I went to fire up my Maxim 175 and the 5amp fuse has blown that goes to the firestar control. I replaced the fuse and it instantly blows again. Any suggestions on were to start to trouble shoot?

Last year I blew the fuse. Turned out mice had chewed some wires. Had to remove side panel and bin to repair properly. Start looking for a short. Not much help.

I'm just starting to think about putting mine back together. I pull quite a bit apart for the summer and put a old lamp inside to drive away moisture.

Tim

I will give that a try. Was it quite obvious that the wire was shorting or did you have to hunt for it? I took a quick look and did not see anything that looked liked it had been chewed. Do you remember if it was on the high or low voltage line? Any help would be appreciated.

look at the draft control in front that is the first thing i look for when going out on a service call

Fairly obvious. It was high voltage wires where the come into the auger area. Took some time getting the panels off with bunches of screws.

Well I did not find any wires that were shorting. I did some trouble shooting. First I unhooked the firestar control panel and replaced the fuse. I then plugged the Maxim back in and the fuse did not blow. Next I hooked back up the control panel and unhooked all downstream connections (both auguers, blower, etc.), replaced the fuse and plugged back in the Maxim. The fuse did not blow. At this time I seen that the Firestar controller was not working correctly. It was flashing HI and then 2.51. I knew something was not right with the controller at this point so I continued on to see if I could find a short. I starting plugging back in the connections on the low voltage side and did not blow a fuse. I then started on the high side. I plugged in the fan and burner auger with no issue. I plugged in the transfer auger and the fuse blew. At that point I called my local dealer and told him what I found and he said that my controller was bad by the code I gave him and it may be causing the transfer auger to malfunction. I am getting a controller sent and I will soon know if I will also need a new transfer auger motor. I will let you know what the outcome is.

Received new controller today. I made sure the transfer auger was unplugged and installed the new controller. It started up just fine and I tested everything while the transfer auger was still unplugged. Did not find any issues so I plugged the transfer auger in and blew the fuse. I believe I found the issue so now I need to replace the transfer auger motor and hopefully that will be the end.

Let us know how it turns out. I've read other posts here about the lower auger binding up, I guess I've been lucky I've never had a problem with mine.

Fired up my M250 last week. I bought 9 tons of pellets this year which should get me through the winter.

Do you guys ever change the water in your burners? This is year 4 for me, and I seem to remember something about changing the water every so many years.....

I haven't changed my water. Just test twice a year. I really haven't added much water either. Maybea couple gallons.

I put mine back together. Everything works. I ordered a new stirrer. It was bent and broke when I heated it and tried to straighten.


Tim