Carlin EZ Oil Burner issue with Generator

bmics

My Oil burner with Carlin EZ electronic control module seems to be having problems with running on generator power. It keeps shutting off and won't completely fire up the burner. I called the boiler manufacturer and was told the generator is not producing clean power to the control module on the boiler hence why it is shutting off.
Is there anything I can do to stop this from happening so the boiler can run on generator power without any issues. (Note: I have a briggs and Stratton 8000kw gen). Please help.. Thank you

Leonard

Just a GUESS.... make sure gen's neutral and ground are bonded together,and ground wire is brought to furnace and connected to it. I had similar problem with some other piece of equipment (not heating equipment).

If gen is properly wired to house's power panel thru a transfer switch or interlock this bond likely would occur inside it. But if some homeowner/dub wired directly to furnace it might not be so.
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Brigss likley makes a reasonably good sine wave , could have a little distortion (THD), but I'm GUESSING not too bad.
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Measure gen voltage and Hz. People crank up gen rpm to help start BIG motor loads. HomeDepot $25 kill-a-watt meter is commonly used to measure these things. Hz is directly porportional to gen rpm. Typically cheap modern gens have 2 pole genheads that wants 3600 rpm, more rare/expensive older 4 pole ones wants a quiter 1800 rpm, Onan.

On cheaper gens without a real AC voltage reg the voltage also rises proportional to rpm. So high rpm= high voltage

Jamie Hall

The Carlin folks are correct. You need very clean power to run the unit. A pure sine wave uninterruptible power supply will do nicely.

Leonard

I have bunch of APC 1000 VA computer UPS, they output a semi-square wave with a VERY high 15% THD. Don't want to use them, that's a very crappy "sine" wave for sensitive electronics.
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For selecting next gen.....

Genheads come in cheapie and better designed versions. Better designed versions have less THD. Has to do with pattern of windings in stator and rotor laminations.

I would guess box store Briggs falls in the cheap catagory, Onan gens in the hi-end catagory.

I got a 7kw NHM Onan gen that came from an RV, they are not CHEAP, guessing $2000+ new. But mine was used so got it for $200 and cleaned carb and replaced it's dead $250 Ac voltage reg. Runs like new now, RV gens typically have low hours. I re-connected it's windings to output 120/240 from 120 only, so I can run house as I normally do.

If gen's voltage and hz are good then, If you know someone with a voltage meter that has THD function you can measure gen's THD. Compare it to what manufacturer recommends. This is just my reasonable GUESS to track down the problem.

Leonard

I think most computer UPS output a semi-square wave, So I would not use them to clean up gen power. They likely will make it worst. Unless they say they output a pure sine wave

Jamie Hall

Leonard said:

I think most computer UPS output a semi-square wave, So I would not use them to clean up gen power. They likely will make it worst. Unless they say they output a pure sine wave

Most are semi-square. Pure sine wave ones are available. They're more expensive (surprise, surprise...). DJs and sound studios use them.

clammy

I ve seen a small resister load used to even the generators voltage and Hrtz . It was done on a older triangle tube home owner never had a issue since looked like a simple ballast resistor to in parallel wiring . I also seen people use a simple quartz heater to add a small load to the generator and that cleaned the power up enough to stop the control issues . These where not the top end generators they where cheap gasoline units . The triangle tube was using utility supplied electric sublimated with electric solar and a back up generator they did have battery back ups and some inverter equipment which may have been causing the issue .i don’t know if it was the last boiler installer who installed the resister . . Peace and good luck clammy

Jamie Hall

Oh yes -- a good resistance load will do wonders for an inexpensive generator. I expect on a small one even a couple of 100 watt bulbs (real bulbs, not LEDs or something) might work.

bmics

Thank you all for your response and recommendation on this issue.. the gen is wired to a Reliance transfer switch...
Everything else (Fridge and lights) wired to the transfer box works well except the heating system which indicates wiring and et all is fine.
All issues seems to point to the current produced from the gen..
I will get Pure Sinwave UPS system and connect the burner to it, also get a resister.

