thanks for allowing me in to the i burn corn group, bought a new hopper burner and controls from Big M about 10 years ago to convert a weil mclain cast iron boiler from hand fired wood and coal to burn corn (then $1.50 to $2.00 a bushel), had some success and failures along the way expecially with dirty corn and mositure above 12 % ,did purchase a vacumn cleaning system from LDJ? if in business anymore . with a seed vacumn that will move it about 180 feet in 1 1/2" pvc pipe to the cyclone. present problem is i'm using wood pellets and having the smoke issue backing up in the auger system and into the bin that sits outside. noticed mixing some corn may help , also plugging off the lower holes in the cast iron burn pot. What works the best? got up yesterday morning to a cold boiler and auger not moving corn from storage bin in auger. (plugged off from residue from smoke backup. thanks in advance.

Welcome, Crisco. Wow, pulling corn 180 ft? You must be doing something right. Would be interested in seeing pics of your transport and storage system some time after your prob gets sorted out. 'Fraid I can't help with it, though. My stove doesn't even have an auger. There are some very knowledgable people here, so I expect that you'll have some good advice soon. Is your unit negative draft? Do you have good draft out your vent?

Corny, i set a 120 bushel gravity box in my garage and run pvc pipe 40 ft. turn 90 degrees run another 80 ft , then to the cyclone inlet and the vacumn attaches to the outlet, the corn spins in the cyclone and pulls out the fines and then drops to the bottom of a reverse rain cap that is similiar to a cap on a tractor exhaust pipe to keep rain out , when the cyclone is full I shut down the vacumn and the cap on the bottom of the cyclone opens drops clean corn into the 14 bushel bin. the vacumn is a twin turbine twin motor seed vacumn as the source of pulling the corn through the pvc. , later maybe after I get a little bettter at computer savy , i'll post some pictures although i'm not using the vacumn presently because of the cost of corn. 7-8 a bushel. thanks hope someone has a solution to burning just pellets , stove should be set up ok , never used to back smoke up into auger , until burning straight wood pellets. may try screws in lower holes of the cast iron Big M burn pot, to stop the back up of smoke

Interesting, Crisco. It sounds like a very nice setup. Great if you could one day set up a new thread with pics in the Storage and Transport section of this forum.

My system also starts with a gravity wagon and uses a Cornvac continuous flow cyclone. It is described here with pics.
forum.iburncorn.com/viewtopic.php?t=6345

Regarding your stove, I naively asked about positive vs negative vent because I was wondering if there might be a restriction in your exhaust. Especially with a positive vent stove, if the vent is restricted, the fan might continue to blow on the fire and the smoke could go up the auger for lack of a better conduit.

Have you searched the threads in this and in the old corn forum for the prob with your specific make/model?
Here's the link for the old forum.
forum.iburncorn.com/search.php