Carlin EZ1 vs Beckett NX

sparkie

Hello everyone.
Question of the day is : Which is the preferred burner if given a choice between NX or EZ1? I welcome all opinions and comments.

billtwocase

EZ1. If you had put it against an AF/AFG, I would go that way. Also depends on application

billtwocase

Funny you ask this sparkie, I was going thru some old files the other day, and came across this. This is for Ice. Back in the 80's when Carlin was promoting the 98 and 99 FRD's. They didn't pan out

Robert O'Brien

Tastes Great/Less Filling? Really a matter of personal choice. Not every burner works equally well in all boilers,some are better marriages than others. The NX works very well in Buderus and Biasi,which we primarily install,so I vote NX!

icesailor

billtwocase said:

Funny you ask this sparkie, I was going thru some old files the other day, and came across this. This is for Ice. Back in the 80's when Carlin was promoting the 98 and 99 FRD's. They didn't pan out

That was the one with that little flipper damper that was supposed to blow open when the motor started (from air pressure) and close when it went away. The problem was that it would stick closed, and then there was no air flow. Then. it plugged up boilers. Carlin wouldn't admit the problem. The solution was to pull the little sheet metal plate out with a pair of needle nosed pliers. Also, someone claimed a patent infringement.

The real problem was that the original Carlin burner manufacturing company that pioneered many innovative designs in combustion technologies was bought out by American Water Works, which was an early Willard M. Romoney type Vulture capitalist investment (but, tear it apart for profit, and sell the carcass) Corporation. AKA: Corporate raiders. AWWC had also bought Ford Products that made water heaters. So they could sell oil burners on their oil fired water heaters. The Expert and experienced employees left Carlin, problems occurred, and the Corporate Cover Up started with that burner. After being sold off for the value of their name and few assets, the company was bankrupted. Along came dale Phelon, who's father had developed the electronic ignition used on 95+% of all small gas engines made in the world. They bought Carlin as a possible outlet for their electronic control devices. The 602000 control was an example.

I installed and serviced old Carlin's that were 1725 RPM motors. Every one was an adjustable head burner. I never ever replaced a Carlin adjustable head burner with a fixed head burner. The first 100 CRD I ever installed was the ultimate. One type and brand of nozzle worked and was specified. 60 degree Semi-Solid Hago nozzles. "CRD", Controlled Retention, Double speed, 3450 RPM motors. Their only problem was their long, hot flame (The kiss of the dragon) needed a long enough chamber. Short chambered boilers were a bad thing. They came out with the "A" tube assembly. The 3" burner tube was a bummer. You couldn't get the tube through the flange. That's what AWWC bought. Then, they dumped the 99 FRD on us.

The EZ-1 is the easiest burner I have ever worked on. Because of the adjustable head. It gives you another dimension for adjustment. Yesterday, where I used to work, the wind was from the South, 15 to 23 MPH gusting to 39 MPH. Try getting a decent combustion setting on a fixed head burner in a almost drafty house with multiple flue chimney's. Today might be 5 to 10 MPH from the NW. Try setting up in that. A fixed head burner came out with different length rods to space a retention head through the fixed throttle ring. An "almost pregnant" idea that didn't work. If you can make the fixed head burner work well in all conditions, and not a EZ-1, you've never worked on one, or your fixed head burner isn't running as well as you think in adverse conditions.

I admit that I never saw or worked on any low NOX burner. After seeing all the problems encountered by techs working on them, and the special training needed to make them work, it wasn't for me. If someone doesn't understand why aircraft have adjustable pitch propellers on piston or Turbine Powered aircraft, or why and how fan jet aircraft fly at 35,000' to 70,000', there is a gap in their understanding on combustion.

icesailor

Robert O'Brien said:

Tastes Great/Less Filling? Really a matter of personal choice. Not every burner works equally well in all boilers,some are better marriages than others. The NX works very well in Buderus and Biasi,which we primarily install,so I vote NX!

It may well do that. I never installed a Biasi. The only Buderus I ever installed, I installed it with a EZ-1. Everything I ever learned and experienced prior to that said that combustion doesn't like cold surfaces. I installed a few H.B. Smith 2000 "Low Set" boilers, without chambers. In the instructions, you were instructed to erect a "Target Wall" in the "2" of refractory pellets" you placed in the bottom of the boiler to reflect heat back into the bottom of the flame. Part of "Flame retention" is that a "tube" of hot exhaust gas is forced back over the emerging flame, to heat the gasses for a better combustion burn. So, if the bottom of a boiler is cold, too much of the returning flame's energy is given up to the bottom and it smokes like a 3 pack per day smoker. Until the return water heats up. Buderus was emphatic that you didn't need any "rug" on the floor. A "Rug" solved the cold smoking problem in any boiler I ever ran into. In fact, I found that the OEM Rug in Weil-McLain WGO boilers, if removed and replaced with a thicker Lynn "Wet Blanket" replacement chamber, cut to fit, gave better numbers that the old rug. All the Buderus boilers I ever saw where I worked had Riello's because that was the preferred burners by all the people that installed Buderus or replaced burners. I wonder how much better the numbers would be if they all had rugs.

OBTW, the Buderus I installed the EZ-1 on that smoked when cold, you could actually watch the oil vapor turn to wet on the cold bottom of the boiler. And as the boiler heated up, you could watch the smoke rise off the floor and join the rest of the smoke until the boiler basically got to over 140 degrees. It completely stopped with a "rug". Riello's, another adjustable head burner didn't seem to have the same problem. How much better would they run with a rug?

Marz

EZ-1 by far. Provided it's not in a Buderus. Funny how they now have a reverse throttle ring in the tube assy. for the Buderus'