Weil Mclain Ultra 3 Lockouts

Greg_49

Mike,
Thanks for the reply. You're explanation gives me a better idea of how the primary through the tees is supposed to work, however....isn't it possible that under a certain condition you could "interfere" with that flow from boiler suuply to return with excessive flow / head through the heating zones? If that condition could exist...then I may be looking at that as well since it seems like too much of the residual hot water in the boiler (upon a call for heat)gets sent up the heating zone right away. In otherwords, in my case, the boiler return gets almost as cold as the return water from the heating loop initially, which would indicate the the boiler is returning almost none of it's supply water to itself.

Attached are some pictures....You will have to follow the pipes closely to see that they are correct, as they loop around. It was originally piped slightly different with the side port of the tee as the physical connection between supply / return. Weil Mclain Tech Support suggested that I pipe the tees exacly as in the diagram (he was 99% sure it would solve my problem....good thing he left himself 1%) so I repiped it with the same resulting nuisance lockout.

Greg

Greg_49

Weil Mclain Ultra 3 Lockout problem

Hi Folks,

I stumbled across thois board and and it looks like theres some here that have had experiences with the Weil Mclain Ultra 3. Just installed one at home and have an issue.

The unit is a Series 3-105 set up with DHW and 3 heat zones. I have piped out the system exactly according to their drawings. I even had a friend of mine who is a Master Plumber check my work and he sees nothing wrong with my piping. My observations of the problem follow:

The lockout "Supply Too Fast" happens several times / day now that it is getting colder. This appears to happen when there has been a previous call for DHW or call for heat on another zone and there is hot water resting in the boiler. The cold zone (one that hasn't called for heat for a while) calls for heat...cold water in baseboards. Initial hot water resting in boiler goes out and starts to travel to zone. Boiler fires and comes up at about 40% flame for 20 seconds or so...flame modulation reduces to about 20% for a short time....then the flame modulation ramps up in it's attempt to reach the target temperature of 180.

Just about that time, the initial surge of hot water that travelled up the zone is returning....it hits the Tee on the return side that is when the problems start. I see the supply temperature start to rise very rapidly on the boiler (which is what causes the lockouts...Weil manual states that a temp. rise of over 2 degrees / second on supply side locks out the boiler).

This happens at about 110-120 deg. on supply side. Once the lockout is cleared, the boiler continues on it's merry way and happy. It seems like once everything is homegenous and at a more steady state, everthing is happy and the supply temp. climbs gradually to the target temp.

So, being that Weil Mclain manual is somewhat vague on engineering aspects of primary / secondary loop and what actually happens in the closely spaced tee's, I ask for assistance. I have my tee's spaced 8" apart (according to Weil Mclain yoou can go up to 12"). Is this too far apart? Is it possible that my primary / sec is not working correctly?

My understanding of pri. / sec. loop is that the boiler loop feeds some of the water back to itself to help maintain a steadier temperature within the boiler loop and it just adds some heat to the heating loop. In Weil Mclain's piping, I don't quite see how it is possible that supply water can be returned to the boiler. If you look at their diagram, the supply water would have to oppose the flow of the heating zone water (which travels straight through the tees) in order for any amount to be fed back to the boiler.

Am I looking at this the wrong way? Can anyone shed some light on this for me? Boiler seems to be working great aside from this issue which seems like it will ultimately be some type of flow issue. I have forced the Max. flame modulation to 50% for now to remedy the lockouts so I can have some heat!

Thanks Much!
Greg

TimS

seen similar

but not lock outs just short cycling with lower setpoints what is the offset & the differential set at? I just read the other ultra post I have not serviced a series 3 yet just the older Ultras .

chris_93

any pictures

Greg, do you have any pics of the job. I'm sure it can be figured out here if we know what you have. If piped as there drawing shows, the primary loop flows through the boiler into the one tee and out of the other, back to the boiler. At those tee's the zone circs "pick off" the hot water they need to send out to the respectful zone. The return water from that zone gets "mixed into the return tee of the primary loop, sending it back to the boiler. The individual zones don't really straight through the tees.
In my opinion it sounds like you have a primary flow issue.
Mike
Hope that's a little cleared than mud for you.

chris_93

pics look ok

it looks like it should work to me. The end of the S&R loops are capped, not connected together right? I can't see it the pic.. Are you sure there is no air in the primary loop?
Here are some pics of one I put in friday. http://forums.invision.net/Thread.cfm?CFApp=2&Thread_ID=60198&mc=6
I've had great luck w/ the ultra until this one. hopefully it is just a minor glitch.

