I'm sick of my Cyclegard...

KC_Jones

We use something like that on Electronic low water cutoffs in our Evaporative condensers and coolers. We refer to them as stilling chambers. Different application same principal.

vr608

So not only does the Cyclegard cut the burner, it also kills the 24v connection to my thermostat when it engages! I have a couple relays and a transformer for my other two zones at my disposal, I'm assuming there's a way to power the thermostat from one of those until I replace the Cyclegard?

Mark N

What kind of thermostat is it? Doesn't it just use batteries for power?

ChrisJ

vr608 said:

So not only does the Cyclegard cut the burner, it also kills the 24v connection to my thermostat when it engages! I have a couple relays and a transformer for my other two zones at my disposal, I'm assuming there's a way to power the thermostat from one of those until I replace the Cyclegard?

Ah, I guess you've been reading that other thread?
Not sure if all boilers do this, all depends on where the LWCO is in the circuit but it certainly looks like WM and Dunkirk do.

Mark N

The thermostat is in series with a relay on my Burnham. When there is a call for heat the relay picks and a contact in the relay is in the series circuit with the other controls for the gas valve.

vr608

I recently installed a new Honeywell VisionPro with Redlink, which needs the 24v connection. I now get an alert whenever the Cyclegard test is conducted.

vr608

ChrisJ said:

vr608 said:

So not only does the Cyclegard cut the burner, it also kills the 24v connection to my thermostat when it engages! I have a couple relays and a transformer for my other two zones at my disposal, I'm assuming there's a way to power the thermostat from one of those until I replace the Cyclegard?

Ah, I guess you've been reading that other thread?
Not sure if all boilers do this, all depends on where the LWCO is in the circuit but it certainly looks like WM and Dunkirk do.

Funny, I read that other thread a couple days ago and that got me thinking. I happened to be doing some other testing with my remote indoor sensor when I discovered the temperature on the thermostat changed abruptly and I got an alert stating the system was offline. I ran down into the basement and sure enough, Cyclegard had kicked in.

I'm going to wait until the season is over before I replace it with a Safgard, but in the meantime I need to rewire the thermostat, this is absurd.

vr608

Ok, so here is what I'm thinking; the Vision Pro has a jumper between R and Rc. If I remove the jumper and run a 18/2 cable from TT/Com terminals on one of my Taco relays to Rc and C on the tstat, and that would allow me to power it from the relay continuously. Hopefully, the Vision Pro will obey my config settings and assume I don't have a cooling system.

Does this sound like a viable solution?

ChrisJ

Don't know.
Worth a try though, it most likely won't know the difference and the Rc connection is where it pulls power from.

Or you could just get rid of the cyclegard and wire the new LWCO in just before the burner at the end of the circuit.

vr608

Yea, the wiring trick above is just a temporary measure to let me not go crazy until I replace the LWCO in a few months. I don't think the constant power interruption is good for my Redlink network.

I definitely plan on getting rid of Cyclegard once the season is over.

Dave in QCA

I like my dual MMs on my new WM 680. Running Steammaster tablets, I flush every 4-6 weeks with very little mucky water. I have a couple of the old LWCO off the old boiler that I need to get around to selling. One is a 67 used one year and the other is a 47, 35 years old, but with new water valve.

vr608

Yea, probably going to pass on that one @Dave in QCA, I'm iffy on used electronics specifically when it comes to safety.

For now I've wired up my tstat the way I described, and things seem to be fine as-is for the moment. I'll address the LWCO at a future date.

Thanks guys!

ChrisJ

vr608 said:

Yea, probably going to pass on that one @Dave in QCA, I'm iffy on used electronics specifically when it comes to safety.

For now I've wired up my tstat the way I described, and things seem to be fine as-is for the moment. I'll address the LWCO at a future date.

Thanks guys!

The #67 is a mechanical float type, no electronics. It has a copper float that looks like a sex toy hooked to a simple DPDT switch.

vr608

Gotcha. The float kind are probably ok but I'm going to stick with the probe. My goal was to limit the amount of change anyway, and a swap for the Safgard seems like the least amount of work.

ChrisJ

I forgot to mention the #67 is definitely a safe LWCO, probably safer than any probe type.

But you need to open it's drain occasionally to clean it out and this means slightly more makeup water is added to the boiler. You would also likely need to replace your gauge glass hardware to plumb in the MM 67.


Here's a typical MM 67 and also a picture of it's copper float and switch assembly.

Dave in QCA

Yep, that's what I got. Still have the box. Only used one year. Need to get it listed on Ebay.

vr608

ChrisJ said:

I forgot to mention the #67 is definitely a safe LWCO, probably safer than any probe type.

But you need to open it's drain occasionally to clean it out and this means slightly more makeup water is added to the boiler. You would also likely need to replace your gauge glass hardware to plumb in the MM 67.

Sounds like a bit more work to get it installed. What's the extra safety benefit? I would think since they have moving parts float-type LWCOs are inherently more likely to fail.

ChrisJ

vr608 said:

ChrisJ said:

I forgot to mention the #67 is definitely a safe LWCO, probably safer than any probe type.

But you need to open it's drain occasionally to clean it out and this means slightly more makeup water is added to the boiler. You would also likely need to replace your gauge glass hardware to plumb in the MM 67.

Sounds like a bit more work to get it installed. What's the extra safety benefit? I would think since they have moving parts float-type LWCOs are inherently more likely to fail.

I don't know.
The external float setup never needs to shut the system down to test "real" conditions and I'd say there's little chance of it ever failing in the "on" position as long as you drain it from time to time.

If I had to bet on safety on a well maintained system, I'd bet on the MM 67. Only reason I don't have one is I'm anal about makeup water. Probably overly so.

Dave in QCA

Makeup water as a result of lost steam or lost condensate is bad. Makeup water to replace water lost through blow down is not, just as long as the boiler is fired after new water coming in.