Delayed ignition beating me up (oil)

Leo

My experience has been a thin blue spark, a yellow or orange spark and it's bad. A thick blue spark with sometimes a tinge of yellow is ok. What happens is on occasion the spark doesn't start hence a delay or lockout. A coworker heard one on constant ignition just drop out once. The ohms test works better on other brands.

Leo

Unknown

Every season its something. This season it seems to be delayed ignition that I cant explain. Here are a couple case studies:

Case 1
-Utica Starfire III boiler, Becket AFG burner. 2 years old
-Carlin 14k transformer spark between the terminal jumping on its own.
-New Carlin PSC burner motor. Amp tests to only draw 4 amps max on startup.
-Honeywell L8184G primary. Safety timing 36 seconds (should be 45)
-Suntec A pump.

In this case, oil line vacum tests fine, no vacum. Pressure of pump is 140psi. It passed the cutoff and pressure test. Nozzle assembly in new condition, no cracked electrodes. Electrodes set to be dead on the beckett electrode guage (not the "T" guage, the trapazoid looking one) The fire is set to just a hair above smoke to make it clean. F3 head that is clean. Z-dimention checked and double checked. New burner coupling. I have changed nozzles a couple times from Delavan .85 80B to .85 80A (boiler spec calls for a

I installed a delay valve which had no effect. I downfired to .65 80B and I havent heard anything back from the customer yet. The delay usually doesnt happen when Im there, I go through about 30 or so smoth starts before I leave only to get a call the next day. Draft is -.o2 overfire -.04 Breech.

Case 2

-American Standard Arco Leader, Beckett A burner
-Carlin 14k transformer jumping the terminals on its own.
-Newly installed Carlin PSC motor.
-Newly installed Suntec A pump.
-New burner coupling.

This one is pretty much the same as case 1 with troubleshooting. I downfired this one to .65 and changed the head form F6 to an F3.


Delayed ignition with a new 14k, nozzle, and perfect electrodes? I'm over thinking and looking over something simple. I dismissed the utica case as some kind of fluke, but now another case witht he same thing?

Uncle.



Norm Harvey,
Independent Burner Service,
Weymouth, MA

Steve_35

Ignition transformer

Here's how to test a Carlin ignition transformer:
Ohm between ignitor stud and ground screw note reading - should be roughly between 1000-1500 ohms.
Ohm between other ignitor stud and ground screw - should be within 10% of first reading.
Ohm between both studs - should equal sum of first two readings
Pull 3/4" arc between ignitor bars - should be thick yellow arc - replace if thin blue arc.

Bottom line if you have a consistent rough or delayed light off it's most likely a set up issue. If it's intermittent we're going to look very hard at the transformer.

In your case it sounds like you've been through pretty much everything else. I'd just change the transformer out and bring it back to the shop to test it.

Unknown

Now that you mention it both of those transformers DO jump the terminals on thier own, but it is a thin blue spark. Thanks for the ohms tip, I have never heard that before. I'll take one of these back to the shop and test that out.

Thanks A LOT.


Norm Harvey,
Independent Burner Service,
Weymouth, MA

Terry_14

Could be air?

I have chased the ghost myself and a fellow tech sugested air in the line. We added a tiger loop and the boiler went back to proper fir rate and all were happy.

Merry Christmas
Terry

sootmonkey

If the date code on the Carlin Igniter is 1/xx/03, it is very suspect. 1/19/03 and 1/23/03 were not good days at Carlin.

Rookie_4

Must have been a bunch of them if sootmonkey new the dates.
Got one sitting in my truck dated 1/19/03 that I just changed out 2 days ago..........ROOKIE

Leo

Date Codes

Carlin will tell you the date code didn't get switched so that sticker ran a few months and that is why there are so many failures in that date code. What baffles me is I have worked for companies that have used Carlin Ignitors since 98 with very few problems. Then comes a rash of problems with this date code, come on. What they forget to tell us is during that period there was a rash of backorders, it was so bad we were using a different brand for a while. Makes you wonder, backorders and failures all from the same period.

Leo