Boiler going into "lockout" mode

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BobL43

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Perseverance

Just typed a long long reply and hit the wrong key and it disappeared. :mad: Check the voltage going to the motor as the lock out happens. If you get 115 volts at the motor, then the motor is bad or jammed. the pump coupling is just to the left of the blower wheel and the fuel pump shaft slips into it. maybe a little hard to see.
Be very careful when you hook up to the motor wires with an AC volt meter so you don't get shocked or short anything out. its really pretty easy if you are careful and think it out before you do it.:)
 

Watson524

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Dumb question but.... the two wires coming out of the primary control box that go over to the motor i can't really isolate to put the multimeter on. They're wire nutted in with other wires (clearly) BUT if I take the wire nuts off and keep things twisted together. The black is just in with black coming from power and the white/gray wire is just in with the other whites so I think that'd be ok but figured I better check.
 

BobL43

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better off using a 115 volt light bulb in a pigtail socket and conecting one of its wires into the wire nuts for the motor wires so everything keeps safe and insulated. I can't see what you've got there
 

Watson524

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Heh, just saw this after I came back from the basement but I think I'm getting somewhere.... The black from the motor goes to one black wire that eventually (after going through a junction box) goes to the Y terminal on my Side shot power venter. That Y terminal. The second screw on the Y terminal goes to a "fan prover" switch. So I was able to get the tester up into the wire nut and confirmed that when the unit isn't firing, I have nothing on the black fan motor wire. When the unit is firing, I get 115VAC there (really 116.8 or so). So then we traced back to the junction box where the whole world comes together. When not firing there's no power at the junction spot for the wire that comes from the Y terminal of the side shot to the fan motor. When firing, I get 115VAC there. So then we went to the PV. When firing, I get 115VAC on the Y terminal there. I couldn't test when not firing because it was warmed up and doesn't trip at the moment. So..... I don't know if it's an issue with the fan proving switch in the side shot OR..... from the junction box, most of the white wires go to a relay of some sort that's mounted above the TACO panel but under the junction box. It's a Honeywell R4222B 1082 so I'm investigating that now but I'm not seeing it in any wiring diagrams.

So I'm thinking this tells me it's not the motor, primary control, or aquastat but something in the electrical either in the power venter or at this relay thinger?
 

BobL43

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so here is where I have to stop because I have no idea what you have set up there with the wiring or the fan prover thing itself. but it sounds like you are on the right track now Sherlock. The power not getting to the motor when it needs to be, creates the thing to go into lockout. I have to refer to your original post again, but this PV device is part of some flue gas evacuator device? I've heard of them on gas fired units, but not oil.

Keep me posted
 

BobL43

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The draft inducer blower and its air flow check switch may have been necessary when the house way built because of the chimney design? I have built 2 brick wood burning fireplaces in my lifetime and both worked great because I followed design guidelines in books I read. A well designed chimney will, even when cold, "pull" a draft. (well, maybe not all the time). A gas fired boiler or air heater lets gas and air into the combustion chamber and if the gas does not ignite when it should, could go BOOM if the accumulation of gas is not scavenged, if thats the correct word by the draft inducer fan. the fan has its air flow switch that makes sure that there is sufficient air movement through the flue pipe. Oil burners have their own blower, as you now know. Now you got me interested in your setup, so I need to learn more about it! My Priority zone relay box is one I designed and built by myself when I installed my Super Stor water heater tank. I needed a box with a total of 5 zones, one of which is the priority zone for the heater tank. What was available at the time I looked had only 3 zones plus one priority zone if I remember. it was not a big deal for me because I am involved with industrial machine controls, and I knew what the box had to do.
So now I have another question that maybe you already answered :) during the period before lock out, does the draft inducer fan or whatever you got is called run as far as you can tell?
 

BobL43

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Here is a link to the honeywell relay info. at the bottom of the page there is a link to download the data sheet, which shows that it is a single pole double throw relay and shows the connections of the relay contacts and the "pin out" to the push on wire terminals
http://customer.honeywell.com/honeywell/ProductInfo.aspx/R4222B1082 How it is wired into your system is another thing. This relay is a general purpose relay for use by the HVAC trade to integrate into systems
I hope this helps you. You are a very determined DIY person youself. There has to be some HVAC pro in these groups that is lurking and reading our comments chuckling away, but maybe NOW is the time to come forward and pull out Excalibur from the stone.

Watson, I know you are SO Close! :eek:
Bob
 

Tom Sawyer

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Really? what makes you think so? So far, everything you have tested has not told you anything of value.
See post #4
 

BobL43

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Tom your post #4 is of no value except to say that it could be anything with a list of all the parts in the oil burner. I'm just trying to help get it fixed, not to spend all her money. We have established that it goes into lockout because the motor power is interupted by the draft inducer fan or whatever else is in that circuit. It is real easy to just say it could be anything, just get a tech in there. She did, and the tech didn't fix it. I thought the idea of these groups is to try to help, and that's all I'm tring to do. I know it is not a safe (maybe) thing to do by jumping out the fan safety switch so I did not suggest trying it.
If the tech that went there was any good, he would have been able to test things. I think Watson is just a capable, but has no experience at this. If this was Winter time, it would be different. Its just a major annoyance at this point.
 

