Constant Heat Output

Uglysquirrel · Post by **Uglysquirrel** » Thu. Dec. 16, 2010 9:50 pm

Just wanted to let you guys know something learned with the coaltrol after a lot of futzing. If you got into the setup mode and scroll thru the different parameters, scroll thru them all and stop at max feed. Leave it there. It will hold the max feed rate and never change the feed unless you want to increase it or decrease it with the up/down buttons. Cold night, bang the max feed rate up 3-4 and go to bed in a couple hours. In morning bring it down 3-4 if the day is gonna be sunny. The nice thing about doing this is I'm not worrying about overshoots and I've found the heat soak method (~18-24 max) works well. Everyone may be different on your max setting.

My wife is happy and that is 80% of the battle, right comrades?

WNY · Post by **WNY** » Fri. Dec. 17, 2010 6:13 am

Interesting...never tried that. Mine does pretty good, I have my HLF=2, so it bumps FR quicker. Mine is running around FR=30-50 most of the time, even with single digits outside
I also sometimes use the the FEED setting for 10 mins to heat it up faster when I get home from work.

Bity454 · Post by **Bity454** » Fri. Dec. 17, 2010 8:34 am

In cold weather I like using the coal trol like a rheostat also, very easy to track your coal use. In warmer weather where day to night temps vary 20-30 degree swings I like the auto so house doesnt get to warm or cold!

Flyer5 · Post by **Flyer5** » Fri. Dec. 17, 2010 6:37 pm

Uglysquirrel wrote:Just wanted to let you guys know something learned with the coaltrol after a lot of futzing. If you got into the setup mode and scroll thru the different parameters, scroll thru them all and stop at max feed. Leave it there. It will hold the max feed rate and never change the feed unless you want to increase it or decrease it with the up/down buttons. Cold night, bang the max feed rate up 3-4 and go to bed in a couple hours. In morning bring it down 3-4 if the day is gonna be sunny. The nice thing about doing this is I'm not worrying about overshoots and I've found the heat soak method (~18-24 max) works well. Everyone may be different on your max setting.

My wife is happy and that is 80% of the battle, right comrades?

Just don't forget that the fan is only controlled by the feed rate so you may want to set that to manual as well . Dave

Uglysquirrel · Post by **Uglysquirrel** » Fri. Dec. 17, 2010 9:20 pm

Flyer5, roger than, FSM is at 45% and max =22. Just floats at those settings for hours at around 170 watts while feed motor is off.

I'm of some thought that the cfm out is not linear between FSM's like ~20 and ~99% but that is another discussion,be interesting to see what the optimal FSM is to derive the most heat transfer for a given feed rate. Bet some college kids could do a good senor project, put thermocouples everywhere, etc.

And make sure you LL guys represent us constant heat output weenies if the CoalTrol guys come out with new software !!!!.

2001Sierra · Post by **2001Sierra** » Fri. Dec. 17, 2010 10:02 pm

I believe the FSA or Fan Speed Auto runs of the percentage of min and max and actually ignores the min, and max rate values. So if your min is say 10 and max is 85, are feed values for the feed. The FR that you see is actually a percentage of those values, so the convection fan monitors those percentages not actual values. So if FR is 99, the FSA is also 99 even though the actual feed rate is 85 in my example.