Can you describe the fuel level in your firepot at shutdown and during the, say, 30 minutes preceeding?

I had that with mine last week but I had a different problem, got dirty on the inside of the exhaust blower motor fan and surrounding area and just wasn't moving enough air. My fault for using left over corn with a high concentration of soy beans.

I had it last year with what you are talking about and it was my auger motor. It's not easy to detect because it would run normal but I finally did see it skip and found it to be the problem, it just wasn't skipping alll the time. I had to order a new one from Multi Products in Wisconsin. It was cheaper than from AES, they want to sell you a bigger motor with a new auger and all that for about $1,000 or so. Naturally this happened in the coldest stretch of the winter.

Don

Starts out after startup as good orange glowing in whole firepot as it should. Starts from the outside as corn starts not getting hot enough to burn, and flame gets smaller. Flame finally disappears - last place burning is in the middle of the burn pot towards the front.

It is possible it is my exhaust blower - I cleaned out some ash from the exhaust (outside) tonight. Still won't burn after doing that, but it was at a level where it normally causes a problem. Will try taking off the two little plates inside and see if those are full of stuff too.

I'll take some more time to watch the feed auger. Wind is nearly gone too so may be ok there too.

Well, I cleaned the stove really well, including under the two plates inside the burn area, although they weren't bad at all inside. Also lubed auger motor with some Kroil. Turned feed rate up a little. Running now for 30 minutes on level 5 - best I've done all day. Will watch it for another 30 minutes and then I'm done with it for the day!

Scott get a bag of differant corn.......I know you said you've been burning it, but sometimes you'll get a batch that just dosen't want to burn and you end up driving yourself nuts fooling with the stove and its the fuel.

Another thought is we had a customer that another dealer installed his stove.
He had a similar problem. The fix was to put a 2 - 3 foot vertical pipe on
the outside of the house with a hood on it. He was getting a strong wind blowing
against his house and was keeping the exhaust from working as it should.By adding
a small vertical length it gave the exhaust a chimney effect. We did add a clean out tee on the out side so everything could be cleaned.
olf20 / Bob

Update - burned last night for about 30 minutes. It did it again (died) - I went to bed. Tried it again today (wind was totally gone) - lasted about 3 hours this time. I just heard combustion blower kind of varying speed a little I think. Will try lubing it and see if that helps.

Oh, and olf20 - I had a setup similar to that a couple years ago but it all rotted away. Have burnt just like this for 2 years, so I can't think it's all the sudden my chimney especially since the wind is gone now and it still won't burn.

If it's not your auger motor, then I would have to agree with you just got a bad batch of corn with a high moisture content or the exhaust fan is plugged.

This year I had to replace my exhaust blower motor, it finally gave up. I had to clean the new one recently, the problem I had was that it got too much soot built up on the fins and in the area it sits in and just didn't push enough air to keep a fire going. It was strictly my fault as the corn I bought last year was mixed with about 30-40% soy beans (not my choice) and it burned great last year. Now that I got further into my wagon it is a lot higher concentration of beans and it got too much 'oily' soot build up in there. It is becoming a hassle because I have been mixing it with pellets trying to get it right.

You may have to take your exhaust motor off and clean all that out good, brush the fan off and try again. The new motor I put on was the Jackyl motor style and it's kind of nice because you can loosen 5 screws and pull the motor and fan at one time out of the housing rather than the whole housing assembly.

Don

Scott, to burn, you need 1) suitably dry fuel, 2) heat, and 3) air.

You appear to have established that there is sufficient quanity of fuel. The burnpot has a good amount of fuel in it when the fire wimps out and throughout the cycle leading to the event.

Your fuel quality remains in doubt. You haven't tested it. If too wet or too variable, you'd get what you see. Wet corn doesn't burn hot enough to support combustion. Moisture content can vary in the field. On average, the bin contents might be OK, but if not well mixed, you could have hit a wet pocket despite all best intentions. You could try to obtain a known dry sample. Alternatively, you could take a sample of your corn to be tested. All serious grain farmers should have at least a handheld tester. The grain elevators surely can test it, especially if you ask them nicely when it isn't too busy. Failing that, you could try adding some pellets diagnostically.

The other issue is air. Not enough air and you have no combustion. A baulky combustion blower could explain it, so that's worth checking out as you plan to do. Too much air, however, and you cool the fire to the point that it can't support combustion. If the blower doesn't explain the prob, then have you gone to the extreme in your frustration? If so, consider pulling back and see what happens.