Wood Pellet Auger Motor sizing

jaydev

Hi all,
Merry Christmas!

I've recently installed a pellet feed auger from my silo to the boiler hopper.
After figuring out the various timing setting of the boiler electrics it 'seemed' things were all set.
I installed and set the auger and then manually powered-up the auger to prime/fill with pellets. All worked well and pellets started dropping into the boiler at a reasonable rate.

I then left the boiler to operate as expected.
A few hours later I checked and found the boiler in error condition with a 'no fuel' message. Upon checking the feed auger motor, it was incredibly hot.
I have checked the auger tube and flight and there's no sign of anything catching and when I filled there was no obvious noises to indicate any jam.

I then reset everything after pulling the auger, emptying, re-aligning etc.. and unfortunately same again.

I manually wired the auger and this time the motor seems to try to start and then stop after around 1/2 a rotation. So I'm thinking there are two possibilities:

1. There's a jam condition that seems to happen after a while of operating and when the auger is full of pellets.
2. The motor is not strong enough to pull the auger round when full, and then possibly stops if there's any sign of a little catch etc..

The fact that the motor is hot when I check makes me think the motor is trying but failing.
The motor still works when removed from the flight.

So I'm wondering if there's a sizing guide that might indicate my motor needs to be larger.

Just to provide the added detail:

1. The auger length is 3m
2. The motor is rated at 25W
3. The motor gear is 90:1
4. The auger angle is around 42 degrees.
5. The auger flight is steel, the pipe plastic (around 1/2 inch thick)

I have noticed that when I try to start it after a fail, there does seem to be a kind of rubbing noise, like something dragging on the inside of the pipe. But it's odd that no such catching ever happens when I'm loading the auger.

I can't see how else to stop a jam and as such wondering if the motor should be able to push past this resistance and hence looking at the motor size.

This was all bought as a kit from Ariterm (Feedo), so I'd expect it to work.
Here's the motor on another site (I have checked the model no.) https://www.eldkraft.se/produkt/motor-inklusive-vxel1375

Any thoughts, advice or real-life experience would be extremely welcomed.

Thanks

jaydev

also if anybody has any thoughts as to whether swapping-out the gearbox from 90:1 to a 180:1 may help.
I'm assuming the extra torque would help reduce the load on the motor but would be great to hear from anybody who has better experience or understanding.

Thanks.