Econo Stove Blower Problems

Hi, I have an econo 1 stove that I bought back in July. I came home last night and the blower that blows across the top of the unit to throw heat out (located in the hopper compartment) is dead- its just humming and with no turn. The feed rate was at 99 so the fan was trying to come on.

I unplugged the hopper fan, and plugged in a small box fan in instead, and that too didnt run, just hummed like it was starved for voltage.

I guess I need some direction as to what to do.

How is voltage applied to the hopper fan? Its been a few months since I hooked this stove up, isnt there a "brain box" for the coal trol which controls the fan speed (voltage)?

Is the brain box bad?

Thanks for any help,

-Cold in Maine

Yes, it could have been on a LOW FEED RATE and the fans would have been at MIN or too low a voltage to actually run. If you plugged a Regular fan into the Same Convection Fan Outlet on the CoalTrol, It would do the same thing, since the Fan Speed is based on Feed Rate. The lower the stove setting, the slower the blower speed.

Can you UNPLUG the fan and plug it Directly INTO an OUTLET. That will determine if the fan is good or not. If it goes up to FULL SPEED, nothing is wrong.

You would need to change the MIN CFT setting (Convection fan Threshold) to a higher number so the blower doesn't just sit there.

You can TAP the Menu button and goto FSA (Fan Speed Auto), and push the UP or Down Arrow to set the fan speed to see if it works this way. It will change to FSM (Fan Speed MANUAL) and a number 1-99%, You have to put it back to Zero (0) to put it in AUTO Mode (FSA).

In the Advanced Menu (Hold the SETUP for like 15 seconds) I believe is the CFT setting that you would have to raise to like 30 or 40, I think?

Thanks for the reply, but that isnt my problem. The feed rate was at 99% and the stove was going full blast to try to recover back to the set temp of 70 degrees while the house was 50 degrees. I checked the CFT and it was at 8- so we are good there.

I have the fan on my desk and when I get a chance I am going to test it with 120. I will post my results!

The motor may need oiled or something, but the blower(s) normally change speed based on feed rate. Something in the blower sounds like it failed or the output from the coaltrol (highly unlikely).

Plug it in normally and see if the blower works, or take it apart and clean/oil the bearings, etc.. Maybe need a new blower?

Well the fan is just fine. Bench tested it and away it went- with force! I dont think its ever gone that well.

Sounds like I have an issue with the coal-trol output.

Now what? I think that at least is still under warranty- I hope.

Give Paul or Neil a call at CoalTrol and let them know what is happening with your unit.

Well get this- I put it all back together and life is good- all is fixed.

Not sure what happened, but it was something odd. I was on generator power for a day when the fan stopped working. Not sure what the deal was. Thanks for the help.

That drives me nuts when you don't know what the issue was, almost as bad as not getting it fixed.

I just hope its fixed for good!

If it happens again, do please try to use the manual fan speed adjustment (go to FSA screen, then use up and down buttons to adjust speed manually) to see if that kicks it into gear.

You may want to adjust the CFM setting (not the CFT setting). CFM is the minimum fan speed that is used, increasing it can avoid attempting to run the fan too slow. Given the very large setpoint change you describe (50 up to 70 degrees) it is possible that the FR was reading 99 but the fan speed, which lags the FR by about 15 minutes, was still at a low level. Adjusting CFM up 10 or so points should eliminate the possibility of trying to run the fan too slowly.

We try to pick good values for these default settings, but sometimes a motor comes along that is harder to turn and the idle/low speed doesn't give it enough juice to turn fully.

Thanks. Would running on a generator affect the unit at all? This is when my problems began. It was the only thing hooked to the generator. I am an electrician by trade so I know everything was A-OK on my end, but are these units sensitive to voltage changes?

If it happens again, give the manual fan speed control a try. If that jogs it into turning, you may need to increase your CFM setting to overcome some damage that happened to the motor while on generator power or perhaps there may have been damage to the Coal-trol. I doubt the Coal-trol was damaged though, our power supply should have handled the generator power fine.

Thanks for the input guys.