Weil Mclain Ultra 3 Lockouts

TonyBal_2

Important Issues Here

It has been two days since I have slowed down the system circulators and increased the pre-purge time to 60 seconds without a lockout event. My previous boiler was a Hydro Pulse dating back to 1982 which was state of the art and high efficient back then. I went through two boilers in 26 years. The down side was the noise which was like a two stroke outboard motor. I must say I LOVE the Ultra (if it keeps running like it is running). It is virtually silent. In addition the heat throughout the house is very consistant. This system works best when you set the thermostats for day and night and never touch them again. Plenty of hot water and a great recovery rate.

Jim Patterson / Orchard Valley Heating and Cooling

apples to apples??

How basic is your hydronic system. One zone, multiple zones?? Issues I am seeing a more than basic applications requiring multiple temps, several circs ( rads, hydro-air...) injection mixing. TN4 is adding atwist that is unanswered thus far. I have made multiple alterations to the programming- still an unhappy boiler. I have been thru hell with series 1 and 2 and was expecting a better start to series 3. I also love the design. The concept is outstanding. The refinement process is getting far to expensive to tolerate as a contractor. How many callbacks should a homeowner with a new boiler accept without losing faith and assuming they own a lemon?

TonyBal_2

apples to apples

One zone Weil Mclain DHW, one zone radiant, three zones fin tube baseboard controlled by a Taco controller. Using all Grundfos three speeed circulators.
I became a student of the system before the install and have made all the adjustments myself. I agree it would be frustrating if the installing contractor had to come back to make all the adjustments.
However, I just had a basic oil fired hot water heater installed at my mother in laws house and the installer had to come back three times before it stopped locking out.
One more thing, It took me five contractors to get two quotes on a condensing/modulating boiler. The other three wouldn't touch them. They wanted to sell me a direct vent sealed combustion conventional boiler. One offered a TEKMAR outdoor setback unit also.

TonyBal

setback and reset curve

Tony, can you explain what is meant by setback and rest curve when talking about the Outdoor Sensor? Also, what is it that you are adjusting on the reset curve? Thanks,Tony

Tony_23

Two different things

Setback refers to setback thermostats and/or setting back the setting of same.

Reset "curve" is the line plotted on a temp chart showing where the water target temp is at a given outdoor temp.

When coming out of setback, recovery takes longer when using outdoor reset than it does on a system not using it. This is because a proper setting supplies just the water temp that is needed to maintain indoor temp. It doesn't leave much room for making up a setback.

Jim Patterson / Orchard Valley Heating and Cooling

should be corrected at the factory

My issue, as a contractor, is that there should have been an exorcism at the factory, before dumping these boilers into the field. Why should we spend out time figuring out how to make their boiler control work? I believe they have an engineering dept for that

Jim Patterson / Orchard Valley Heating and Cooling

should be corrected at the factory

My issue, as a contractor, is that there should have been an exorcism at the factory, before dumping these boilers into the field. Why should we spend out time figuring out how to make their boiler control work? I believe they have an engineering dept for that

chris_93

i agree

We had to make three service calls to a recent install on a "BRAND NEW" series 3 105k boiler. Boiler in lock out all three times. This ate up the customers confidence and all said a solid day of extra labor. Turned out the board was bad. I wish they would have told us in the beginning- we have a board problem you will need to change it!
Extremely Frustrating for a couple thousand dollar item!!

TonyBal

ANOTHER LOCKOUT-NEW STATUS

Ok gang. I experienced a lockout during PREPURGE phase last night.This is the first time for this status. I had increased the pre-pump times to 90 seconds and had not touched the post pump times (30 seconds). I have now increased the post pump times to 90 seconds also. I will keep you all informed. I wish good luck to all you guys who do this for a living. I am certain 99% of your customers can't or won't touch this thing. This is why it took me five contractors to find one that would consider selling it. I do have a new computer board. It is the "tweeking" that will drive you guys to drink.

