Econo Stove Blower Problems

 
Johnshan
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Post by Johnshan » Wed. Dec. 16, 2009 7:59 am

Matthaus wrote:.....I have not seen any other appliances that give such information, if anyone has seen that in an appliance manual I would be interested to read it. .....
The difference is, other appliances are not as sensitive to generator power.


 
Johnshan
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Post by Johnshan » Wed. Dec. 16, 2009 8:09 am

gerry_g wrote:
Matthaus wrote:
They will make the Coal-trol issue when supplied with corrupt power seem darned trivial!

gerry
So basically, since my stove doesnt run on my generator, but everything else in my home does, as well as my fathers Alaska stove, its my generators fault? That makes a lot of sense.

 
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Post by gerry_g » Wed. Dec. 16, 2009 9:28 am

Johnshan wrote:So basically, since my stove doesnt run on my generator, but everything else in my home does, as well as my fathers Alaska stove, its my generators fault? That makes a lot of sense.
It makes complete sense. The difference is YOUR other appliances just happen, by luck, not to be sensitive to corrupt power or have not yet failed resulting from such power.

You clearly posted your generator was in very bad shape with extremely corrupt power output.

Econo Stove Blower Problems

 
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Post by Johnshan » Wed. Dec. 16, 2009 11:37 am

If you say so :lol:

 
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Post by nwaelder » Wed. Dec. 16, 2009 12:53 pm

"Johnshan"

So basically, since my stove doesnt run on my generator, but everything else in my home does, as well as my fathers Alaska stove, its my generators fault? That makes a lot of sense.
Johnshan,
I have declined so far to enter into the various backup power discussions, particularly when:
1) You posted a beautiful picture of the waveform produced by your generator that unfortunately, as you, yourself have correctly observed, (as gerry_g, Yance, and others have confirmed,) and I'll chime in, is NOT a good waveform.
2) Your protests notwithstanding, the fact that other loads seem to work with your generator is not indicative of anything necessarily good. You may be, by the minute, shaving years off the life of your loads.

The Coal-trol was designed to work with standard North American power. Besides having proper voltage and power capability, and, as gerry_g has ably pointed out, sufficient VA capacity and "stiffness" for inductive loads, it is also necessary that harmonic content be within spec. Your generator, with some service, might be able to be brought back within spec, and work. When are you going to look into it?

Forums of this nature have posts that are "self-selected" for persons with problems. We like that. It's a wonderful thing that because of these internets, participants can benefit from each others comments, solutions, and opinions. With this thought in mind, we know of a number of persons using any manner of backup power types/brands that work correctly with the Coal-trol, even though they haven't been motivated to post "Hi. Mine works." What exactly everyone is using, we don't know and have no way of knowing. What we do know is that they must have a source that produces something of sufficient capacity, frequency, and harmonic content that is within NA spec. Watts is the fundamental descriptor for backup power, but is not all there is to it. (I'm old enough to remember audio equipment spec'd in Peak Power. A lot of use that was.)

Many have posted useful comments and, unavoidably some are technical, on a subject we all take for granted i.e. power quality. It is indeed a complex subject. If you are interested in the minutia of the NA spec, contact your local utility or state regulator.

Finally, a proper, i.e. "Code compliant" means of isolation or transfer switching is required for off-grid power generation. One could kill a utility line worker by back-feeding into the grid.

EDIT: Fixed grammar where I knew how.

 
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Post by gerry_g » Wed. Dec. 16, 2009 2:53 pm

nwaelder wrote: The Coal-trol was designed to work with standard North American power. Besides having proper voltage and power capability, and, as gerry_g has ably pointed out, sufficient VA capacity and "stiffness" for inductive loads, it is also necessary that harmonic content be within spec. Your generator, with some service, might be able to be brought back within spec, and work. When are you going to look into it?
In addition the US National Electric Code (NEC) requires over sizing conductors on long runs to limit voltage drop on long runs. That is why I often mention the size of any feeder (often a power cord).

Meeting US requirements means the supply (utility drop) must meet certain specifications and the distribution on the customer side must meet voltage drop requirements. Thus I often state "when observed at the load".

