My Reading Juniata Is Running Like a Champ Now.

After doing a little playing around with my new stoker, and a little reading between the lines of the instructions for the t-stat control unit, I got my stove to idle down beautifully. I'll get some pics of the box up in the next few days so that it may help someone else in the future. Needless to say, the instructions were not very well written out. In a nut shell, the control unit has 2 knobs on it, one sets the idle time, and the other sets the heat time for t-stat. Both adjust the on time from 7 seconds to 50 seconds with a 2 minute rest between no matter the on time. Well there are 2 plugs on the box to plug in what I thought (this is where the instructions weren't very clear) one for feed motor and the other for combustion motor. Not that case as I found out through trial and error and talking with a few guys that have the setup I do. The combustion motor needs to run constantly, and the control switches the feed motor on and off.

Setup with the way I had it, I could never get a good small idle fire yet still have a good hot fire when calling for heat. Now that I have the combustion motor running constantly and the control only working the feed motor, I have the feed adjustment nut set up tight against the carpet plate then backed off 1 turn, an idle timer setting of 7 seconds, and t-stat setting at max 50 seconds with the 2 minute rest between feed cycles. Idle will keep a nice small 1/2 to 3/4 inch band of fire forever, and call for heat leaves about an inch of dead ash and the convection blower kicks on and runs almost constantly until there is no call for heat and the stove cools down. Now with colder temps on the way, I know I will have plenty of heat.

Since I have OCD, I didn't like the way I had done all of my wiring so neat and tidy the first time around and now having an extra plug hanging out of place, I rewired one of the plugs in the control box to supply constant power to the combustion motor and the feed motor is still controlled by the timers in the box. Every thing is plugged in to an outlet behind my stove, and the outlets are controlled by 2 switches mounted on a floor joist in front of the stove. Now 1 switch controls both the feed and combustion motors as I originally intended, and the other switches the convection blower t-stat on and off. Stove is also much easier to light now too!