Greg_49

Weil Mclain Ulra 3 Lockouts

Mike,
Yes, the ends on those manifolds are capped. I am pretty sure there is no air trapped in the primary loop. I was getting some pump cavitation which is why you can see in the pics that I added the air bleeder in the high horizontal run of the loop. That stopped the pump cavitation and occasional gurgling I heard previously. So, theres that plus the spirovent, plus the air bleeder on the DHW tank. I think i'm air free.

Greg

chris_93

why is target temp 180

I would check w/ the rep on sensor location maybe the supply and return sensor should be on the piping out of the boiler instead of the secondary loop. The manual is not real clear on location. I've put mine on the primary loop piping, with no lockout problems yet, knock on wood..

TimS

the sensor location looks correct I interpret the system pipes stated in manual to mean secondary loop not the boiler loop. Mike you may want to correct that on your system . Greg switch the speed on your zone pumps down to low this may help. also finish programming the control you did not put time & date in yet what else needs to be done?

chris_93

Thanks Gerry, I'll check that out in the morning. After reading the manual again, it looks like you are right. I was also thinking the pump speed high might be too much for the system.
Mike

Greg_49

Whis is target temp.180

Gerry,

Target temp is 180 deg. by default. Any lower than 170 and it's not enough heat for the heating zone. Priority 1 (DHW is 190) and for heat calls it's 180. It would not matter if I changed that anyway. My lockouts happen around supply temp ~110-120. even if I lowered it to say 150, the flame modulation would be cranking away trying to make it 150, so it would lock-out just the same. Tried it. I have also tried various pump speed configurations with no good results.

Thhose sensors on the pipe I believe are just for monitoring temperatures from the heat loops. They bear no influence on boiler operation. Boiler operation is based on its internal sensors. Those 2 sensors as well as the outdoor reset sensor are "Optional" and the boiler should operate properly without them.

BTW...I have since set the time. Those were pics from well over a wek ago and I was more focused on the problem I was having than the clock.

Greg

Al Letellier_21

Ultra lock out

had the same issue with a 155 lately. Our problem was on the domestic side. How did you size the circ for the indirect? If you used the chart in the Plus book, there lies your problem. Weil decided to go for a 2 degree drop across the heat exchange instead of a 5 degree in the earlier series and we had the wrong circ on the indirect. Use the manual in the boiler book and check your flow rates. I think this will solve your problem. Weil is aware they have to reprint the indirect book for the new series boiler.

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Greg_49

Weil Mclain Ultra 3 Lockouts

Al,
Thanks for the suggestion, but boiler works fine on the DHW calls. It only faults as described in my original post.

Greg

chris_93

sensor location

Thanks Gerry for bringing sensor location to my attention. While diagnosing another problem, DHW priority, turned out to be a bad board on priority two, We moved the sensors.
Thanks again

Greg how did you make out with your issues?

chris_93

post purge

Greg,
did you try changing the post purge time on the DHW zone, to pull more heat from the boiler into the indirect, before the call for heat?

Greg_49

post purge

Mike,
I see it in the manual. It's actually called post-pump time. I will give it a shot. I will have to do it with the priority 2 FTB also, since the lockout also occurs when theres been a recent heat call on an adjacent zone (eg:first floor finishes a heat call 10 minutes ago and then 2nd floor calls with cold water in baseboards).

