Need Help with Whitfield Advantage II-T

[Snowy Rivers]

Lighting can take on many techniques and work fine.

My concern is, Why it just up and quit after you had it going.

Soemthing is amiss here.

If there are pellets burning and they just go out, its got to be the fan has stopped for whatever reason.

The exhaust fan must run continuously for the fire to sustain itself.

Good luck

Snowy

 

[DanJ]

I put everything back together and lit the fire at 4:40. Right now I 've had a flame going for a little over 20 mins. One thing I may have found was a speck of dirt in the red hose going to the pressure sensor. I'm keeping my fingers crossed at this point. Thanks for the help and hopefully It's figured out

 

[DanJ]

Fire started getting erratic and finally died out after an hr and a half. I guess it's time to call a serviceman. The blowers were running fine but the flame started getting an orange glow to it and right now nothing.

 

[Pellet-King]

What actually happens?, pellet stop dropping and the flame goes out?

 

[Snowy Rivers]

OK

This can happen for a few reasons.

The low temp sensor is faulty and is dropping out

One of the high temp sensors is opening up and stopping power flow

The pressure sensor (pod) is opening the circuit and shutting things down.

The feed motor is stopping due to an electrical fault or a mchanical issue in the motor/gearbox

Go through and find out what is causing the failure.

Check the voltage at the feed motor when the fire starts to fail (Pellets stop dropping)

If you have zero voltage when this happens, then check the low side switch to see if its working, then the high side switches.

Next the pressure switch.

If all these things are oK then the issue has to be the control board itself.

When the pellets stop dropping, does the red light on the control board still flash on and off as it should when the feed should be working.

This is a simple system and it should take only a few minutes to sort out what has/is failing.


Give this a go and keep us posted.

Snowy

 

[DanJ]

I've been working on this thing all weekend. I got it to burn but now the auger is sticking, Red light is flashing but the auger isn't turningand it's making a clicking sound. I've cleaned it out a couple of times but it jams up again. Right now I'm waiting for the fire to burn out, I put a hand full of pellets in the burn pot and the fire started right up again. I'm going to do my best to take evey pellet out of the auger and start over again. Electrical stuff I'm not too good at checking, If the sensors are cheap enough I'd be better off just replacing them one at a time. Oh BTW when my buddy sold me this stove he kept making a point out of telling me what a deal I was getting

 

[DanJ]

So far today the stoves been burning ALL day. Hopefully I have it figured out. I did find the cavity above the baffle plates still had ash I cleaned that out yesterday and repaired the stuck auger today. hopefully I won't need to bother anyone again. Thanks for the help and suggestions

Dan J

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

What that clean stove had more ash in it who woulda thunk it. Actually it is likely there is still ash inside that stove, if you have a manual (if you don't have one get one) follow the convection and combustion side air flows everywhere they go has to be clean.

 

[bjr23]

Okay, what I'm not seeing here is the path going out, the chimney, has that been double checked. I don't know some kind of funky thing like birds nest or mice home, kids toys? That old Whitfield is a good stove keep at it and when you get it running you'll be a happy warm camper. I've the same stove in standalone and went thru almost the same troubleshooting as you and mine was just all them ports in the back of firebrick were plugged and someone had installed the wrong blower kickin switch, vacuum instead of pressure. I think I bypassed the switches temporary to check to get all fans running. I changed out that switch and all was fine then. Mine has the older two rheostat knobs type control board. I had ran all new ($400) pellet stove pipe when I installed and fought it all the way, but, runs great now. bjr23

 

[DanJ]

And of course it went out last night about 6:45 after running all day. Back at work today so I'll have to wait until tonight to take another look. Stove pipe and top is all new. 3" pipe. I've read someplace that any thing above a certain height should be 4" and I'm running about 20'. Anyone know anything about that?

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

It is anything above an effective vent length of 15 that is likely to trigger the next size up vent. Consult your stove's manual.

Effective vent length is a calculated figure each foot vertical is .5 each foot horizontal is 1 a tee and a 90 degree elbow is 5 a 45 degree elbow is 3 sum those figures up and you have the magic number then you need to consult your stove's manual to see what is what.

 

[Pellet-King]

I'm running 20' of 3" flexpipe without any issues, sound like to me your auger is jamming or sticking, possibly the auger washer is wearing thin causing it to stop turning.
Read here if you havent.
http://www.butkus.org/whitfield_pellet_stove.htm

 

[DanJ]

The stove is getting pellets. The last two days I've come home from work and started the stove. It starts right up and burns until I shut it down when I go upstairs for the night. I do think that the ash above the back baffle plates was the problem. It's a very difficult area to locate and even more difficult to clean out. Thanks

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

The stove is getting pellets. The last two days I've come home from work and started the stove. It starts right up and burns until I shut it down when I go upstairs for the night. I do think that the ash above the back baffle plates was the problem. It's a very difficult area to locate and even more difficult to clean out. Thanks

After brushing out all areas that can trap ash and cleaning the area above the burn pot etc ...., even thumping the fire box walls (provided they are not cast, as cast will fracture when stuck) attach the suction end of a leaf blower to the vent sealing it to the pipe, turn it on and plug it in, instant ash removal even works with a long run of flex liner. Just don't aim it at anyone or anything.

 

[lmjr]

I know, I'm way late to this party...and you have been given a lot of use full information here.

Thought I'd mention something I didn't see pointed out... the air intake inside the stove can become restricted and is often overlooked.

Seems that the problem is intermittent at this point and just maybe there is something shifting around in the incoming air tube causing a restriction.

The air tube runs from behind the stove to under the burn grate. Suck or blow that tube out real good to assure it's clear.

If that doesn't fix the problem then I would be suspicious the of 3" vent as was previously mentioned.

 

[Pellet-King]

DanJ did you look at butkus site i had a llink on my post above?, sounds l;ike you need the 6 cent fix, you have a auger problem and need to remove it along with the motor, if your not mechanically capable let me know, you need possibly a washer or a new motor.


After 35,000 hours the bottom motor gear's "fiber bushing" wore out and allowed this tilted motor to slide down. This moved the motor with a gear on it's shaft to lose contact with the first gear. So the motor was just spinning, not making contact with anything. This was caused by the back of the motor facing down wearing out that fiber washer.