Hello,

Finally installed my brand new Maxfire 120 and ran it for about 9 hours yesterday while babysitting it and tweaking the settings --- p a t i e n t l y. During the last 1.5 hours of those 9 hours I ran it on level 1 as the room was 80. I then decided to shut it down for the night and touched the off key. After several minutes the flame was gone, fan was still running and I went to bed assuming it would finish shutting down.

This evening I went to start it and found the #7 light flashing --- looked at the manual and touched Off then on. It fed some pellets into the burn pot but did not light --- then #7 flashing again. I tried this twice, then attempted to follow the instruction to "clear the burn pot jam" as the manual instructs (but with little instruction).

I removed the deflector, the upper burn plate(s), and the upper burn pot. I found the upper paddle and lower paddle both "to the right" (holes in lower burn plate are on the right side of the burn pots as opposed to being positioned under the burn pot). The upper paddle is positioned likewise.

I've vacuumed the pellets from where the upper burn pot was located but am at a loss as to what to do next. Does this sound familiar to anyone? --- Is this a simple thing for all but someone brand new to the Bixby?

Thanks for any help!

Could be the burn drive limit switch or the burn drive brake. See here:
forum.iburncorn.com/wiki/index.php/Bixby#Light_.237

and here:
forum.iburncorn.com/wiki/index.php/Bixby..._Dump_Irregularities

If you manually disable the brake, can you move the paddles by hand?

Are your clinkers nice and round?

I was able to move the paddles by hand. It did take effort to move them. There is only a little ash --- no clinker. Ash was as if someone dumped an ashtray --- loose.

I should have asked if you're burning corn, which is more prone to forming hard clinkers that can jam the paddles causing a #7. That can happen if burning way too lean. There could be chunks of hard busted clinkers stuck in your mechanism causing the jam.

Release any tension on the paddles by manually releasing the burndrive brake. Then remove the burnpot and paddles, cleaning out any debris.

You said you could move the paddles. Was that while you manually released the brake at the burn drive motor? If you could move the paddles while braked, as it should be in standstill, then I'd suspect the brake.

To check the burn drive limit switch, watch where the paddles stop during the initial 3 cycles at startup. Count them. MAke sure there are 3. Meanwhile, also watch how they stop, whether abruptly or coasting to a stop. Should be abrupt.

I believe that all of this and more is explained in the second link that I gave you above.

Let us know how you make out.

Thanks Corny! I did manually release the brake to move the paddles. I didn't find anything jammed to clear so put it back together plugged it back in and started with no problems. The paddle motor turned three times at startup, pausing for a seconds as it hit the brake switch each time and stopping after the third. Then the stove started minutes later.

Thanks so much for the help. I owe you dinner!

Sometimes, you can't see the jammed bits from above. That's why I suggested remove the pots and both paddles. Sometimes, if you remove the ash drawer and look up, you can see and remove the jammed bits. If they are still there, they could affect your burn and the next ash dump.