I was also told if I switch out the electronic module on the burner to a non electronic one it should work well.. (Not doing that).
My electrician mentioned that getting an inverter gen or full house gen will solve the issue


Thank you all. I will keep you posted.

turtmaster

Bmics, would you mind please posting a picture and model number of the generator? I have access to a lot of generators (20+), and I do have an oscilloscope, so I can give you an idea of how clean the power is from the generator, so I might actually have an identical generator to test, the power cleanliness,
before you bother going and getting a backup power supply.

Have you by any chance, checked what the voltage and hz coming from the generator? If above about, ~125v-128v, it may be a problem too , if too high, not just the cleanliness of the power.
And depending on the way they designed the controller, frequency might also be a problem as well.

-Joe

Leonard

Some cheapie gens have spikes on output. Adding a couple light bulbs sometimes loads down the spikes enough to make them disappear and allow meters to read hz properly. If have to put a 1.5kw space heater on gen to quite the spikes, then it will cost you in gasoline.

Guys on a generator site I'm on asked for model # of your Carlin controls. Could you please post that for us?

Also exactly what is the controls doing wrong? I assume controls let burner fire up, then shut burner off after some number of seconds. ( fire safty)


My and their 1-st GUESS is your controls use flame rectification to sense if burner fires. If you don't have electrical bond (connection) between gen neutral and ground then your controls will not sense the fire and shut off burner. IIRC I ran into that on a large Carrier HVAC

Jamie Hall

Hadn't thought of that wiggle, @Leonard -- but that would surely do it. However... if your generator isn't properly grounded, why not????

Leonard

In gen from factory there is almost certainly a bond. Believe it's a NEC code requirement. If a used gen who knows how the previous owner modified it, unless you inspect it.

NEC code requires there be only ONE one ground/neutral bond in a system. Usually it's in house circuit breaker panel. Previous owner may have opened bond in gen to comply with that requirement, instead of getting $$$ transfer switch that also switches the neutral.

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But lot of DIY people cut off ground prong of extension cords, So depend on how power is brought to furnace (direct extension cord) there may be no bond between furnace frame (ground) and power neutral.

I've seen many houses with no ground wires or ground wires cut off at the outlet or appliance.... DIY 'ers

Jamie Hall

NEC? Whazzat? More seriously, there's a reason the ground is there, folks... Furthermore, has anyone (besides me) noticed that the ground prong of a three prong plug is made so it makes contact first? There's a reason for that, too. Also for the rule that there are no switches or disconnects (fuses or circuit breakers) in either the neutral or ground.

STEVEusaPA

The transfer switch gets grounded/grounding rod. All panels/sub panels get bonded.

Leonard

Regarding original question of Carlin controls not working on gen power....... not code but as a temporary test I'ld .....at furnace try jumpering 120V power neutral to furnace frame/ground terminal. See if that solves the problem. If not then I'm GUESSING problem is poorly designed Carlin electronics and gen power quality issue ( spikes, THD, hz, or voltage issue.)

Might try adding couple incandescent light bulbs ( maybe space heater ) to load down gen. Sometimes it can load down weak gen spikes and make them disappear so hz meters work properly. Might? work for your Carlin electronics... maybe.

But first things first, I'lf check gen voltage and hz...that's real basic.

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STEAVEusaPA....... Smart Gen people say it's against NEC code to have more than 1 neutral to ground wire bond in a system ( ei ~ house ).

Usually Main breaker panel (sometimes meter box) has this bond, so sub-panels off main breaker panel can't have one (and meet code).

This is why have to run 4 (not 3) wires from main breaker panel to supply 120/240 VAC house sub-panels (2 hots, neutral , and ground wire).

Believe code says can connect as many ground rods to ground wire as you like, but ground wire must still be eventually connected all way back to ~ main breaker box.

Kjmass1

If you are looking for an affordable pure sine wave genny, I like my Briggs and Stratton q6500 if you can get under 5000w/6500w peak. Can find it for around $1000 at Home Depot on Black Friday. Comparable Honda is $4k+. Quiet.

https://www.briggsandstratton.com/na/en_us/product-catalog/generators/portable-generators/q6500-quietpower-series-inverter-generator.html

STEVEusaPA

Leonard said:

...STEAVEusaPA....... Smart Gen people say it's against NEC code to have more than 1 neutral to ground wire bond in a system ( ei ~ house )...

That’s not what I said.

