What are the temp guidelines for an Auber AT100?

[SonOfEru]

I'm getting my new AT100 in the mail today. So what are the guidelines for its use - the temp spread to aim for?

Like the stovetop is supposed to be at 450 to close the damper. What temp indicates the cat has fired off? What temp would indicate it's overheating? Like that.

Thanks!

 

[mellow]

What thermocouple are you using and where are you putting it?

 

[SonOfEru]

What thermocouple are you using and where are you putting it?

It is the K type, Auber's WRNK-191



There is a port for probes, just below the catalytic cover panel in back of the Encore 2140, and above the secondary air control.

Here's a photo of another guy's installation.

 

[mellow]

If your monitoring cat temps your range would be dependant on the cat age and type but typically downstream of the cat you would see 500-1700 degrees while active. I would set the max alarm at 1800.

 

[showrguy]

Mine came pre set that an alarm goes off at 480 deg. It lets me know when it's about time to engage CAT. other than that I have'nt messed with it..

 

[SonOfEru]

So it's sounding like as the cat warms up the probe will show a jump about 500? I would presume if the gases suddenly started burning it would make for a quick temp rise.

Or maybe a better way to say it is, when the probe says 500 that's a clear sign that the cat is flaming? That's all I would really need to know?

That's the question for me, being new to trying to watch catalytic behavior. I have been closing the damper and leaving the primary air open, until I see through the slit that the cat is beginning to glow red (I presume that the surface I am seeing through the slit is one side of the cat element). I have a stovetop thermometer to tell me to flip the damper, but before now no simple way to know if the cat is really going.

I've just been hesitant to turn the air down at a point that it is not flaming yet, fearful that it will then cool back down and never kick in, as the flames in the firebox die down to just a ghostly shimmer, leaving creosote to wander up the flue.

 

[showrguy]

I engage the CAT when the Auber tells me it's at 500 deg.
The Auber is just another tool for me to have a better understanding what my stove is doing "right now"..

 

[mellow]

I would close the damper when it hits 500 then you can slowly throttle back the air to the desired amount of heat you need. I tried setting a low and high alarm and got sick of the low alarm and only use the high for that ohh crap moment. I have been known to leave the damper open for to long and the auber has saved me a couple times.

 

[Reckless]

Fyi 1800 with an encore is thermonuclear melt down. Anything over 1700 is cause for concern. I don't watch the probe to close the damper I wait until my mag therm right above my flue collar reads 400 range and close the damper and away she goes. Cruising cat temps should be 1100-1400 with your stove.... But this was all covered in the VC thread.....


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[WES999]

I have TC probes on the flue, stove top and cat on my BK, I find it a very useful tool for operating the stove.
The cat probe alarm is set for 360, (it is a steel cat so the light off temp is lower than a ceramic which is about
500).
I really like the cat alarm, as it is so easy to light the stove, get distracted and forget to close the bypass.
There has been at least one post from someone that did that.
Also the cat prove reacts much faster then the mechanical thermo.

 

[SonOfEru]

OK, I have the input I was looking for. Thanks all, very much

 

[SonOfEru]

OK, I have the input I was looking for. Thanks all, very much

And now I have the AT100!! I installed the probe and set up the display and all that. Fun! So now I can watch the real temp in there.

I am surprised to see how fast the temp rises when I flip the damper. Well, after all, I am running a bunch of flame into it at first, so no wonder, but from the Encore manual, which says to get the griddle up to 450 and close it, then let it run with open air for 15 minutes or so, I figured it would slowly get up to the 500 or so, which is the bottom end of what will get the cat to fire off. But even if I start with not much coals, and only say, 3 logs, I can flip the damper even before 450 at the griddle, and it climbs right up to 500-600-700 pretty directly, not more than a couple of minutes. Maybe the manual is written for bigger loads, and maybe it's saying it takes 15 minutes for the whole refractory chamber to get up to a temp that will maintain the cat flame? With a good bed of coals I have usually seen it still running at 600 or more, and when I reload it, the wood goes to full flame right away and I flip the damper without a wait, and the temp goes right up to 700-800 in a minute or so.

So, I am happy to see it go up there pretty quick and I pull the air back and it pretty much stays at or above 600 from there.

I know Reckless Guy suggests 1100-1400 but just now that's too high for me. I have a smaller space than most folks with an Encore, and I am concerned that the gaskets are letting at least some air leakage in, so I am not ready to try for more than 3 logs, maybe 4 if it's cold out [by that I mean 10 degrees or less and it's been 20 or more recently]. I actually did try 4 a couple of weeks ago and the griddle temp ran up over 750 for about an hour. The way I have been running it with small loads easily keeps the space at 75, which is OK because at the further end is the entry area and my wife's office, which is a separate zone of the central heat and so the extra heat in the main space spills in there and saves some oil.

I'm doing all this detail only because I've been trying to observe and figure out how my particular situation is going to work. The main, main big question all along has been and is - how can I be confident the cat is firing, so I wont be letting creosote go by. As I said in other posts a couple of weeks ago, I once had a bad chimney fire with an Encore that I was ignorant about, and not running right, and I am dead serious about that issue.

So if I get it up running in the 600-800 range, whether starting cold or with a good bed of coals, can I be confident that the cat is firing and stays firing as long as it stays above 600?