I don't think that will work though in the case of the Priority 2 FTB Post Pump time...since when my Argo relay panel terminates the call for heat, the only water that will still be circulating is the main boiler circ. The Argo shuts the zone pump after like 10 seconds which wont get much heat out of the system. If there is some flow issue going on, I would really like to resolve it though instead of "tricking" the boiler.
However....I probably wont know that until the Weil Mclain field guy in NJ calls me back....he seems to be ignoring me at the moment. I got to speak to him only one time early last week.

chris_93

fied service

I know the feeling about getting in touch with reps. It is very frustrating. I had a bad board on a 105 that I had to figure out myself by trial and error.
Homeowner was PO'ED, expecially since i recommended the boiler.
When we spend this much money on a component you would think it should work right, and if not someone who had their salary paid to them because you installed their products, would call you back.

TimS

Greg I have one last idea set the "modulate on differential" to the maximum 10.

Rob_56

Same problem

Greg

Just installed my 105 and it is locking out too. Mine is a soft lockout and when it resets in 60 seconds it works fine. I was getting quite a few of them and I changed my post purge time on the FTB zone to 45 seconds and it seems to have reduced (but not eliminated the problem. Mine seems to lockout when on the call for DHW but it has locked out on the call for FTB heat too. The last time it locked out on the call for heat the lockout history showed a higher return temp than supply temp which really shouldn't be possible



I'm a little reluctant to increase the post purge much more but this lockout problem is troubling me.

If you figure this out, let me know

Rob

Rob_56

Greg

I just installed my 105 and having a problem with it locking out on "supply too fast. Mine is a soft lockout and after 60 seconds, it resets and works just fine. I changed my post pump time to 45 seconds and it seemed to help some but did not eliminate the problem. Most times it was when the heating zone was on and the boiler got a call for DHW but this morning the lockout history indicated that it locked out on the call for heat.

This is really bothering me.

Anyone any suggestions?

Rob

Greg_49

Weil Mclain Ultra 3 Lockouts

Fed up with Weil Mclain already. I am at the boiling point....maybe i'll just throw it out and get a Trinity or Munchkin....know 3 people with those and no issues and NTI's support is good from what I have heard a few people say. It will be another $3k but at leat I'd have heat this winter. Never will I recommend their product to anyone given this type of support attitude. 35 degrees in NY and an angry homeowner and tenant to boot!.....great situation.

At Weil's Chicago office, I get a receptionist that just wants to keep forwarding me to the same 2 tech support guys that I have already spoke to with no solutions. She seems programmed to not let you past her to speak to anyone else. At the Tri-State Field rep. office, the receptionist just forwards you to peoples voice-mail box. I even have 3 names for people at the Tri-State field rep. and receptionist always says they are not there and gives you voice mail box to leave a message with no return calls.

Tony_23

well

Maybe you shoulda hired a pro to do it. Not as simple as you thought is it ? Another $3G's ? That might've gotten you a professional install.

TimS

I have also tryed to get tech support usually no problem, currently have not made it thru for you. Can you tell me what the delta T is in high fire during heat mode & during dhw mode?

Rob_56

I am having the same problem with a Ultra 155. I lowered the input for domestic hot water to 55% and installed a taco 0011 to the DHW circuit as per tech support. I went from hard lockout every 3 days to 30 days. Still having same problem.

TimS

Appears proper flow is critical with the Ultra 3 & temp rise too fast lockout & your trying to compensate for slow flows by reducing the fire rates to 50%. Do you have spring check valve on the dwh loop & the primary loop? If you are missing one you'll get unwanted flow thru the other loop and less flow thru boiler. Are you using outdoor reset?
Personally I might increase the "modulate off differential" too. Sure would be fun to be there in person to trouble shoot this problem. My experience is these are installation issues on a boiler not too forgiving, if the older Ultra's had this temp rise too fast lockout it may have saved some them from death. Its a good boiler they are trying to protect it.

Rob_56

Greg

How are you controling the zone circulators when the DHW circulator kicks in? I'm sure my problem is because I didn't install a relay to turn off my zone circulators when the DHW calls for heat. I'm only relying on the boiler going to DHW priority and shutting off the primary pump.
I'll install the relay on the zone controller and see what happens

Rob

Jason_22

similar issue

We were having a similar lock out issue and found the problem yesterday.Apparently Weil-McLain found a problem in some of the boards in the seies 3 controls. They said not all of them and you could have 2 boilers side by side and it might only affect one. This is the deal. When you have an indirect tank and the water in the tank has sat for a while with no call to reheat then the call comes to reheat the tank , the delta T between the temp of the water coming in from the tank and the outlet of the boiler is to large. The boiler then goes into soft lockout. This happens 5 times before it goes into hard lockout and needs to be reset. Weil-McLain brought us a new control this morning.