Leonard

Jamie Hall said:

NEC? ....... There's a reason for that, too. Also for the rule that there are no switches or disconnects (fuses or circuit breakers) in either the neutral or ground.

I hear what your saying, Generally true and good idea, but I've heard of one exception...

Some gens have a neutral/frame( ground) connection (bond) that can NOT be opened (ie. old RV Onan 6.5 kw NH gen, it's power neutral carbon brush is held by bare metal bracket bolted to frame of gen).

To use gens like this with houses they use whole house transfer switch that ALSO switch the neutral $$$$. This way at any time there is only ONE ACTIVE neutral/ground bond , smart guys on that gen website claim this passes NEC code.

Leonard

From gen site I'm on, guy posted this about heating equipment problems on gen power.

"My observations on this are that lots of electronics have difficulties with single cylinder non inverter generators. It has to do with the non-symmetrical shape of the sinewaves. As the piston is moving through the 4 cycle process of 2 rotations it speeds up and slows down which affects the slope of the waveform so that it is not a true sinewave , they have a 1-2 cadence which repeats. It seems to be less prevalent in multi cylinder generators.

Boiler controls seem particularly fussy. We had one boiler out of 4 with Fyreye flame detection systems which would run fine on utility also on our 1.3MW MTU gens but would crap out on our 240Kw Cummins gen , go figure."

(above is from post #31 of) -----> https://www.smokstak.com/forum/threads/some-oil-burner-furnace-electronics-have-trouble-with-un-clean-gen-power.198835/
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Lot of Onan RV gens are 2 cylinder and can be had for <$500 used, with low hours They last forever unlike box store gens. I have an Onan, I love it, 1800 rpm and QUITE, not a 3600 rpm screamer, but have not run my furnace on it yet.

bmics

@Leonard
here is picture of the burner control and gen

Picture of Gen

Thank you all, reading all the recommendations makes me feel like I am closer to a resolution.

Leonard said:

Some cheapie gens have spikes on output. Adding a couple light bulbs sometimes loads down the spikes enough to make them disappear and allow meters to read hz properly. If have to put a 1.5kw space heater on gen to quite the spikes, then it will cost you in gasoline.

Guys on a generator site I'm on asked for model # of your Carlin controls. Could you please post that for us?

Also exactly what is the controls doing wrong? I assume controls let burner fire up, then shut burner off after some number of seconds. ( fire safty)


My and their 1-st GUESS is your controls use flame rectification to sense if burner fires. If you don't have electrical bond (connection) between gen neutral and ground then your controls will not sense the fire and shut off burner. IIRC I ran into that on a large Carrier HVAC

Leonard

I've not a heating guy and unfamiliar with that furnace control. If you can post it's model # I have a BSEE on gen site that is interested in that # so he can look into it's circuit and why it has problems on gen power.

There has been a few more posts/ideas on the gen site about your problem. You might want to read them. https://www.smokstak.com/forum/threads/some-oil-burner-furnace-electronics-have-trouble-with-un-clean-gen-power.198835/


One proposed solution involves an electronic filter on powerline. But of course it would have to be tested with your controls. Another involves surge suppressors , but read the gen site FIRST!!!

For the immediate term likely fastest solution if your house is cold as an expert here said get a good 120VAC to 120VAC sine wave inverter. But you'ld still have to test if it's clean enough to fix your problem (keep the receipt).

For what it's worth I once came home and found my controller dead and house cold. I connected 120VAC power cords to burner and circulator. I manually plugged and unplugged them to 120VAC as I watched boiler temp gauge. I was the controller.

If you have FHW and a valve in line maybe do same but close valve a bit to throttle circulator flow so boiler doesn't get too cool and condense exhaust (rust issue). That way can run burner till house is warm, and maybe not have to watch temp gauge as much

Long term I'ld replace controls with something less sensitive to power quality issues.

My view point is if an item doesn't work under all conditions it's likely to see then it's poorly designed junk. But I design military equipment, "maybe it'll work sometimes" is not tolerated there.

