Honeywell MCBA

Unknown

here Adam, these fellows are a great bunch who likely have your <A HREF="http://boilerbuff.com/forum/index.php"> answers. </A>.<BR><BR>Dave

adambuild

?

Does anyone have any knowledge of the next generation of the Honeywell MCBA and possible new features? Maybe a more user friendly display and programming, etc.?

Unknown

Try

here Adam, these fellows are a great bunch who likely have your answers. .
You will have to log-in.

Dave

adambuild

?

Anyone else?

Unknown

Adam the MCBA

control is a european Honeywell control with many configurations. It is helpful if the software is available on the control just very tough to get it.

Honeywell is working on a control that I understand will be interfaced with a Taco control not sure when it will be out.

The new Burnham Alpine has the latest MCBA control which I find pretty good have you seen the Alpine?

Jim_88

I went to an Alpine seminar a few weeks ago- the instructor was very good-talked all about installation- but when he said they were swithcout out their MCBA control after the first of the year-that kind of made me nervous about buying one now.

Ross_7

Did he give a reason why?

I like the MCBA, other than giving codes instead of text messages for information. Good reliable control. Is Burnham having trouble with it? Details, please.

Ross

Unknown

MCBA

has served well for a number of years. I believe if my information is correct the reason Burnham may be going to another newer Honeywell control that interfaces with some other controls.

Nothing that I know about that is wrong with MCBA control as it is used on a lot of equipment and also was used in Europe for years.

black_gold

mcba

I visited Burnham's plant a few months ago to check out the Alpine, and they showed me the new controls. I've installed quite a few Freedom boilers and 5 or 6 Alpine's so far and the MCBA works good, no problems, but there is a new generation of controls coming that look very cool. The new controls will be able to do more, and they are supposed to be simpler to use and set up with touch screen displays, full diag., mixing, zoning, multi boiler staging, I don't remember exactly what else they do, but it was impressive - much more powerful than the mcba.

I think the taco part that Tim mentioned was part of something different. They showed off the IQ, which is a control with two parts.
#1. The Boiler Control- where the relay, the aqaustat, and the ignition module are combined onto a single control. They said part of this control has been used by Fulton Boilers for a few years. I've never seen a Fulton, so I'll take their word on this.
#2. The Option Panel, which connects to the Boiler Control. You can plug cards into in like a video game in order to install features like OD reset, aux high limits, low water cut-off, and zoning (the Taco part). This is supposed to come on res. cast iron boilers pretty soon.

The trainer showed off the actual controls and a draft of the manual, so I think they're close. They promised me a call, as soon they are ready so I can try it all out.

JackR

No Trouble

From what I gather Burnham was having no trouble with it, they just couldn't get enough of them. Apparently their sales greatly overshot their forecast. I guess that is a good thing in a round-a-bout way.

Ross_7

Alpine

JD,

Have you installed any Alpines? How are they in action?
How are they to install? I haven't installed one yet. looking forward to it though.
Ross

JackR

I have........

I've installed one so far and have two others in the pipeline. I like them, they are like a Munchkin on steroids. It is the same heat exchanger as HTP but Burnham made a lot of little changes to improve it to me, there is a lot of room in the cabinet for service, the trap is polypropylene with a built in trap, the MCBA control is pretty user friendly and it has a 5 year parts and labor warranty. It seems Burnham paid attention to some of the trouble that haunted HTP. I just bid a job using two 399's and the ability to stack the boilers on top of each other out of the crate makes it a real space saver, the other thing I like is that they use the dual heat exchanger on the 399's instead of one single which is a huge spacer.

black_gold

install advice

Like I've said I've put a few in so far and I really like the stacking feature. This is a biggie for multi-boiler jobs. I also like how roomy and clean the cabinet is, you can get at everything without performing surgery. They aren't necessarily ground-breaking technology, but they are very well-built, and so far they just plain work. Nothing DOA, just open the box, follow the directions, collect your money and proceed to the next job.