Coal-Trol question

Is there any way to manually force or trick the Coal-Trol's firing rate to zero or near zero? I'm asking because my stove is in my living room which is a south facing, all glass passive solar house. On a cold morning the stove is running, say at 80 firing rate. Then, if its a sunny day, the room gets all the heat it needs from the sun, but the stove is still firing at a high rate and that rate comes down much too slowly. The room gets too hot and I'm wasting coal. I tried going to "setup" mode and placing the Coal-Trol on the "Min" setting......that works fine until I go back to automatic mode then the firing rate is still higher than it needs to be even tho the temperature setting is lower than the room temp. Any ideas guys? Thanks, Jim

maybe try to set your day and nite temps lower then just do a override at nite to bump it up a bit when you need it?

There is a thread that speaks about hidden advanced settings. These settings might help you in that they change the way the Coal-trol behaves, such as faster response wich also can lend itself to overshoots. I am searching but still cannot find the thread. Feel free to contact Automation Control they should be able to assist as well.

Turn your Setpoint Temperature down, or use the setback and drop your temp down a couple degrees first thing in the morning or at a certain time in the morning. Mine is only at about 65 and when the sun comes out, it drops right down to FR=0 for most of the day, it does take a while to kick back up.

The ramp rate is pretty slow with the thermostat. It will take a while for it to come down, like you said. I don't think there is any settings to change that. But the guys from CoalTrol can probably tell you better.

Are you sure your not trying to get a coal stove to do something it was not designed to do? Instant response?

V3 firmware features

There is the V3 Coal-trol advanced menu options... You may try adjusting the HLF setting, but I don't think it is going to solve your issue, but then again I may be wrong about that!!! Give it a try, but as it reads it sounds more for how the stove ramps UP to meet its next set point as opposed to how fast/slow it ramps the feed rate DOWN...

If you are getting all the heat that you need during the day from solar, you may go into the "SETUP" menu (press and hold MENU button for 2 seconds) then 3 more quick menu button presses brings you to "MIN" , leave it on the "MIN" screen just as it is and the stove will do exactly that, ramp itself down to its minimum feed rate until you exit that screen... Basically it will just idle as long as you hold that screen... That may work for you??? Or as others have said just change your setbacks around time and temp wise to accommodate your needs...

HLF will ramp it up FASTER, I have mine set at HLF 2, since our house is big and cools down fast. It seems to compensate a little better.

Also, when I get home to get it going quicker, I will put it on Manual Feed for 10 minutes to get the burners going, and then turn up the blowers to 50-60 and let it run until it catches up.

Sometimes you have to play with them a bit to get them dialed in correctly.