I just took delivery of my second FEC 100 and after uncrating it I noticed that it was different. The hopper is taller than the last FEC 100 I received a month ago. After looking at it I noticed that the auger was raised up and had a shoot for the pellets to fall into the fire pot. I called Tony and he said this was done to pass the UL inspection. This is so the pellets cannot burn back up the auger into the hopper. Only one problem, the unit would not start as the other unit. What happens is the pellets fall down the shoot which looks like a slide and fall to the opposite side of the fire pot and it takes for ever for it to fill up enough to reach the igniter. After talking to Tony we decided that it was better to turn the unit on to 180* and it would continue to drop pellets until the temp was reached. At this point you can turn it back down to smoke once it is started. Tony said that he was going to talk with tech and see if they could not put a baffle to cause them to fall at the igniter. I think what I will do is throw some in the pot on top of the igniter. One thing for sure with this new style it is easier to servive the componets inside the hopper. Fan is blowing straight forward instead of up.
Joe
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