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!

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.

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!

What is the recommended stove pipe for use on a Bixby MaxFire install?

Thanks

I sometimes can't resist a good buy. I have a Bixby MaxFire on the way and plan on burning wood pellets. I'm concerned about the following in the Bixby Wiki:

"The_Law reports that the fuel selection switch does not work well when the stove is operating the experimental 2.71 version of Bixcheck software. Specifically, the stove doesn't recognize changes to the switch setting unless the stove is already connected to a computer using Bixcheck. If this is an issue, then one can consider reverting to an earlier version software (e.g., 2.06)."

The Bixby I've purchased is brand new - never burned. Will I need to deal with the software in order to use this stove as planned?

Thanks in advance --- and thanks for the info on this site! Was referred to it through Hearth.com