Power Flame JR30A-12 locking out frequently

Gregg

I have a Smith 28A steam boiler controlled by a Power Flame JR30A-12 burner. Running on natural gas. Recently, the Honeywell Flame Safeguard Control board is locking out the power flame unit and the boiler will not operate. Once I manually reset the Honeywell board, the boiler fires up fine.

It appears that the burner is not igniting 100% of the time and the cause of the lockout.

Wondering if I should replace the flame rod and pilot assembly? How long do these thypically last? Any other possible casues/suggestions?

Thanks!

NYCLandlord

lets compair notes

Similar to you, we just installed a new Smith 19h with PowerFlame JR something using a honeywell rm7897a1002 controller.  After the first few weeks of going on-line we experienced a few faults that required a simple reset and some lockouts the require setting up.

Some of the faults we got were purge card not found, pilot light fault, but the most consistant (every week) was that the burner controller required "set up".  The best thing we did was to purchase the KEYPAD for this controller.  With it, you can pull the all the fault history, and in our case, the "setup" just requires the password to set the post purge time.

In other words, whenever we get a "setup needed" and it locks-out, we just use the keypad to enter the post purge time and it will run no problems.

Knock on wood, its been 3 wks now and no faults whatsoever.  I wonder if it requires a break-in period?  We also purchased another controller just in case the software is faulty with the existing unit.  Eventhough is still under warrantee, the hassle of getting the plumber to contact powerburner to contact honeywell, etc.. isnt worth the $400 for another controller.

After re-reading your problem, I dont think we are have the same problem.  If you have the keyboard, you can pull the error code and it tells you exactly whats causing the lockout instead for trial and error.

NYCLandlord

spoke too soon

Two days after my post, burner control locked out.  It just needed the reset  button to be pressed.  No fault errors, no "set up  needed", just sitting in PURGE.

I think there ghosts in the controller.