Bill_112

pH

I have found the pH of my boiler water to be above 8.5 at least that is the highest my water test kit goes. I have read that an aluminum boiler should not have water above 8. I have flushed the system with city water with a pH of 7 and it is back up again. My contractor does not seem to be concerned but never knew the pH could be a problem with aluminum boilers. Any thoughts?

Xc8p2dC

service buliten

If you are running strait water, you prob need a balancer like Rhomar
If you happend to have used Cryotek AL, the is a TSB on it that says if to low, add conditioner, if too high chnage for new formula, Noted that other companies are having issues as well

http://www.weil-mclain.com/professionals/services/Bulletins/SB0801.pdf

Joe H

This post save us HOURS of work!!!

We just installed an Ultra 3 purchased last December. The person doing the installation worked his @$$ off trying to get the thing to operate properly. Yesterday we had another modulation fault, supply too fast. After all the time he put into this project, he could not understand why the errors continued to occur.

Last night I found this site, it cleared the questions that lingered. Today we called the Weil-Mclain rep who verified our boiler had the old software version along with needs for the new control module. He was on site within 1 hour!

He also found a package of 3 ampere fuses I purchased because we had blown one last week. His recommendation was to use a separate control panel for activating athe zone valves. Weare in the process of following his recommendations. I was not there to question him on why a separate controller is needed but I do not need more problems with this boiler.

Again-- great site! Great information, save us hours of trouble shooting.

Joe

Supply House Rick

New U-control board

I had a new Weil-McLain Ultra 3 80K boiler installed about a month ago, as well as one of their indirect hot water heaters. It seems to work just fine as a water heater.

I checked the U-control settings and it is a new board. The Maximum Firing Rate comes set to 94% now, not the 96% specified in the manual. The manual does not mention the pre-pump setting. It comes with the pre-pump times set at 20 seconds. I assume that when winter gets cold (some time from now, since it is now mid-June), I know what to diddle if I have this problem.

I have three zones, controlled by circulators, not valves.
#1 is hot water heater: 190F. Postpump currently set to 60 seconds.
#2 is radiant heat from the slab for my downstairs heating. 120F. Postpump currently set to 30 seconds.
#3 is some baseboard heating for upstairs. It is currently set at 140F which I calculate is enough, but winter will tell. Postpump currently set to 30 seconds.

For this model, they specify that the closely spaced tees should be no more than 12" apart; my contractor placed them 5" apart. They further specified that the significant piping should be at least 1" in diameter; my contractor said they got better results with 1 1/4", so that is what they used for the primary loop and the secondary loop up to the circulators, and for the section where the return pipes come together to enter the return tee.

Supply House Rick

If your post is not just a typing problem, then the best way to get return temperatures greater than the supply temperatures is to have the sensors wired backwards; i.e., on connector P14, hooking the supply sensor to Pins 2 and 3 and the return sensor to pins 1 and 2. Supply and Return in the W-M manual refer to supply to the house, and return from the house. If you think in terms of the boiler (e.g., supply to the boiler and return from the boiler), you will get these indications wrong and you will confuse the U-control.

Supply House Rick

Pressure relief valve...

1.) I do not see the pressure relief valve that W-M say should be in the supply line as soon as it exits the boiler. Omitting a thing like this (unless it is hidden in your picture) will not cause any problem until the U-control board fails and leaves the heat on. Then the whole thing can explode.

2.) I assume the green Taco circulators (I hope those are IFC model because there does not appear to be any flow controls) at the right go to four zones, and the black one at the bottom is the one for the boiler loop. Is the one next to the Taco control box for another zone, or DHW?

3.) It really does not look to be set up for primary/secondary, because there appear to be no closely spaced tees.