BTW there are better gens out there. My Onan 7kw NHM has an AC voltage regulator, is 2 cylinder, and is a quite 1800 rpm , yours is a loud 3600 rpm. I assume you paid ~ $700 for your gen, I paid $200 for mine and replaced the $250 AC voltage reg, gen works now. I looked what my gen went for new....... it would be ~ $7000 in todays dollars .Lot of cheap used Onan gens out there with low hours... just something to think about. That gen site has a lot of Onan experts on it to help you get them running.......

Usually old gens of all types just need carb cleaned, pretty easy to do. Typical ethanol gasoline issue when people don;t use gas stabilizer. Ethanol crudys and plugs up carb if it sits unrun for months

turtmaster

Just my opinion, but I don't think that specific generator would produce "too dirty" of power, if you can, go to either Menards or Home Depot, and buy one of those kil-a-watt power meters, for about $20-25,

either that or if you have or can borrow a multimeter that measures both voltage and Hertz,

I'm almost thinking that the generators speed / frequency is either a bit too high or low, either that or maybe the voltage too high, and that might be causing the controller to think that it shouldn't run, or that it's just a really really crappy design, of controller,

And about a using a computer UPS, it has to be one of the very expensive styles that are called "online" / double conversion, Style, meaning it continuously converts line power down to battery voltage and then back up to line voltage, and the one that will work for your burner like that, he's probably a few hundred dollars new, at least,
a standard backup power supply, even if it's a pure sine wave, will not clean up the power, unless it's running on battery,

In my opinion, In the end the cheapest, and best fix, would probably be to change over to a different manufacturer of controller.

Jamie Hall

On the subject, sort of... it's interesting to see what's done with the power supplies of top end audio equipment (up there in the golden ears class!). And illustrative of why we don't see it in almost any other commercial equipment. First off, the basic idea is that everything is converted to direct current -- but they really do mean direct current. This involves massive (in the true sense of the word -- these things are heavy) power transformers. They are designed -- quite intentionally -- to get rid of any current at frequencies much over 80 hertz; not only voltage transformers, then, but very effective chokes. Then that resulting power at whatever primary voltage is handy is fed through a full wave rectifier into a series of capacitors (also giant economy size) and voltage regulating circuits and more capacitors and resistors. The setup is wildly overdesigned -- it is not at all unusual for such a power supply to be able to deliver 5 to 10 times its rated power for short durations (several seconds) without significant voltage drop. The power supplies are heavy, expensive, and take up a lot of room.

It's not at all unusual in other applications for the filters to be missing more or less completely, and the rectified DC (from a light transformer -- no choke) to be chopped and fed to a lonely capacitor, hopefully at a frequency high enough that the capacitor can smooth out the ripples. Much simpler and cheaper. But not anywhere near good enough for real high fidelity.

Leonard

Here's a link to kill-a-watt meter I and all the guys on gen site use. checking gen voltage and hz is what I would do FIRST, measure, don't assume.
Typically want hz to be 60 hz ~ plus 1-2 hz at no-load and minus 1-2 hz at full load. Hair driers and space heaters quickly get you to full load. post your results.

https://www.amazon.com/P3-P4400-Electricity-Usage-Monitor/dp/B00009MDBU/ref=sr_1_1?hvadid=78615135411581&hvbmt=be&hvdev=c&hvqmt=e&keywords=kill-a-watt+meter&qid=1581818111&sr=8-1

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In my opinion there is no excuse for furnace controller being sensitive to power quality.... sounds like it's just a piece of poorly designed junk. I assume your gen is not making crummy power quality.

But yours doesn't look like a high end gen. For economy many cheap gens use a capacitor to somewhat regulate voltage instead of a real AC voltage reg. I've read gens with cap regs can have power issues, spikes and stuff. And poor voltage regulation as increase the load.

As I said try adding a couple incandescent light bulbs ( maybe space heater) on gen, sometimes they load down and make weak spikes disappear. works for hz meters.
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If go with UPS .....Yes you need a double conversion inverter (UPS). Many UPS just have a relay that feeds input 120VAC straight thru to output when utility power is on, (doesn't run inverter).

Problem is might be cheaper to replace heating controller than buy a double conversion UPS. Double conversion UPS are more rare and pricey.

