Did I screw my P68 up more???

[newf lover]

For the first time Friday night, my stove shut down automatically because the hopper was empty. Good. The next morning before I restarted, I took a look at the feeder body to see if there were any fines. There were none, but I noticed a couple of bits of pellets, so used my ash vac with the small hose attachment and cleaned it out. Did have a little trouble because the vacuum hose got stuck. Then fired up the stove. Before my only problem was a squeaking stove (different thread) and now it is most definitely not working right. The pellets don't seem to be feeding as they should, it starts off with a nice big flame, but then quickly shrinks to a real wimpy one. The feed rate doesn't matter or the temperature I set it at. I am afraid I screwed something up. I wish I had restarted the stove without trying to clean the feeder body. The stove is clean, I emptied out the area under the cleanout plate, scraped down everything. Any ideas about what I could have done???? Thanks.

 

[GVA]

shut it down and unplug it count to 10 plug it back in. see if the board is having a brain fart...

 

[newf lover]

OK, I'll give that a shot. Thanks.

 

[kinsmanstoves]

Did have a little trouble because the vacuum hose got stuck.

Where did it get stuck at? Air switch, air hose, pulled out a wire when trying to free the stuck hose???

Eric

 

[newf lover]

Here is a picture of the feeder body-

The tool I used is found at this link. It's the one with the clear hose that's an attachment on the Cougar Ash-less vac.
(broken link removed to http://www.northlineexpress.com/itemdesc.asp?ic=5LA-4P22)

I hope the picture of the feeder body comes through. The picture doesn't reflect just how small an area it is. The small hose got stuck between those 2 metal bars. I must have hit something, or pulled something lose. I shut the stove down, unplugged it, and plugged it back in. Didn't help. Obvioulsy I should have left well enough alone.

 

[crausch]

Maybe check in your ash vac. Look in the ashes you vacuumed up. Make sure you don't see anything obvious (spring, screw, wire, etc.) that you might have sucked up.

 

[littlesmokey]

Sounds like an air leak to me. Did you get everything closed properly. I have to pay special attention to me ash pan door, it needs lots of pressure to seal properly.

 

[GVA]

there is nothing really in there that should be missing.......or could get vacuumed up
the only problem I could foresee is if the slide plate is no longer engaged into the lever, and no longer metering pellets correctly

********************EDIT*************************
or I should add if you removed the slide plate it was reinstalled upside down..........the step should face up flat side down....

 

[newf lover]

GVA, I didn't remove the slide plate. The dealer did when he worked on it last week. Stupid question, where is the slide plate in relation to the picture above? Is it in wrong? I should add the stove worked fine, except for the squeaking (which is why he came), until I decided to play Joe mechanic Friday night. I had asked in another post about the feeder body and what it looked like. I was hoping another P68 owner would post a picture.
I checked for vacuumed up parts, nothing.
I double-checked the doors, they are fine.
I waited until the stove shut down, then unplugged it and removed the back panel and checked to see if there was anything unhooked. Couldn't see where anything was amiss. Looked into the feeder body, a couple of small pellets only.
This is what happens. I turn the stove on like I always do. It starts out normal, I can hear the pellets drop, after a few minutes it's flame on, like always. However, after a couple minutes, the flame dies down, as if it has already reached the right temperature. It took a full 5 minutes before any other pellets dropped. I put the temp dial all the way up to 7 (90 degrees). Normally the stove would be roaring at 80. There is a flame, but it is most definitely not anywhere near roaring. It may get up to a medium flame, but then it dies down to almost nothing. There are pellets being fed.
I'm letting it burn for awhile, it still throws off heat. I think I will shut it down, clean it, and wait for the dealer to come this week.

 

[GVA]

page 26 has a good pic of the feeder body.
the slide plate.....
the round bar has a plate welded to it vertically, this vertical plate fits into a slot on the bottom of the slide plate, do not remove the slide plate with a full hopper..
what are the controls set to?
feed rate, mode, ignitor ETC...

 

[newf lover]

Thanks. Well, that diagram doesn't look anything like my picture. Mine was made in Nov. 2008. First of all, the wing nut is not in the middle of the plate, it's down at the bottom of the feeder plate. As you can see, there is a piece of metal at the bottom of mine, which makes it really difficult to clean out. Could this be anything else but the feeder body? Unless they made some big changes with the newer P68, something is wrong. Next problem-
I usually have the controls in Room Temp, between 75 and 80, feed at #4, distribution blower at a little above Low, auto ignite. I've had the stove 5 weeks, and never had a problem with flame size or heat, just squeaking. I made adjustments in temp and feed rate to see if that changes anything, it doesn't. It's not like it's not working at all, it just isn't acting right. It's like it's not working at full power. Again, it is clean.
I think this is a problem for the dealer to solve. I give up.
I do wish another owner of a P68 would put a picture of their feeder body up so I could compare. As I said, I did another post, but received no replies.