APPENDIX D: CROSSFIRE THEORY OF OPERATION

STARTUP PHASE

Startup procedure assumes that proper electrical power is being provided from the electrical grid (Power Company) and the stove is in proper working order. Approaching the control panel no lights will be illuminated.

Upon pressing the on/off switch the Crossfire’s startup phase will be activated.

The stove has now entered the “startup” phase. Pellets should have already been placed in the burn pot (only required if 100% corn fuel is being used.) Manually ignite the stove to burn the pellets and heat up the firebox. It is important to have a “hot” fire of pellets ignited to ensure that once corn starts feeding, the corn will sustain self-combustion. Corn fuel will further cool the combustion chamber if the pellet fire is too small (cool.) Self- combustion will not occur without relighting the stove. Once the pellet fire is burning properly and a bed of red coals can be seen, the stove should automatically begin to feed fuel into the firepot or approximately 3 ½ minutes after the startup phase began. The total startup time can take between 10 to 20 minutes depending on outside weather conditions, the temperature of the stove, the quality and moisture content of the fuel being used, and other site specific factors. It will be evident to the operator when the burn phase has begun as the room air fan will kick on. Warm air can be felt being blown from the heat exchanger tubes above the door.

BURN PHASE

Multiple heat lights indicate the control panel burn phase. There are five red lights used to indicate the relationship to the system’s heat settings. Pushing the control panel’s HEAT LEVEL switch will cause a heat light to cycle one level up from Heat 1 through Heat 5. Once the Heat 5 setting has been reached, if the HEAT LEVEL button is pushed again, the heat setting will cycle over again starting at Heat 1. The operator controls the heat output of the stove by utilizing Heat 1 through Heat 5 settings. Heat 1 setting provides the lowest heat output from the system and the longest time between refills of the fuel hopper. Heat 5 provides the maximum heat output from the system and the shortest time between refills of the fuel hopper. Changing any heat setting up or down by one increment will cause a delayed (it takes time for both the fuel and air adjustments to impact the burn chamber) increase or decrease in the heat output of the system. Changing any heat setting up or down by two or more increments will require an increased amount of time before the burn rate of the stove stabilizes.

The control system automatically adjusts to the requested heat settings without further intervention of the operator. NOTE: The control panel display immediately reflects the final heat setting requested by the operator regardless of how many incremental changes occur but the operator should remember that it takes “time” for the stove to stabilize to the new heat setting.

COOL DOWN PHASE

Any time the system is switched off by pressing the Intelli-ChoiceControl Board on/off switch until the power light turns red during normal stove burn operations, the control board will ensure the system will revert to the cool down phase. During the cool down phase the room air and exhaust fans will be operated at full speed. The fuel feed (auger) motor will cease to operate thereby ensuring minimal time for the burn phase to be extinguished. This cool down process will continue until such time as the control system senses that the stove has been properly cooled down.

Version 2.0e

48