Lochinvar KHN-199 anyone seen this screen before. Any Ideas?

acruxksa

I woke up to luke warm water this morning and was greeted with the video below on my Lochinvar KHN199. No combination of button pushes would get it out of this loop, so I was forced to cycle the power. After a power cycle, everything is running normally again. I've seen this screen a total of 3 times now in the past 2 months.

Any Lochinvar specialists out there that can clue me into what I'm looking at. The boiler installation is only 6 months old and I've already had to have the blower replaced. Yes it was warrantied, but the labor is not, so I'm starting to get that mouth puckering lemon feeling........

https://youtu.be/yQCV98Gwb-c

delta T

KHN199? that's a really big boiler, how many square feet are you heating?

The display seems to me to be a control board problem, possibly a dud, but if you have already had to replace the inducer, I wonder if there is something else at play. I have yet to have a lemon inducer on a Lochinvar. In fact the only lemon I've ever had on a Lochinvar was 7 years ago, on a commercial boiler, and it was a loose connection in the wiring harness. Sales rep found the problem and replaced the whole wiring harness.

As the inducer is controlled by the board, it is possible that the inducer was fine and the problem was with the board.....

Tinman

I've never seen that display on a KHN either and don't remember seeing it in any of the manuals either. Most reputable contractors offer a 1 year labor warranty on installations. What's up with that?

acruxksa

delta T said:

KHN199? that's a really big boiler, how many square feet are you heating?

The display seems to me to be a control board problem, possibly a dud, but if you have already had to replace the inducer, I wonder if there is something else at play. I have yet to have a lemon inducer on a Lochinvar. In fact the only lemon I've ever had on a Lochinvar was 7 years ago, on a commercial boiler, and it was a loose connection in the wiring harness. Sales rep found the problem and replaced the whole wiring harness.

As the inducer is controlled by the board, it is possible that the inducer was fine and the problem was with the board.....

It's a 6,000 sq. ft. house. Built in 2007. Definitely way to large 7 months a year, but design temp up here is -18f so I'm guessing it would be appropriate for those few days we see -18f. (not very common anymore). I'm not really liking the setup though and truly believe it's about %25 too large even for design day.

The blower (or inducer which I'm guessing is the proper term ) was replaced for a mechanical issue, there is a small plastic cooling fan on the end of it that literally disintegrated, so I'm assuming they weren't related but maybe the inducer failure caused another issue. The inducer was replaced the end of January and this issue didn't start popping up until mid-late Feb.

Stephen Minnich said:

I've never seen that display on a KHN either and don't remember seeing it in any of the manuals either. Most reputable contractors offer a 1 year labor warranty on installations. What's up with that?

That is the question isn't it. The boiler was installed by the previous homeowner (actually they paid for the company I use for service to install it) because the previous boiler (munchkin) failed home inspection/service prior to us purchasing the house.

I've been using the same company for service that installed the Lochinvar. I'm not ever really sure it's a new boiler to be honest, but I guess I will have to call them and discuss the labor part of the 1yr warranty.

acruxksa

When I try to use Lochinvar's Service Contractor Locator page, I get an error. Anchorage, AK 99507 search for boiler contractor within 100 miles gives the error below.

nicholas bonham-carter

Modern heating
equipment is very sensitive to the quality of electric power, as in bad neutral or ground connections.
I would download the installation instructions, and doublecheck that all the requirements are met, so you can guide an inexperienced tech, (if you are stuck with one), in his diagnosis.
Inducer fans can fail from the exhaust being sucked back into the intake, if the pipes are too close.—NBC

lchmb

Most companies honor the original purchaser only..least in my area. Has anyone contacted tech support while on site?

acruxksa

nicholas bonham-carter said:

Modern heating
equipment is very sensitive to the quality of electric power, as in bad neutral or ground connections.
I would download the installation instructions, and doublecheck that all the requirements are met, so you can guide an inexperienced tech, (if you are stuck with one), in his diagnosis.
Inducer fans can fail from the exhaust being sucked back into the intake, if the pipes are too close.—NBC

I'll look into the power connections/requirements. As for the inducer fan, it wasn't the fan itself that was faulty, it was the small black plastic cooling fan on the outside of the inducer that broke off and ground itself into pieces.



Even though it appeared to be about a $1 part, it required a whole new fan assembly.

lchmb said:

Most companies honor the original purchaser only..least in my area. Has anyone contacted tech support while on site?

Yes, my service tech called their tech support when he was trying to troubleshoot the issue where when the boiler gets done with a dhw call, it dumps 170f water into the heating loop that because of outdoor reset only requires 100f water. (Currently the only time this doesn't happen is when 3 or more of the 7 zones are calling for heat). This sends system temps beyond the 20 differential and the boiler shuts down with either a set point met or an anti-cycle, regardless of whether there is actually a heating call or not. We were hoping for a setting that would keep the dhw pump running for a minute or two after the DHW call was finished to equalize temps more quickly, but lochinvar tech was of no help and nothing seems to stop the issue.

In any case, I believe you are correct about the original purchaser thing...sad really since we're actually the only ones who've ever lived in the house with the new boiler.

Sadly, I believe I'm going to have to have another service call for this issue. However, it seems kind of pointless when I can't duplicate it and only have a video. It happens infrequently enough to make it very difficult to troubleshoot. Meaning $$$$

DZoro

Looks like the board gets stuck in start up mode. Unless power is shutting down and starting back up. Would have to have a meter on the power coming in at the time this is happening...
D

acruxksa

> @DZoro said:
> Looks like the board gets stuck in start up mode. Unless power is shutting down and starting back up. Would have to have a meter on the power coming in at the time this is happening...
> D

Thanks. Pretty much confirms my thoughts. Nearly impossible to troubleshoot when it only happens every couple weeks or so. Never happened the first 4 months after the boiler was installed though. House power has not had any issues over the past 6 months.

Its doesn't seem to be startup mode though, because when I cycle the power after one of these incidents, if starts up just fine and you never see this comm/USB screen during a startup after a power cycle.

ratio

Looks like a firmware update screen of some type, it appears to be asking for a USB flash drive. Is there a USB port anywhere that you could see? There might be some dist/dirt in there that's making the µC think there's something attached.

acruxksa

Yes, It's got a USB-A connector on the top right left and a USB-B connector right below it. Both are covered with plastic plugs. I'll pull the plugs and blow any dust/dirt out of there when I get home in a couple days. Just left for a 4 day trip this morning.