My quadrafire 1200 re-anaysis

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DexterDay said:
Perfect sense... Thank you.

You verify the "hot side" with the stove off, correct? Even with the stove off one leg on Snap disc 1 always has power. So check that, then the rest is as follows above.

Yep, stove off so voltage is only on one side of the disk, measured to ground. That's the side you want to replace with a constant 110.
 
Haven't been to this kinda dead thread for a week or two. I haven't bought the snap disc but here is what I did:

I saw the need to sqeeze the hot air out, as we've had a very cold november blast up north, and maybe even into the Dakotas, dunno. I simply found some wire and went through the little holes in the snap disc poles and then re-installed the wire couplers, a bit tighter, but it worked. then I hooked the other end of the three foot piece of wire into an ordinary household light switch and set it "on". The disc was now "hotwired on" and blew whatever heat was in the tubes out while the snap disc made up its mind what to do.

Whenever it gets to between 5 and 10 below Celsius, and kinda stays there for awhile, the stove pretty much goes all the time anyway. If the fan is blowing cold ambient house air around, I just shut it off till the house is cool enough for the stove to call for more heat. These days that does not happen. The stove only manages to hit it's "azimuth" heat curve near the 73*F house temp, maybe 74, but I set it to 75, just cause I like heat when it's bloody cool out!

As simple as this is I really like it. It is really surprising how much heat squeezes out, even a couple of minutes after ignition. This is so simple that it really is a quick fix for the guy whose machine waited 30+ min. to start the fan.

For what it's worth,...Manfred ps. Dex, I threw you a pm a bit back. didja miss it?
 
Never received a P.M. Went and double checked my inbox. I am pretty good about getting back to people.

Thats seems like an easy fix to extract those BTU's during start up. In years past I let it run constant once it gets cold. So the shutting down and staring up, will soon be a thing of the past. Trying to get my Fahrenheit installed today. Few little hiccups along the way.
 
Manfred, instead of jumping across both sides of the snap switch, just feed the 'hot' side. That way the switch will turn off the blower when the stove cools down. By reconnecting the original 'hot' wire coming from the control box, you are also back-feeding 110 volts into the control box, which is NOT GOOD!!! You could very well be destroying your control box since it may be trying to feed the blower with a lower voltage! Disconnect the wire coming from the control box and wrap it with electrical tape! What you are doing, is NOT SAFE IMHO.
 
This may better show you what I mean.
 

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I think (?) I see what you mean. Here is what I perceive from the schematic. you use the hot wire which is active for snap disc #3 and use that live current to empower snap disc #1 at the same time as 3, and so when 3 goes, 1 goes, pulling heat out safely, prior to snap disc # 1 giving the current to the fan. Is it kinda like disc 3 is actually making both fans go early?

The way I looked at it was that snap disc #1 was just simply open or closed, and while open, I overrode the open circuit by me artificially closing it. I notice that when the snap disc is closed, there is no longer a spark across the hotwire I put in, but prior to that it sparked to life and the fan started.

I'm not an electrician, so I don't really see how it back feeds when the snap disc is closed. I reasoned that if the disc closes it, or if I close it, what is the difference? I see you are a bit better with this stuff, and I see your squiggly line, so I think i understand.

BTW...in case you didn't understand what I actually did,.... there is no power to my hotwire switch, except that which comes from the snap disc anyway. It is no different than sticking a screwdriver across both poles to start the fan. A screwdriver doesn't cause backfeed. similarilly, neither should my switch. but,...to qualify myself, ...I do stand to be corrected

Please,...I appreciate your input, ...I'm just wrapping my head around all this, so in no way do I want to come across as knowing better. Thanks guys, Manfred
 
Ahhhhhhh, now I see what you did!!!!!!!!!!! You connected TWO pieces of wire, one to each terminal of snap disk #1 and ran those two wires to an ordinary wall switch. I thought you were running voltage to the snap disk from a wall switch mounted in your house that was hot!!!!! OK, that would work but REMEMBER that you have up to 110 volts on the switch that is laying somewhere!!! If you wanted to keep such a setup, I would recommend (enter all lawyer-eze in this spot) that you drill a hole somewhere and use a toggle switch rated for at least 2 amps that can be gotten from Radio Shack.

On my diagram, I have wired my fan so that the snap disk works as normal; however, the fan ALWAYS runs on high speed to better extract the heat. Snap disk 3 is a safety switch that is always closed except in an overfire condition. In your case, the fan will run in low, medium, or high all the time until you shut it off.

You say you want to squeeze more heat out............... That, I take it, means you want to have the fan come on sooner after start up and shut off later during the shutdown. A 100 degree snap disk would do the same thing. Some of us have mounted adjustable snap disks that do the same thing. Use the 'search' to find threads containing 'adjustable snap disk'
 
Yes tj we are on the same page.
The switch I am using is just a switch I had kicking around in my elec. scrap collection, and I just quick wired it together to save twisting the wires each time.

I do see what you are doing now, and that makes the most sense. In that way it is all correctly internalized.
 
This may better show you what I mean.
Just realized that I should be feeding snap disk from the INFEED side of the safety snap disk #3! That way the convection fan will keep running to cool down the stove if the stove overheats! It only took me two years to wake up!
 
Just realized that I should be feeding snap disk from the INFEED side of the safety snap disk #3! That way the convection fan will keep running to cool down the stove if the stove overheats! It only took me two years to wake up!

You wired it to match the original function of snap disk #3 as an "Emergency Stop". That snap disk is wired in series with the main fuse and kills all power to the stove.

I thought about that when I first read this thread... and each way has its benefits. On the one hand bypassing the overtemp snap disk will continue to provide cooling airflow, while on the other hand as a last-ditch safety effort it shuts everything off because something is way wrong and the cooling is not working.
 
You wired it to match the original function of snap disk #3 as an "Emergency Stop". That snap disk is wired in series with the main fuse and kills all power to the stove.

I thought about that when I first read this thread... and each way has its benefits. On the one hand bypassing the overtemp snap disk will continue to provide cooling airflow, while on the other hand as a last-ditch safety effort it shuts everything off because something is way wrong and the cooling is not working.
Yea, I kept thinking about it last night. I have them wired as the manufacturer intended (kill everything) but was that really the best thing to do? Shut everything off in an obvious melt down state and take away cooling? We know that doesn't work on a nuclear reactor!!! I hate to go against a safety design but it sure makes sense to keep the air flowing. In the worst case, if the heat got to the convection blower and burned it up, you still have the fuse to protect you. I'm undecided!
 
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