The only reason I have any doubt is that even at 700-800 I go outside and look at the chimney and there is smoke there, it is not just clear wiggly smokeless "heat" coming out. It does take the manual's 15 minutes or so to go clear. So maybe the cat goes into flames right away but is not fully consuming the combustibles until the surrounding chamber gets cooking hot and can eat up every bit of flammable gas?

 

[Dobish]

with my encore, if i don't engage the cat, the temps on the AT100 will stay low, so I just watch the griddle temp and flue temps and engage the cat when it is around 500º on the flue, 550º on the griddle. I will watch the temp rise pretty quickly (matter of minutes on hot coals, a little bit longer from a cold start).

I will cut the air down a little bit when the cat temp is 600º, and then again when it is over 800º. I normally am pretty happy it if will level out around 850-1100º.

I have the alarm set at 1500º, but it has only gone off a few times

 

[SonOfEru]

with my encore, if i don't engage the cat, the temps on the AT100 will stay low, so I just watch the griddle temp and flue temps and engage the cat when it is around 500º on the flue, 550º on the griddle. I will watch the temp rise pretty quickly (matter of minutes on hot coals, a little bit longer from a cold start).

I will cut the air down a little bit when the cat temp is 600º, and then again when it is over 800º. I normally am pretty happy it if will level out around 850-1100º.

I have the alarm set at 1500º, but it has only gone off a few times

I have concluded that my situation, with small fires and a small space to heat, presents a particular set of factors, and I will just have to learn how they work, which I think I have been. I have watched many times now - reloading, bringing up to temp, cutting the air, watching the temp, watching the outside chimney smoke.

I find I cant run it at 1000 or more without overheating the space, so I am constrained to the 800 range. I just wanted to be sure that when it settles down there, that it IS flaming inside the cat, burning up any creosote generators.

Thanks.

 

[RandyBoBandy]

So it's sounding like as the cat warms up the probe will show a jump about 500? I would presume if the gases suddenly started burning it would make for a quick temp rise.

Or maybe a better way to say it is, when the probe says 500 that's a clear sign that the cat is flaming? That's all I would really need to know?

That's the question for me, being new to trying to watch catalytic behavior. I have been closing the damper and leaving the primary air open, until I see through the slit that the cat is beginning to glow red (I presume that the surface I am seeing through the slit is one side of the cat element). I have a stovetop thermometer to tell me to flip the damper, but before now no simple way to know if the cat is really going.

I've just been hesitant to turn the air down at a point that it is not flaming yet, fearful that it will then cool back down and never kick in, as the flames in the firebox die down to just a ghostly shimmer, leaving creosote to wander up the flue.

If you are waiting to close primary air until you see the red glow in the corners you are waiting to long and overfiring your cat. I typically don’t see the glow until my cat has been running above 1400 for awhile. Like reckless said. Close damper at 400-450 on flue thermo. 900-1000 on cat start closing primary air.

 

[SonOfEru]

If you are waiting to close primary air until you see the red glow in the corners you are waiting to long and overfiring your cat. I typically don’t see the glow until my cat has been running above 1400 for awhile. Like reckless said. Close damper at 400-450 on flue thermo. 900-1000 on cat start closing primary air.

Thats why I'm SO GLAD to see with the AT100 that the cat is kicked in long before I thought it might. I had no way of really knowing till now. Either I could:

1. leave it open for the time the manual says, and I am running smaller fires on purpose so the time for warming the chamber would probably have to be longer. And if it didnt get going, YIKES I am afraid of creosote.

2. go out and look at the smoke, waiting for it to go clear, and as I have said I am now seeing visible smoke even after minutes of burning at or above 800. It does clear up after a while so I figure it takes that time to get really hot enough in the refractory stuff before everything gets going. Or maybe the mix of combustibles is changing over the beginning of the burning of a new load, so earlier smoke is harder to burn off? (Now I'm REALLY getting technical. But I was a test engineer before retirement and I always want to know how everything works - no limit to the detail for me!)

3. wait till I see it glowing. Someone way earlier suggested that it begins to glow at 1000, so I looked for the first faint sign of glowing. I also sometimes would see a dancing little line of flame up inside the catalytic slot, quite separate from any flame coming up from the wood. I figured that meant it was hot enough even there, to touch off the gases, even before hitting the cat, so I could flip the damper. And BTW now with the AT100 I have seen it up at 1300 a couple of times that I left it with full air longer than I meant to, and it is orangey-red at that point, so I hope when I let it just start going red it wasnt that high.

So I was kinda stuck between fearing overfiring on one side and on the other, not having the cat actually flaming, and letting creosote go by.

So now I am at the point where I feel I have figured out my rig in that regard, just getting it up to 900 or so then turning the air down, and keeping an eye to see it doesnt sink below say 600 after that. I hope 600 on the way down is safe for creosote. It generally doesn't get down to 600 until the fire is mostly coals, or at least at the point that if I poke it before a reload the remaining "logs" are really brittle and break into pieces. At that point the fire is hot enough to get the reload back up to temp really fast.

I gotta take a break here and say THANK YOU to all who have chipped in for me. I really have been concerned to get it right, and the help has been great. I get wordy I know, but that's my way. So, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU.

SonOfEru