Old Mill Stoker Using a Coal Trol

 
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ntp71
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Hand Fed Coal Boiler: Reading Foundry Water Heater
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Baseburners & Antiques: Caloric UltraMatic Coal-Gas Range
Coal Size/Type: Chestnut

Post by ntp71 » Fri. Jan. 25, 2013 2:28 pm

Thanks Paul. Glad to hear I am blazing a new trail for CoalTrol..lol.

I have been burning pretty good for a few weeks now. The only problems I have run into was a faulty smoke alarm in my house. I have 6 smoke alarms and only one was going off. I thought maybe it was the stove so I inspected it and shut it down. I did find that I had a wire to close to the back of the stove which was starting to melt. I had to re-wire the convection blower to keep this from happening again. Oddly enough, this was not the reason the alarm was going off. Once I had the stove shut down for a few days, I took the suspect alarm down and replaced it with another in the same spot. I then set the suspect alarm on the kitchen table and it went off the next day.

The CoalTrol has been nice. I wired up another Old Mill years ago for an ex girlfriend and had manual controls on it. This CoalTrol on the Old Mill has maintained a pretty good burn for the 2 weeks I had it up. I should also point out that I burned about 150lbs in that time...which is a little more than 10lbs a day.

My settings are Min=18, Max=85.

The only thing I am concerned about is having the convection blower shut down by the Coal Trol. I know that when those motors get too hot from not being run that they don't like to operate. I found this out when I had to move a junction box for it. I unplugged the convection blower and moved the junction box while I was still burning. I wanted to move the jbox a little more away from the rear of the stove to keep it from getting hot. Once I returned power to the convection blower it would not work. I had to take a fan and cool it down for it to start turning again. So right now I have it set to MANFAN to keep it going. I didn't notice if it was not working at all during the last 2 weeks.

Neal


 
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Post by pvolcko » Sun. Jan. 27, 2013 11:21 pm

Another option on the convection fan is to set CFT to 0 (in SETUP menu). This will force it to run at least at minimum speed all the time. You can adjust minimum speed via the CFM setting in the Advanced menu (press and hold MENU button for 15 seconds or so, then tap until it displays the "CFM" screen, use up and down buttons to adjust it). Be careful adjusting CFM as it is possible to set it so low that the motor doesn't turn, which will lead to overheating and possible damage. For safety I'd recommend finding that point at which it doesn't turn and then using a setting 5 or 10 higher as your minimum setting for CFM. Unfortunately each motor can be different for this CFM setting. We ship with a default of 30 since it is always high enough in our experience, but there is usually some room to lower it if a customer wants to experiment and take on the risk of setting it too low.

 
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ntp71
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Posts: 277
Joined: Sat. May. 17, 2008 9:14 am
Location: Nanticoke, PA
Hand Fed Coal Boiler: Reading Foundry Water Heater
Hot Air Coal Stoker Stove: Old Mill Mini Stoker with Keystoker Feed System
Hand Fed Coal Stove: Gibraltar SCR
Baseburners & Antiques: Caloric UltraMatic Coal-Gas Range
Coal Size/Type: Chestnut

Post by ntp71 » Fri. Feb. 08, 2013 6:35 pm

Hi Paul.

I tried setting CFT=0, however the motor will still shut off. Shouldn't it stay running?

Neal

 
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Post by nwaelder » Fri. Feb. 08, 2013 7:42 pm

Well Neal, since you have a stove unknown to us, the convection blower may need to be matched up with the Coal-trol. In the ADVANCED menu, there is a setting
called [CFM] normally set to 40, that you may need to boost up some. The idea is to have a minimum speed that allows the motor to run within it's temperature range.
This means it must turn fast enough so that a fan built into the motor itself provides enough cooling at low speeds.
Allowing the motor to have energy when stalled is not good. Paul V. put up some info on how to get to the ADVANCED menu on the Coal-trol section of the forum.

Neil

 
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Post by pvolcko » Fri. Feb. 08, 2013 8:39 pm


 
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ntp71
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Posts: 277
Joined: Sat. May. 17, 2008 9:14 am
Location: Nanticoke, PA
Hand Fed Coal Boiler: Reading Foundry Water Heater
Hot Air Coal Stoker Stove: Old Mill Mini Stoker with Keystoker Feed System
Hand Fed Coal Stove: Gibraltar SCR
Baseburners & Antiques: Caloric UltraMatic Coal-Gas Range
Coal Size/Type: Chestnut

Post by ntp71 » Fri. Feb. 08, 2013 9:10 pm

Thanks..I will try it out.

Here is a link to the Convection blower I have. I was looking around for a replacement recently and found the exact same one that is used on my stove.

http://www.stove-parts-unlimited.com/18_inch_Tran ... /1tf18.htm

Neal

 
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Post by pvolcko » Fri. Feb. 08, 2013 10:30 pm

Where on the stove is this blower mounted? I ask because we've seen these types mounted high on the stove, between the stove and a rear mounted hopper. In this case, if the blower doesn't have adequate insulation from the stove, it can rather easily overheat due to around a hot area of the stove. If this is the case on your stove, or if the motor casing gets hot to the touch during low speed running, definitely increase CFM to 50 to be on the safe side.


