Hey Greg (LsFarm) You will like this!!
My friend I work with (controls background) has been messing with his hand fired/wood/coal stove for a while now, we have been going back and forth with me on mine and how it works, he had a home grown auger system previously (red thing in background), but couldn't get enough burn area since it clumped into a big pile on the burn plate...so
This year, he was building a stoker unit for it!! AS you can see, it is quite the apparatus, limit switches, computer controls, Analog/digital sensors, timers, temperature sensors, even an Automatic ash sweeper!!
The big motor on the floor is the electro/hydraulic stoker mechanicism...
Here are a couple of pics he gave me, the stove with homemade stoker and the wiring/control system that runs on a laptop computer!!!....