I can only reference one specific anecdotal example, my Coal-Trol and LL stove behave very well with slight under voltage (not extreme) provided the AC is fairly smooth. My computers do flatten the top of the sine wave a tad (beyond North American nominal specs). However, the NA utility drop specs are intended to play well with structure wiring distribution losses per the NEC. In this case, on my generator or not, the voltage at the load remain pretty "smooth", if not a perfect sine wave.

 
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Post by Johnshan » Wed. Dec. 16, 2009 4:44 pm

pvolcko- this from another thread where you state:
pvolcko wrote:Talked this over with Neil and others and the consensus is that we aren't sure. We've have very little feedback from customers who use the control with modified sine power. The best we can say is to try it out and listen for humming, whining, etc. from the control module and thermostat. Feel for overheating. Put the setpoint where it needs to be to dial up a medium FR and see how the convection fan motor sounds. Does it speed control properly? If you have any indication of abnormal motor behavior, overheating, buzzing, etc. then do not use it with the inverter. In any case, use this power source only on a short term, temporary basis (we recommend no more than 1 hour, but you may need to go shorter depending on your observations) while firing up a true sine generator or get a true sine waveform inverter for use on the stove.
Does your company have plans to do any type of testing or offer a unit that is not overly sensitive to a common generators waveform? Just curious.

By the way, my generator is not even 2 years old.


 
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Post by tsb » Wed. Dec. 16, 2009 5:00 pm

Could it be something as simple as an improper ground ?
The case of the generator should be earth grounded.
Just a thought.

TSB

 
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Post by nwaelder » Wed. Dec. 16, 2009 5:05 pm

Does your company have plans to do any type of testing..
Not at the present time.
..or offer a unit that is not overly sensitive to a common generators waveform?
No. We don't know what a common generator is. Your generator appears to have significant THD. This may be uncommon.

With respect to Paul V's post. It was a comment on "modified sine" inverters. Good post. We'll stand by it.

 
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Post by Matthaus » Wed. Dec. 16, 2009 6:00 pm

I have merged the comments from others in direct to johnshan's issue while running his Econo on his generator (including his responses). These items belong in this thread to provide all the information in one place. :)

 
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Post by Johnshan » Wed. Dec. 16, 2009 10:36 pm

I came home tonight to find the blower motor on the back of the stove humming with no action. I plugged it directly into an extension cord and gave it a whirl with a pencil and it came back along with a smell of hot electrical.

The stove feed rate was at 99 and the fan speed was set to auto. I changed it to 99 and plugged the blower back in as normal. About 30 minutes later the blower had stopped again.

I plugged back into the extension cord and repeated the process, and left it to bypass the coal-trol. The fan stopped again.

Anyone else having this problem? Is there a better quality fan that I can purchase? This thing has been nothing but problems for me.

 
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Post by WNY » Thu. Dec. 17, 2009 7:12 am

Have you oiled it lately? You may have to set your CFM MIN in the Coaltrol higher, maybe it doesn't like to run at lowers speeds and sticks.

 
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Post by Johnshan » Thu. Dec. 17, 2009 8:06 am

I thought that may have been the problem, so I did oil the motor late last night and make sure there was nothing in the assembley. Keep in mind I had this plugged directly into a wall outlet so it should have been spinning full blast all night.

I got it turning again and went to bed, at 2:30AM I woke up and checked on it, and it was again stopped. I unplugged it from the wall outlet and let it cool down until 6:00 AM, when I tried it again with direct power it wouldn't turn, looks like its dead.

 
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Post by cmperry » Thu. Dec. 17, 2009 7:41 pm

Johnshan wrote:I came home tonight to find the blower motor on the back of the stove humming with no action. I plugged it directly into an extension cord and gave it a whirl with a pencil and it came back along with a smell of hot electrical.

The stove feed rate was at 99 and the fan speed was set to auto. I changed it to 99 and plugged the blower back in as normal. About 30 minutes later the blower had stopped again.

I plugged back into the extension cord and repeated the process, and left it to bypass the coal-trol. The fan stopped again.

Anyone else having this problem? Is there a better quality fan that I can purchase? This thing has been nothing but problems for me.
this is very familiar to me

 
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Post by Johnshan » Sat. Dec. 19, 2009 3:11 pm

I tested the motor again and it still didn't run. I totally disassembled the housing, had the motor on the bench and hooked it to 120v before I sent it out to LL, it spun up fine. I put it all back together and its now running again. Nothing like reliablity eh!


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