Monitor 41 issue

[hawkins111]

chamber overhaul

Cadman,

When you get the flame sensor by pass hooked up and you run the stove remember, you have not proved the flame sensor on the stove good or bad. What you have done is “by passed” the sensor on the stove. You have proved that the flame sensor has shut the stove down and the flame sensor portion of the main circuit board is working properly.
Now you have forced the stove to think it has a flame in the burner. If it does have a flame you will see it, if not you will notice that as well. The flame sensor on the stove is doing exactly what it was meant to do. When it does not sense a proper flame it shuts the stove down. As you stated in an earlier post, the flame was yellow. The flame sensor senses that and shuts the stove down. Since your stove is a M41 and you have used it for 7 years it is time for a combustion chamber overhaul. The good thing the by pass will do for you is prove the electrical system of the M41. Igniter, fuel pump, indicator circuit, blower assembly and circulating fan can all be checked with or without a flame in the stove. With all that checked you can now proceed with spending the time and money to overhaul the combustion chamber and feel the rest of the stove is good to go. If you can’t prove the electrical system and need to overhaul the chamber as well you are looking at a big bill on an older stove you can’t get some parts for.

Tom

[cadman44]

I stopped by Radio Shack last night. There were many different resistors and diodes. There were Zener diodes, rectifier diodes, and switching diodes all with different volt ratings. There were also different wattage ratings for the resistors. I made my "best guess" since they were pretty cheap. I got the 1/2 watt 100k-Ohm resitor and the 5.1V Zener diode. Did I get guess right or do I need to make another trip?

[adnadeau]

Diode

'Nother trip. You need a garden-variety silicon rectifier diode such as a 1N4004. Or, if you have any old electronic devices lying around such as a GFCI duplex outlet, you can look there for one.

[HayZee518]

a zener might work, but its main function is that of a voltage regulator. a 1n4004 is what you want. zener diodes are rated by voltage. when a higher potential is placed across them, they lock the voltage to whatever they are rated at and give off the remainder as heat until their Vcc [or biasing voltage] is extremely over shot.

[cadman44]

No problem. I will pick up a 1n4004. Radio Shack is on my way home. Is the resistor that I got going to work? Thanks for the quick response.

[cadman44]

I ran the flame rod bypass test. The heater continued to run. So as was mentioned, I believe the flame rod circuit was working properly. As the heater was running, it had a couple orange flare-ups and then settled down. I let it run for a little while and it seemed to be running fine. Blue flame and all. I put it all back together and it seems to be fine now. Unless something acts up in the future, I think I am good to go. Thanks to everyone for all the help. Not only did I get the heater going, but I learned a lot about it as well.

[cadman44]

So I went out for the evening with the heater working. I came home to it working as well. A little while later, it cycled on and off a few times 10-15 seconds apart and then shut down again with all eight bars blinking. It must have been working while I was gone because I don't believe that it would reset and restart by itself. It just happened right after I got home. Any thoughts on this?

[cadman44]

I woke up this morning with the lights blinking on the heater. I reset it and went to take a shower. When I got out, it was blinking again. I reset it one more time and it seems to be working fine. It has been working "correctly" for a few hours now. I understand "working" and "not working" but this intermittent working/not working is confusing me.

[cadman44]

It did shut off again last night one time around 9:00 or so. I unplugged the thermistor and just let it run on high for a while just to see what would happen. It ran fine for 10-15 minutes. At that point i plugged the thermistor back in and let it go. I went to bed fully expecting it to have shut off overnight but it was running fine when I woke up.

[HayZee518]

with the thermistor unplugged the unit defaults to 42 degrees and keeps on running in high. BUT the safety devices are functioning. A slug of water will cause a temporary loss of flame and lockout, but usually the pot is hot enough to burn off the water. when you reset the computer and fire up the unit, it should run constant. remember use ONLY dyed or un-dyed K-1. Occassionally clean out the stainless steel filter below the sump tank.

[cadman44]

I ran it with the thermistor unplugged to push the unit to run on high incase it was fine at low but overheating at high.

I have not had issues with water before now. If it was just a small slug of water and is the exception vs. the rule, I will be happy. Except for that shutoff last night, everything seems to be running correctly. I saw some diagrams in other posts about how to siphon off water from a tank. Was there something there to test whether or not there is water in the tank?

I use dyed K-1 with a large tank in the basement. At the start of this process, I did clean the filter by the sump. I should probably clean the filter at the tank as well. I did put a new one in a couple years ago but have not cleaned it since I put it in.

I would like to thank you again for all your help. It is greatly appreciated.

[HayZee518]

Where I live in New York we experience cold days of like 35 below zero so I completely removed the filter at the tank. I have ball valves wherever a shut off is required and I feed the heater with 3/8" truck air tank tubing and about a foot of copper tubing formed by tool into a ninety and a flare. the only active filter is the one for the heater sump. when the guy comes to fill the tank I usually get filter clogs for about three days then everything settles down and I get pure kero the rest of the time. my tank is tilted away from the outlet so any condensate that forms occupies the back part of the tank. this I suck out with a transfer pump. you say your tank is in the basement. do you use a high lift pump to feed fuel to your heater? have you measured the pressure at the heater? it shouldn't be more than 2.5 psi which is normal if the bottom of the tank is 16 inches above the floor the heater is mounted on. there is a paste you can buy that detects water in fuel. it changes color when it encounters water.
I have a stick measured off in inches so I can tell how much fuel I have in the external tank. I smear this paste on about 6 inches from the end of the stick.

[cadman44]

Yes, I have a lifter pump located at the heater on the first floor. I have not measured the pressure at the heater. How would I go about doing that?

I did have a delivery of oil Friday morning. That could have something to do with the shutoff. I will let it run for a few days and see how it goes.

[cadman44]

Well, I have let it run for about a week now. The first day or two it had a couple shutoffs. I would start it again and it would run fine for a while. Since then, it has run without issues. So, at this point I think that I may be good to go. Thanks to all for helping me to get this going.

[cadman44]

Well, I guess I spoke too soon. I got home from work last night and the heater had turned off again sometime over the day. I tried to start it a few times and no luck. I tried to go through the same trouble shooting from earlier. I bypassed the flame sensor and it ran fine again. I looked through the glass and saw some orange in the flame.

If I remember correctly, I can try to take the shopvac and push more air through the blower. That will tell me if the bearings are good on the blower, right?

I can also clean out the burner in case some of the holes are plugged. Is there a good way to do this?

Any other suggestions?