Lil' Heater.

 
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badlegdave
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Post by badlegdave » Thu. Dec. 26, 2013 12:16 pm

Give the convection a little help with one of those little $9.00 fans from Walmart or your favorite bb store. Just set the fan on low and place it in the bedroom doorway turned blowing out of the room. It will cycle the cooler air out of the room and resupply up toward the ceiling, the warmer air. this works well in my little cape cod where the stove is located at the one end of the house with the bedrooms down the hall.
What is the BTU rating on the LL?


 
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Uglysquirrel
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Post by Uglysquirrel » Fri. Dec. 27, 2013 8:46 am

EarthWindandFire wrote: There needs to be a trade association to agree on standards of how ratings are established to avoid these misconceptions that really are spurious figures because they do not reflect real world experience. It's hard to blame an individual maker because they are forced into it by trade practice in order to compete. Oil and gas boilers and furnaces have had reliable standards for many years and in European countries they are often set in government labs.
Apologies for coming in here late to the difficult discussions. I'm not a PHD in heat transfer though with the consideration that I can pretty much hold my own with them at a major aerospace company in CT , it's important to consider the limited heat transfer area of smaller stoves. My understanding is that the Lil Heater has the same stoker assy as the Poke and others. That implies that the pure heat output of the stoker assy (independent of the stove enclosure) is the same for given CoalTrol settings.

It is reasonable to say that though the Lil Heater wall temps are hotter because the top and side metals are closer to the stoker (Poke wall temps @ top never get above 400 F ir indicated), the air washing off that metal especially at high cfm cannot convect as efficiently as larger wash areas of larger stoves since the air does not stay in contact with the metal for as long of a time. This implies that this type smaller wash area stove be best used at lower feeds and medium convection speeds.

Me? I would try to put the stove in a constant heat mode (that is available on the 'Trol) , say by putting it in a 20-22 feed rate and the convection blower at say, 40 to 50 or maybe less. With these settings and a ir thermometer to check wall and stack metal temps, you can optimize one of the variables (I would suggest the convection blower) only while drinking several cheap though frosty beers.

Earth, PM me if you want to discuss how to do this (not drink beer, the stove constant feed rate on the Coatrol ).

:D

 
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Post by Uglysquirrel » Fri. Dec. 27, 2013 1:52 pm

[quote="Uglysquirrel][/quote]

Me? I would try to put the stove in a constant heat mode (that is available on the 'Trol) , say by putting it in a 20-22 feed rate and the convection blower at say, 40 to 50 or maybe less. With these settings and a ir thermometer to check wall and stack metal temps, you can optimize one of the variables (I would suggest the convection blower) only while drinking several cheap though frosty beers.

Earth, PM me if you want to discuss how to do this (not drink beer, the stove constant feed rate on the Coatrol ).

:D[/quote]

I need to correct my error above. In my constant mode above my recommendation should be Feed rate = 99 and MAX =20 to 22. Locking it in a constant heat is done by, in setup mode, by leaving the MAX designation on the screen and walking away.

 
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EarthWindandFire
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Post by EarthWindandFire » Fri. Jan. 03, 2014 9:05 am

I put a bag of Buckwheat in the stove last night around 7 o'clock. The hopper still had about 30lbs of Rice left in it. This morning at 5:30 I got up and realized right away that something wasn't right. Sure enough, I measured the temp and the stove was 460 degrees. That's a 60 degree drop from what is was ten hours before.

The funny thing is, my coal dealer didn't even want to sell me Buck because he said my stove would get too hot!!

I must remember to never experiment with the stove on the coldest day of the year. :mad:

 
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Rob R.
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Post by Rob R. » Fri. Jan. 03, 2014 9:15 am

Did you increase the feed?

 
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EarthWindandFire
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Post by EarthWindandFire » Fri. Jan. 03, 2014 9:24 am

Yes, I did increase the feed this morning, the ash was 3 inches from the end of the grate. I also opened the air shutter all of the way. The stove temp did start climbing before I left for work. The problem is that information is contradictory, some people say increase the air, reduce air, cut feed, increase the feed rate...etc.

 
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Post by Rob R. » Fri. Jan. 03, 2014 9:51 am

Buck will allow more air to flow up through it, but the small stroke of the LL stoker will require an increase in feed rate to put the same lbs/hr of coal through the stoker. If airflow was the limiting factor, you may be able to feed more buck per hr than rice. If the air is wide open, increase the feed until the ash starts just before the last set of air holes. At that point it is doing all it can do.


 
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Post by blrman07 » Fri. Jan. 03, 2014 10:04 am

My recommendation is come off the coaltrol and put the stove in 100% manual control. Disconnect all remote controls and plug directly into the wall outlet with the stoker motor, combustion fan, and the convection fan and run it by hand.

One question you never answered in this post..... is the convection fan installed and is it running? This stove is designed to get max heat with the convection fan running.

Put the unit directly in manual control and run it by hand. Crank it up by hand get the output up. Remove all variables and then start from there. If you have it running max on the coal trol you should be pushing burning coals off the end of the grate. Get it in manual and then lets figure out what is going on.

Rev. Larry

 
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Post by coalnewbie » Fri. Jan. 03, 2014 2:31 pm

The stove is just too small it's as simple as that, you bought the wrong stove size. Forget theoretical input/output BTU and claims, all stove manufacturers play the game the same. Mid size house in CT and a lil heater .... :cry:

"Overkill is good but more overkill is better." CN many years ago and the story of my life.

 
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Post by Rob R. » Fri. Jan. 03, 2014 2:53 pm

Yes, but it seems that he wants to try and limp through this winter with this stove. Might as well just fire up the oil furnace and let the stove help out as much as it can.

 
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EarthWindandFire
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Post by EarthWindandFire » Fri. Jan. 03, 2014 9:54 pm

Here's a picture of my fire at FR 99 burning Buckwheat with the combustion fan restriction plate completely open. I'm gonna read about how to fix the picture, sorry.

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Post by titleist1 » Sat. Jan. 04, 2014 7:53 am

How high are the flames when you have your fan restrictor wide open? Do they hit the top of the firebox?

 
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Rob R.
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Post by Rob R. » Sat. Jan. 04, 2014 8:02 am

that fire looks pretty weak.

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Post by titleist1 » Sat. Jan. 04, 2014 8:06 am

ya, with the restrictor wide open that is what I was thinking. but I know from taking pics of mine it is sometimes hard to get the flames to show up on camera in certain lighting conditions.

 
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Post by EarthWindandFire » Sat. Jan. 04, 2014 8:06 am

The flames are about 4 inches tall at most. The FR is 99 and the restrictor plate has been wide open for several days. Of course it's the coldest day of the year and my fire door gasket just fell off. Plus, just to add to my misery, my hot water pipe is frozen. Just another day in paradise, right!
Last edited by EarthWindandFire on Sat. Jan. 04, 2014 8:08 am, edited 1 time in total.


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