 
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ntp71
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Posts: 277
Joined: Sat. May. 17, 2008 9:14 am
Location: Nanticoke, PA
Hand Fed Coal Boiler: Reading Foundry Water Heater
Hot Air Coal Stoker Stove: Old Mill Mini Stoker with Keystoker Feed System
Hand Fed Coal Stove: Gibraltar SCR
Baseburners & Antiques: Caloric UltraMatic Coal-Gas Range
Coal Size/Type: Chestnut

Post by ntp71 » Sat. Feb. 09, 2013 4:24 pm

Yes, you are correct. It is mounted high between the stove and the hopper. I have it set at CFM=41, and it has not shut off.

I think it is good now.

Thanks for you help.

Neal

 
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ntp71
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Posts: 277
Joined: Sat. May. 17, 2008 9:14 am
Location: Nanticoke, PA
Hand Fed Coal Boiler: Reading Foundry Water Heater
Hot Air Coal Stoker Stove: Old Mill Mini Stoker with Keystoker Feed System
Hand Fed Coal Stove: Gibraltar SCR
Baseburners & Antiques: Caloric UltraMatic Coal-Gas Range
Coal Size/Type: Chestnut

Post by ntp71 » Thu. Mar. 07, 2013 8:15 pm

Update**

It seems that I was burning a bad batch of coal which I believe was the reason why my minimum feed setting was so high. After I got a load of a more premium blend I was able to adjust the feed to Min=14. I may be able to turn it down a little bit more still.

Old Mill Feed Rate
Min=14
Max=85

 
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Post by pvolcko » Sat. Mar. 09, 2013 1:40 am

Thanks for the update!

 
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ntp71
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Posts: 277
Joined: Sat. May. 17, 2008 9:14 am
Location: Nanticoke, PA
Hand Fed Coal Boiler: Reading Foundry Water Heater
Hot Air Coal Stoker Stove: Old Mill Mini Stoker with Keystoker Feed System
Hand Fed Coal Stove: Gibraltar SCR
Baseburners & Antiques: Caloric UltraMatic Coal-Gas Range
Coal Size/Type: Chestnut

Post by ntp71 » Mon. Mar. 11, 2013 9:02 pm

99.9% sure my feed rate was a Coal Quality related issue.

Updated Old Mill Feed Rate

Min=10
Max=75 (Max feed rate has not been tested, however I lowered it to be somewhat in proportion to the new Min setting)

 
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ntp71
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Posts: 277
Joined: Sat. May. 17, 2008 9:14 am
Location: Nanticoke, PA
Hand Fed Coal Boiler: Reading Foundry Water Heater
Hot Air Coal Stoker Stove: Old Mill Mini Stoker with Keystoker Feed System
Hand Fed Coal Stove: Gibraltar SCR
Baseburners & Antiques: Caloric UltraMatic Coal-Gas Range
Coal Size/Type: Chestnut

Post by ntp71 » Sat. Nov. 23, 2013 9:16 am

Good Morning,

I am into the 2nd burn Season with my Old Mill Mini Stoker upgraded to Coal Trol Controls. Before firing up my stoker my room temperature was around 66 degrees and it was cold outside...maybe mid 30's. I lit the fire with a propane torch, charcoal, and added a little coal after it got going. I did not use the fuel feed mode when first starting and my stoker seemed to go into a normal operation almost immediately. My set temp is at 69 degrees. Life was good and my initial fire lasted about 9 days with no problems. I then had to shut it down o go away on business for a week.

Upon returning from my trip I started my stove back up in the same manner. The house temp before starting was about 65 degrees. Again, I did not use the fuel feed mode to assist in lighting...just propane torch, charcoal, and added some coal as it got going and put it into normal operation immediately. My set temp. being 69 degrees. So, what happened was the stove started to burn at its maximum rate...which I expected...however it didn't slow down until the temp reached 75 degrees. Once it hit 75 degrees the burn started to taper off into maintaining the set temp. Everything is working fine.

I guess what my question is, is why did it go over my set temp so much and continue at what seemed like maximum burn rate? And why did it overshoot so much?

Thanks

Neal

 
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Post by pvolcko » Sun. Dec. 08, 2013 1:29 am

If you left the Coal-trol thermostat powered up (but the control box switch off) while you were away, or for any multi-hour period prior to lighting it up, and the setpoint was higher than the room temp, then the thermostat will "Ramp up" during that time thinking it has to crank a full fire to meet the demand being called for. The thermostat does not know that the control module power switch is off.

So when you lit it up, it started cranking full blast and it took it a long time to ramp back down to normal for the actual heat demand required for your setpoint.

We recommend setting the thermostat below room temp for an hour or so before lighting when you've left it on for an extended period. This will ramp it down and you will be able to light without a huge overshoot.

 
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ntp71
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Posts: 277
Joined: Sat. May. 17, 2008 9:14 am
Location: Nanticoke, PA
Hand Fed Coal Boiler: Reading Foundry Water Heater
Hot Air Coal Stoker Stove: Old Mill Mini Stoker with Keystoker Feed System
Hand Fed Coal Stove: Gibraltar SCR
Baseburners & Antiques: Caloric UltraMatic Coal-Gas Range
Coal Size/Type: Chestnut

Post by ntp71 » Sun. Dec. 08, 2013 9:24 am

Ok Thanks...that seems to make sense.

 
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Post by pvolcko » Sun. Dec. 08, 2013 12:14 pm

Let me modify that a little bit. We recommend setting setpoint well below room temp (5 or more degrees) before lighting the fire.

If you only go a degree or two below it will not ramp down fast enough to bleed off the prior accumulated feedrate.


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