Well, Last year I updated to the latest firmware with the help Blume98, did the air wash mod and heated my 2,400 sqft house with a 25 ft cathedral ceiling 100% on pellets last winter and only went above level 5 a couple of times. I'm as far North as you can get in the County on the Canadian border & we aren't exactly known for our balmy weather in the mid of Jan. The stove can perform, it just needs to be dialed in.

Hey fellow Mainer, FYI I've had the best results with wood pellets from MWP out of Athens Maine. No jamming issues, good heat out put, low ash & fines and they are on the low end of the price scale. $205/Ton at Wally World. Tractor supply carries them as well. I tired others with mixed results and was getting 2-3 jams a day or should I say in the middle of the night as it seemed to a 2 AM ritual part of last winter when I was burning Green Team pellets that I bought at lowes.

The only thing I can find close to that name in Aroostook is Spud Land Alpacas. Is that it?

Thanks

Us locals in "The County" prefer "God's Country" to "The sticks"

How old is the stove? A buddy of mine is getting tired of burning wood & likes my 115.

Hey Bio, what is your favorite grease. My original motor lasted a season and a month on pellets before the mounts broke. The new motor has the suspect grease in it and I might re-grease it off season.

Anyone have a source for longer mounting bolts with a head other than phillips? I hate phillips headed bolts when it come time to apply a consistent torque.

That's too funny.

Yikes, guaranteed cold front for sure! Sounds like your dealer is divorced & looking to get you to join the club.

Three changes.

1.Upgrade to 2.71
2.Partially blocked air wash.
3.Working bixcheck cable that allowed me to tweak the exhaust fan speed settings related to the partially blocked air wash.

The probe is siliconed in a metal bracket and can't move.

Hey Blume, Did you see any difference inside that might indicate that the newer motor is of better quality? The reason I ask is that it looks like the casing on the new motor is thicker/deeper than the old one. Any better guts?

Last winter running the old software I was lucky if I could get an air temp coming out of the exchangers in the 200 to 210 range on level 8. This year with the updated software and a partially blocked air wash I easily hit 220 -low 230's on level 5 and haven't needed to go any higher so far. I have a digital probe permanently mounted behind the grill in from of the heat exchange tubes that has been in the exact same spot since the beginning of last heating season so I know my increase in output is real. I have a 2nd probe mounted to the exhaust tube up stream from the fan. With that probe I can see that my exhaust temp is roughly the same as last year at the mid 190's. The top 3rd of the glass gets dirty but I can easily live with that.

A big thanks to everyone who input all the useful info on this site!

Grill temp on dual probe temp gauge. Notice the arrow on the display pointing to the right for the grill probe display. (Display reads 234.1)







Exhaust temp with the display arrow point left. I can check the temp of either probe with the push of a button to change the display. (Display reads 198.0)





Pic of one of the probes mounted to the exhaust.


Sorry, no pic of the probe mounted behind the grill. I had a bear of a time getting the grill back in when I installed the probe & didn't feel like doing that again. I have it mounted in a metal bracket so that it is suspended in front of the air exchange tube but doesn't touch any metal.

I tried the loop design and it worked fairly well for a while but after less than 2 tons of pellets it looked liked a mouse had been gnawing on it for a snack & started letting some smoke into the hopper. I'd like to be able to go through a heating season( about 4 tons)before it wore out.

I have plenty of material to play with & plan on trying a loop with the viton material as well.

I found some remnant material off eBay and ordered 3 pieces of 10" x 7" for $3.49 each + shipping. Its only 1/16 thick so I'll use silicone to double it up or I might just attach it on top of the existing gasket material. Either way I wont have a huge investment in order to see how it performs. It came in the mail today so I'll play with it when I do a stove cleaning this coming weekend.

I'm also playing with a idea to install something to sweep away the excess pellets just before it reaches the feed wheel gasket in the hopes of cutting down on gasket wear and the frequency of pellet jams. We'll see what happens.

Well, guess I'll be the Guinean pig. Just ordered some remnant material off eBay. Price wasn't too bad & I'll update with some results.

I've been using small Neodymium magnets in the upper corners for a year now. Magnets stay attached to the stove and the panels pop off and on instantaneously yet holds firm & flush with no rattles.

In the old forum there was discussion about trying viton as a feed wheel gasket material because of superior abrasion resistance. Has anyone tried it and how does it hold up against pellet use vs Silicone? I know its a lot more expensive but I'm wondering if anyone has tried it and how it performed?

Thanks,

Just wanted to make sure I didn't have a screwed up setting.

tadler@myfairpoint.net

Thanks

Hi,

Could I get a copy as well?

Thanks

I'm not doing a good job explaining my question. My bad & I'll try again.

When I go into Bixcheck monitor 5.5 and check off the box for model 115, the following Happens:

1. In the first box below it checks off "low altitude"

2. In the second box below there is: "A B Fuel selection" with available choices of: "Corn","5% Biomass", "Wheat", "Wood-Lean", "Wood-Rich"

In the "A" column, "corn" is checked off & in the "B" Column, "Wood-Rich" is checked off.

3. In the 3rd box, "High output Fan" is checked off. Which since My first post I smartened up and used the help button which answered my question & mystery solved.


For box 1, independent of what was checked off, I know my location is low altitude (easy). For box 3. I now know what I have for a fan (easy).

My only question at this point is when or why to choose "wood-Lean" over "wood-Rich"? Anyone know or compared the two performance wise?

The default is high output fan and "Rich-wood pellets". Mainly, just trying to understand when one would want to use the "Lean-wood pellet" setting? Guess I'll have some fun playing back and forth.

I was going by the above on the Wiki page which says 30 minutes. Is this for an older software version?