Athomco

AmyL - Program/Piping

The Ultra Series boilers piping is critical in the performance and lockout problems.  The primary loop or close boiler piping lets the boiler breath and creates a bypass for water to be circulated through the boiler at all time of operation. If you do not read the installtion manual and follow the piping diagrams you will fail.  As far as the GPM on the pumps, the primary boiler pump whic is included with the boiler is engineered to operate the boiler correctly.  Anything outside the primary loop is secondary.  if your using zone valves on your system system that's a different problem but circulators on the secondary loop work on thier own. If your experiencing lockouts most of the time its a flow issue.  The new Strap on sensors send the info back to the module instantly and can cause some lockouts.  If you have not updated your module you should do so. The programming of the module is key by increasing post purge running of the system can help over come some piping issues. Have your contractor call Weil-McLain to check the software on the module.

Jett

U 155 Outdoor temp is off

Hi - I have an Ultra 155 installed last year with an outdoor temp sensor. The control unit show a temp of 80 degrees + eventhough it is under 48 degrees outside (it's like the oudoor sensor is busted or not calibrated) This is resulting in low 120 degree water temps from the boiler when instead the boiler should be cranking out 150+ degree temps. MY QUESTION - Is there a way to recalibrate my outdoor Sensor so the boiler picks up the correct outdoor temp? Or is my sensor just busted? Thanks - Jett

kcopp

Is that....

120F heating your house? That may be all it needs. What do you have for emitters? Baseboard, radiators,radiant floor? You can go into the menu and tweak the settings. The sensor is just a sensor...it does not control the temps, just tells the board what the temp. outside is.

Jean-David Beyer

Is there a way to recalibrate my outdoor Sensor so the boiler picks up the correct outdoor temp?

I have an Ultra 3 80,000 BTU/hr model from 2009. I use outdoor reset and it works fine. The outdoor sensor does not agree exactly with the outdoor temperature: it reads about 3 degrees high. The front panel has a way you can add an offset to calibrate this. The setup instructions in the Installation manual give instructions on how to do this. Now the actual error, compared with a laboratory mercury thermometer that can be read to 1/4F varies with temperature, so you can make it correct at only one temperature. But that should be good enough.



If your sensor reads 80F when it is 48F, though, I would assume your sensor is broken, or that your wiring is defective. If you use thermostat wire to connect the sensor to the boiler, it should be 18 gauge wire or heavier, especially if it is very long.



Another possibility is that the sensor was connected after the boiler was powered on. The Ucontrol checks if the sensor is connected only at power up, so if it was not there at power up, it assumes a default outdoor temperature and disables WWSD.

Billy_Mastroni

Ultra series 3 lock out return>supply

i have the series 3 with U control. it keeps locking out on return>supply... i have done everything i could possibly do to fix this problem. i have contacted the factory and i only got half **** help cause of the holiday!!!1 i don't know what to do and i'm freezing  so could someone tell me what to do i NEED HELP!!!! call me my number is 2156512529

please help!!!

vdirico

Anyone still following this thread? I asked WM (via web; "supply to fast" lockouts on an ultra 105 ~ every 4 - 5 days; installed ~ 2009) and got this back. Any thoughts? thanks Vinny


Thank you for your inquiry.

With this boiler being a propane boiler, if it hasn’t had a cleaning in the 1-3 yrs., it will need to be cleaned. Ultra boilers are aluminum and burn very dirty. There is a maintenance kit that has new gaskets and ignitors for your contractor to install once it has been cleaned. Normally if the supply to fast shows up or temp rise to fast, that is due to a bad/failing circulating pump. I have attached the Error Code booklet for you to review. Weil-McLain has Tech Support that will gladly troubleshoot with your contractor to get this resolved for you. Have him call 800/526-6636. If you call, they will not work with you, they need to work with your contractor only.

Thank you for contacting Weil-McLain.

vdirico

I pushed back on WM, asked if my unit was shipped with the bad controller board. Just got a call (from WM) she said: 1) there never was an issue with the controllers 2) controllers wear out and "yours is ~ 7 years old so it is getting close to time to replace it". Good god!