Greg_49

Weil Mclain Ultra 3 Lockouts

Rob,

It should not matter that your zone circs stay circulating while there is a DHW priority. there is a flow check on the supply side of your boiler loop and also with the boiler circ not running, the zone water will take the path of least resistance and flow only in the zone heating loop. When DHW is done with it's call, boiler should shut down and re-fire on the heat call and start on its way to heating the heat zone again.

Greg

smc

we had the same sloution as pete rep came out said some defective boards-replaced board and also programmed a pump pre post run to temper the exchanger and cut down on drastic temperature rise-been ok for a couple weeks now

Greg_49

Weil Mclain Ultra 3 Lockout problem

I'll address a few questions here....

1 - The problem I have is not with DHW calls. I did not check delta-t across the DHW tank....but on DHW calls the teperature rise across the return / supply of the boiler is generally ~15 - 20 deg.

2 - According to Weil Mclain, the boiler should be able to run with no outdoor temp. reset. While outdoor temp. reset may alleviate my problem somewhat, it will be back to the same thing when it's very cold out and the target temp does not get reset.

3 - Weil Mclain Ultra 3 control boards.....I personally think that their firmware needs a revision. The pumps should come on for 2-3 minutes before the boiler ignition sequence to allow all the water in the system to become homogenous and have a more stable temperature state. If you recall my first post....my problem happens when the initial surge of hot water that rests in the boiler (upon a heat call) travels through one of my heating zones and then comes back around and hits the return Tee. That hot water feeding into the supply along with the fact that 1 minute has passed and the boiler has come out of it's low modulation start-up state and is cranking away trying to reach target temp.....of course there will be a fast rise in temp at the supply. Also like I said once that initial lockout happens....if I am in front of the boiler and reset it right away...everything is happy....because after that point in time...the initial hot water has done one pass around my heat loop back with a mix of water from the boiler as well as cooler water from the return loop and all temps are more stable and the boiler proceeds to work with no problem until another heat call with the same conditions. Also....if I start everything off cold (cold zones....coold water in boiler) there is no problem.

Greg

Greg_49

Weil Mclain Ultra 3 Lockouts

See my last post....I basically detailed my observations and said there should be a pre-pump run setting before ignition in their firmware. I think the Ultra 3 control is too new and still has some issues (whoopee...we get to be beta-testers during these cold snaps). I just hope Weil makes good on it for all their end users. Not all installations will will be opering in a tolerance of .01 GPM or temerature loss / rise spec.

Greg

Jason_22

should have mentioned

This is exactly what the new board is doing. Creating a post purge for DHW.A little bird also told me that there is a add on control that will eliminate resets after power outages on the series 1 and 2's. YEAH

babigurl4u4194+realcasinoguide4636299

Board issue also

I just had an Ultra 3 105 installed and having the same problem, according to Weil rep, new board is on it's way

Greg_49

Haha...thats the best laugh I've had all day.....you guys always think you are "special" and better than anyone else. Got job security syndrome? You should see some of the job's I have seen that so called "professionals" have done. Go see my further postings...talked to Weil Mclain today.

Greg_49

Weil Mclain Ultra 3 lockouts - Solution?...Finally!

Finally got where I wanted today. I guess I made enough noise at the NJ Tri-State field office yesterday.

They had an engineering guy in Indiana call me. That is who I needed to talk to! I'm glad to report that my observations and my previous statemnt about a control / firmware solution was right on target. What are they sending me tomorrow? They are sending a controller that has the functionality of a programmable pre-ignition circulator cycle. So the boiler pump and zone pump can circulate for a programmable amount of time before the boiler fires up.

