they dont, make a jumper. That board covers severl models. I dont remember what that controls. It might fix it, of not, check the voltages.

 

[billc]

Well, Folks, it's been fun. It was the jumper. I just checked the box and wrapping it came in... no red jumper. Seriously, I just want to say thanks to everyone who has contributed. I wish all forums were as helpful and productive as this one!

 

[MountainStoveGuy]

NICE!! glad we figured it out.

 

[MountainStoveGuy]

FWIW, those two connections that you jumped are for the thermostat on later models. When there is no jumper in place, the computer tells it to run no higher then setting 1.

 

[Shane]

 

[GVA]

I agree Shane!!
Thanks MSG