Stampede Fidgety Firepot Ignition

[dwf29]

Finding issues when I turn on my RT-590, the auger spins, but the firepot does not heat up and light the pellets. It keeps filling the firepot with pellets but does not ignite. I had the temp set to 225°. I had to turn off the grill, remove the pellets, add a few to start up again, and then set the temp to 350° and the firepot heats up. In addition, I have had the firepot quit on me during a cook, and had to just turn off the grill. During that episode the fan did not operate during shut down. Hoping this is a software issue and I can update, because I am starting not to trust this grill and feel like I can't leave it alone for a second. Anyone else? I think I may need to contact Reqtec because this is becoming an ongoing problem.

 

[Greg Jones]

Sounds like an igniter rod that the depth is not set properly. A more helpful picture to confirm would one of the igniter rod when there are no pellets or ash in the firebox.

 

[SmokeOCD]

He's getting charred pellets, and flameouts, so wouldn't that lean towards an airflow issue? (faulty fan?)

 

[Greg Jones]

He's getting charred pellets, and flameouts, so wouldn't that lean towards an airflow issue? (faulty fan?)

Not necessarily. A misadjusted igniter can still make the pellets smolder-they just won’t get hot enough to fully ignite. And if you shut the grill off when it has not reached a certain temp, the fan will not run on shutdown. Been there, done that on a Bullseye. Adjusted the length of the igniter and I haven’t experienced either issue since.

 

[Mozekian]

In the troubleshooting section of the manual I believe it gives it 30 minutes on start up to get ignition, before having an error code generated. I have had a few times on my 1250 where it seemed it was taking forever, 15 minutes, and the fire pot seemed to be very full. Now I try to remind myself to not watch water boil, give it the time to do what it does, and it has always lit off.

Honestly I feel sometimes people get the grill and try to over manage it. Saying "there should be a fan now," and "This is too many pellets" and "This isnt feeding like it should." I think a lot is to be said to let it run its program, if you get an error message, you have info to go on. But honestly 95% of us dont know near enough about this system to accurately decide when the thing is not doing what it should be at all times. The example being the fan on shut down, it isnt always supposed to come on. And its the tinkering with it that really screws with it. Perfect example is opening and closing the door a lot and then wondering why there are temp spikes.

Like Greg said, would like to see a photo of the igniter rod, that could be an issue, but that doesn't seem like an extraordinary amount of pellets in the hopper on start up.

 

[Waterboy]

I adjusted the igniter rod in my and my sons Bull and they fire up much better now. When I bought my Bullseye I adjusted its rod before I even fired it up. All of the rods sat 1/8 to 3/16 short of flush with the end of the tube. I brought them all out to flush and it made a big difference on start up. YMMV.

 

[FastEddie]

I just replaced my igniter rod. Rec Teq ran me through tests over the phone to confirm it was bad, then sent me a new one. Quick and easy.

 

[Motodad1776]

Yup first try adjusting the ignition rod, clean all that ash out as well.

 

[AlphaPapa]

Recently, I have started having this exact problem on my 590. I was thinking there were too many pellets in the pot and they were blocking too much air from getting to the ones on the bottom near the igniter. Both times I dug out all the pellets and threw a very small amount of fresh pellets back in the pot before restarting. I then watched to see if the igniter was heating up and it was. All worked normally on 2nd try.

I can’t imagine how many pellets would have piled up in the pot if I had waited 30 minutes.

I have not had a fire pot quit on me during a cook like the OP, though.

 

[SmokeOCD]

I can’t imagine how many pellets would have piled up in the pot if I had waited 30 minutes.

I recently had the igniter go bad - the pot looked like a pellet volcano. Nice strong auger kept pushing the whole time.

 

[Motodad1776]

Noticed my start ups taking a bit longer recently, so I unbolted the firepot and adjusted the ignitor out a bit.......back to normal business.