Digital Cat Probe

[pgmr]

There are many a stove out there with this type of design, Buck being one of the largest manufacturers. I tried talking to Buck's engineers but they acted like they could care less about having a digital read out with high/low temperature alarms on their stoves and told me to stick with the Condar basic probe, it really is a shame most of these guys are still stuck in the 80's.

On our Buck 80 (and the other models I would assume), the cat is indeed in the top front, but the smoke goes up vertically through the cat. The probe is on top of the cat (the downstream side) not inside a cell or through the cat.

 

[mellow]

Interesting, if you get a chance take a picture of the cat housing for me.

 

[pgmr]

https://www.hearth.com/talk/attachments/img_1887-jpg.72923/ is from a model 91, but it is similar to the 80. You are looking down on the cat and housing and seeing the flange that bolts to the top of the fire box.

I looked at the manual online for your 52 Bay and page 13 describes two different cat probe ports:

"The 52 Bay was designed to allow the owner to
monitor the catalyst temperatures. A small port is
located on the top of the stove, inside the unit. From
that port, wires may be led out of the unit to a
temperature monitoring device. Some Gemini models
have this wiring already done. The port is positioned
to allow for temperatures to be taken approximately 1”
behind the right catalyst. The thermocouple and
monitor should be compatible and should read
temperatures to approximately 1800 degrees F.

Front Mounted Catalytic Probe
Locate screw above the door and to the left of the
damper. Remove the screw and insert catalytic probe."

 

[Ashful]

Front Mounted Catalytic Probe
Locate screw above the door and to the left of the
damper. Remove the screw and insert catalytic probe."

That would be so nice! My cat probe hole is in the center of the back of the stove... the second most useless possible location for a probe hole. I'm forced to use an electronic probe, thanks to this. If I had a probe hole in the front, I'd be thrilled to use a simple mechanical probe.

 

[mellow]

Ok, had to call servicesales to get this sorted out as to why my stove did not have a top port. When Appalachian was bought out the new company stopped making stoves with the top port around 2007 due to lack of interest in the digital probes, mine was made after that so hence the lack of a hole, the new company has not updated the manual.

I only have a front port, but after talking to them I might try drilling from the top and putting the thermocouple in behind the cats, they gave me some good suggestions on how to deal with the air jacket.

 

[pgmr]

I wonder what the manual means when it says, "A small port is located on the top of the stove, inside the unit. From that port, wires may be led out of the unit to a temperature monitoring device."? Was Appalachian able to describe how the old design worked?

 

[mellow]

They had a hole in the top plate with a screw in it from what I understood, basically the same thing I am thinking of doing, I am going to make the Air jacket hole slightly bigger so I can fit the thermocouple down to a smaller hole in the top plate, the top plate hole will be threaded incase I need to close it up I can put a screw in it like the original stoves had.

 

[mellow]

I just wanted to do an update to this thread, I gave up on trying to monitor the cat from the front and now monitor the temps from the exhaust, I have found this to be just as effective. I have my hi alarm set at 600 so if I forget to close the damper (has happened a few times) I won't have a thermonuclear stove to try and cool down. At around 500 degrees with the damper closed I am roughly at 1800 degrees on the cat, so I know that if I see that high of a number I need to turn the primary air down, so far everything is working good.

 

[mellow]

So my setup currently consists of the Auber AT-100



And the K type Thermocouple, Washer Probe TC-K-WS

 

[jharkin]

The Auber AT100 has been all the rage in the VC chat thread. All the cool kids are doing it, I just got mine last month and love it.... worlds better than the Condar.

 

[mellow]

Bumping this up for @orzu7