They knew they had a problem with many Ultra 105 series 3's and admitted to me that they revised the control module to alleviate that problem in many installations of the 105 series 3. I raised the concern of having a non standard control module in case I need a replacement one day. All future control modules will have this capability built in according to them. Along with the module comes a new front panel screen as well. He told me that the current screen did not have space to add extra lines for menu selection of settings.

Updates to follow....but this should be the fix I was looking for.

Greg

Tony_23

Nope

No job security issues here. Just noticing how sloppy and hacked up your "install" looks. None of my work looks like that and all mine WORK. And, if they don't I figure them out myself w/o whining on the internet. In fact, I've helped solve more technical issues with modern boilers than you've experienced on your "career install".

So yeah, I AM special, thank you.

Greg_49

right!

Hacked up....my ****....now that my problem will be solved with the RIGHT CONTROL BOARD from WEIL MC LAIN. I can make my wiring permanent and finish the job. It's my own house and it was installed in the little spare time I have because I have a real job. Not like it was for a customer so it didn't need to be complete in 1 day. Go back to cleaning your drains and roto-rooting which it looks like you do best. I'm not a plumber or heat system installer by trade....so come over here and lets see how good you can sweep tune a glycol cooled IOT television broadcast transmitter with a spectrum analyzer and sideband adapter, then you can come back here and make your dumb comments. I think this forum is for helping people solve problems, so do something useful and help someone instead of being a **** and thinking your so great that your butt smells like roses. Looks like I got my problem solved....you the "professional" did not have much input in the process.

Ken Field

What about us

Just installed a 105 today. Do I need to worry about this? It has a DHW zone, one primary/secondary large water volume zone, and 3 small zones controlled by zone valves. If I need to be aware of an impending problem, would like to be prepared.

Ken F

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Tony_23

There it is : )

The true intelligence of the DIY'er who thinks his job is "just fine".

Start calling names and using "language" and making off-base assumptions about another party because they found fault with your "masterpiece" and didn't provide the "help" you desired. "Help" that amounted to telling you what you wanted to hear.

I don't care what you do for a living at your "real job" and I'm not intimidated. As if mine is not. I've been in this business for over 25 years. Fixed tons of "HO specials" that they wanted to blame on the manufacturer. You got lucky. You wouldn't have listened if it was your own problem, I'm betting. Don't kid yourself that there aren't a bunch of guys here who could easily do what you do with the training required.

Roto-rooting indeed. Is that the best slam you could think of ? Don't you know the difference between a drain-cleaning plumber and a hydronics technician ?

Save your High School locker room names for your buds. Making derogatory comments here will get you less help in the future, not more. And you might need it.

jcarta

the ultra is very critical on primary /secondary piping--if is not done exactly you will have trouble-

Gary_31

"Thhose sensors on the pipe I believe are just for monitoring temperatures from the heat loops. They bear no influence on boiler operation. Boiler operation is based on its internal sensors. Those 2 sensors"

no no no no no no no. They have a HUGE influence on the boiler operation. Those supply and return sensors are the key to successful operation. They tell the boiler if the target temp has been hit or not (or is *modulate* above target or is *modulate* below target). They are not just their for fun, they are critical to correct operation.

still reading... but I think your problem is that you are letting water get cold, that should never happen.

The outdoor reset, while optional, is also critical... i'll tell you why in a bit...

Greg_49

Weil Mclain Ultra 3 Lockouts

I would assume that it would depend where it was purchased and their volume of sales. My understanding from the enginer at Weil Mclain is that all the new control modules have the features of the one that they are sending me which includes curently shipped boilers. So if your's was in your distributors stock for a while it might have an earlier control board. Best advice is to keep this all in mind when you start it up and see if it has the problem. Then you will at least have an immediate starting point.

I spoke at great length to the engineer and basically what I got out of the coversation is that many installations had problems with the old board while some did not and that they really could not pin down what the real difference was between installations, so the modification was made to allow greater flexibility with more widely varying flow rates / head losses/ heat losses etc. instead of basing the boilers controlled behavior on a fixed set of parameters that they would use to test the design of the unit in their say...."lab" environment.

Greg