Tom Sawyer

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You have established NOTHING because neither one of you understand the control sequence of the draft inducer nor the safety interlocks. This is not a problem that can be fixed without having the test equipment and the experience and knowledge to use them properly. If the first tech ain't up to the task then find another tech before someone gets hurt or you wind up spending lots of money replacing things that are not broken. I have read this entire post. There are quite a few of us here that are more than capable of troubleshooting the problem. Wonder why none of us are ? Oil burners and controls can be dangerous. People can get hurt or killed fooling around with them. Houses can burn to the ground. Even the burner companies and control companies do not openly publish troubleshooting information to the general public and they do it for a reason. DIY forums can be wonderful things and very helpful for certain things. This is not one of them. I am sure BobL is a nice guy and trying to be helpful here but he is not a licensed tech and is doing little more than grasping at straws and exascerbating the situatation. Please find a professional before you do something expensive, stupid or both.
 

Watson524

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I didn't realize all these posts were going on today, for some reason, I got no notice of them. I'm sorry this has turned into a bit of a brawl but if I felt there was something beyond what is reasonable for my to personally check, I would stop. After being enlightened about checking for the motor spinning, that led us to a whole new host of options.

Bob - we don't actually have a chimney. Wasn't even an option when we built, this dumb PV was used in its place. As I understand it, any wind the wrong way with enough force can shut them down. Thankfully neither ours, nor my parents (who built a house at the same time, different builder and no chimney have had any problems). The manual for my PV gives the sequence of events on the O terminal, then "reading" the draft through the tube and activating the Y terminal by closing the prover switch. That being said, there are a couple things that can cause the prover switch not to close thus powering the burner motor. As noted in a troubleshooting section of the maintenance guide provided by the manufacturer (so they must not think it's too dangerous for Joe regular homeowner to try) was to check the prover switch for continuity when there was a call for heat. I have not yet been able to test that when it goes into lockout mode but will do that after the boiler cools down and hopefully goes to lockout (or doesn't) on next firing. I had thought about "removing" the switch from the circuit by jumpering the black and orange off the primary controller so the PV isn't intercepting the signal and running through the PV first, but we may not need to go to that extreme. I called Tjernlund today and they were helpful. He said it absolutely sounds like the switch is going fluky and asked if I knew the troubleshooting tips as far as checking for 115v on the terminals during a call, checking the draft, checking the tube, etc. I said we aren't getting 115v on the Y terminal when it gets locked out because obviously, the switch isn't closing to complete the circuit. This evening we have removed the draft tube (it was terribly gunked up on the flue end) so that we cleaned it out well with a piece of weedwhacker line. Then (at the recommendation of the Tjernlund rep) we took out the PV motor and fan set and cleaned that up well. Then we put it all back together. It made a call and fired but it had been warm so.... we also ensured while we were cleaning out the motor area in the flue chamber, we ran a shop vac up through the dampener flap. When the PV came on, I can tell it's pulling more air just by how far the dampener flapper is flipping in. So at this point, I'm waiting for cool down to force a call and see what happens. If all is right with the world, then as Tjernlund noted, the tube was likely plugged up enough to cause eratic behavior. If we do not read continuity on the prover switch during a call and 45 seconds of not firing when it should, then I will be replacing the switch tomorrow as I've already called a local supply shot and they have one in stock.
 

Watson524

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Really? what makes you think so? So far, everything you have tested has not told you anything of value.
See post #4

Tom - I have to respectfully disagree with you on this. What I have been able to test so far has taught me a lot of things about how something works. Though the problem isn't solved yet, the knowledge I have gained has a lot of value to me.
 

BobL43

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Tom - I have to respectfully disagree with you on this. What I have been able to test so far has taught me a lot of things about how something works. Though the problem isn't solved yet, the knowledge I have gained has a lot of value to me.

Watson, I am happy I got you to the point you got to and hope you get it fixed with the info Tjernlund provided to you, but as Tom pointed out, there is a liability issue and the last thing in the world I would want to happen is that you got hurt or worse or incurred property damage. I was actually worried today that you made no posts, and feared the worst (PHEW!).
Tom actually is correct on this, and the techs at alt.HVAC newsgroup provide no help to homeowners for this very reason.
It was very interesting though, and I am glad you got to the point you did.
Please post the results when you install the switch.

bob
 

Watson524

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Might not actually have to install the switch, we'll see. It sat for a few hours and we went down and my husband turned the temp control up on the boilermate while i had the probes on the prover switch and I read continuity and it fired right up. Until now, it would have gone into lock out for sure. We'll see how it is in the morning when we check on it. Perhaps cleaning the sensing tube was really what it needed. I haven't been able to stand there with the techs for the last few annual cleanings so I can't say if they take the PV motor and tube out and clean it or not but given what we saw in there tonite, I think they do the "stove pipe" and that's it. Keeping my fingers crossed.
 

Watson524

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Looks like no switch needed. The problem was in the fact that the tube was clogging up so it wasn't activating the switch to power the burner motor. The reset probably worked each time because the PV had run its 3 minute post purge cycle even with lockout and "cleaned" out enough of the tube to get it going. We've been good since Thursday nite so I think we'll call it a day.
 

DonL

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Way to go you Watson.

That goes to show that you should never give up, just because someone says that you should.

Have a Great day.

DonL
 

Watson524

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Thanks. Now that we've been fine for a few days, I am going to call the oil company tomorrow and explain to them what we did to fix it and express concern that their service man was saying the next step was to replace a somewhat expensive part and didn't even realize the burner motor wasn't blowing. I'm not pro of course but I would think that would be something that would be checked...
 
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