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audio equipment ......Yes, Pretty much everything except the light bulbs run on real DC, at a FIXED voltage. They use linear power supplies instead of switchers to keep audio noise low. But with furnace controllers using microprocessors they will also run on DC. however they may use a switching power supply to power them

High end audio equipment is designed right, just like the military equipment I design, as opposed to poorly designed cheap junk

Leonard

Interesting item was posted on gen site last night. Capacitor regulated gens can make dirty power if load is reactive. Basically means if load power factor (PF) is low. (kill-a-watt meter can measure PF.)

One example of a reactive load is a switching power supply. Resistor loads like incandescent lights, space heaters ( PF=1.0) are easy for a gen. Inductors, transformers and capacitors are examples of Reactive loads where PF = < 1.0, worst case PF=0.

Reactive loads mean current sine wave is NOT phase with voltage sine wave, can be shifted up to 90 degs out of phase before or after voltage. Mathematically PF= cosine( phase shift angle)

Interesting thing is if add a large enough resistive load (heater) to a low PF load (reactive load) the result can be resistive load dominates and PF comes back closer to 1.0. Might make cap reg gen happier and power cleaner. Burns more gasoline though.

ChrisJ

@Leonard All high powered car audio uses switchers and they're becoming more and more popular in home audio. They aren't a problem if designed correctly.

That's why I have a hard time why anything that is clearly DC has a problem with AC that's off frequency or that doesn't have a perfect sinewave. It really shouldn't matter at all if the piece of equipment is designed right. No?

bmics

@Leonard the model of the controller is Carlin EZ Pro EZ-1HPW the burner motor model p98022 "Carlin E205638

Leonard

In an ideal world running on good clean DC should make it immune to AC power quality.

However real world commercial power supply designs are NOT ideal . Lot of technical compromises are made in commercial products to cut costs everywhere. Result is you get unexpected problems , sensitivitys, and failures.

Military stuff I designed didn't make compromises, it just WORKED , ALL the time. Commercial market is NOT the same.
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Example: When I installed my alarm panel in my house it was rated to supply 12VDC @ 1.5 amps to auxiliary loads ( motion and smoke detectors, etc). DSC was a leading alarm co, that I've seen in banks.

So I added a 1.5 amp resistive load and tested it. Heat sink on LM317 voltage regulator was VERY HOT. So I put a thermocouple on it, was ~ 245 deg F. That meant die "junction" temp was ~ 300 degs, reg specs said die MUST be limited to ~ 180 degs. (180 max is common for many semiconductors)

I called alarm's engineering dept and chatted. Next year I noticed that panel was now only rated at 1/4 amp ( 6 times less than previously). Looked like heat sink was the same

I know electronics, for my panel I modified it and used a MUCH larger heat sink and larger LM317 package (TO-3 instead of TO-220), runs cool now.

Can't assume anything!!! Have to TEST it before you can say it WILL work.

Jamie Hall

ChrisJ said:

@Leonard All high powered car audio uses switchers and they're becoming more and more popular in home audio. They aren't a problem if designed correctly.



That's why I have a hard time why anything that is clearly DC has a problem with AC that's off frequency or that doesn't have a perfect sinewave. It really shouldn't matter at all if the piece of equipment is designed right. No?

Quite true. If the power supply is designed and built right, one can feed it some pretty horrible junk and get away with it. But that is one huge "if". Switching power supplies can be made to deliver pure DC just fine -- but again, someone has to put in the expensive components (big caps, chokes, zeners as Leonard mentioned) to do it. The one thing you don't have to worry about is that pesky 60 hz (or 120 hz from full wave rectifiers) hum, so the design can look very different. Quite a number of the really powerful car amplifiers, though, are Class D -- which are pretty indifferent to the quality of the power supply, but have an interesting array of other problems...

@Leonard 's Marantz is one really good amp.

Leonard

I got Marantz since it had most sensitive FM tuner on the market. Only one other very expensive manufacturer had a slightly better tuner.

I liked music played by a FM station ~ 120 miles away. Marantz was only one that could bring it in. Turner was very sensitive and could reject adjacent strong stations very well. Sounded better thru Koss Pro 4AA headphones than JBL 100 speakers. But that's typical, less air to move with headphones.

Bonus that amp distortion is way down at ~ .01% ? IIRC.

Some of those powerful car amps have VERY HIGH distortion of ~ 1.0% at rated output wattage. It's a cheap trick to get high wattage specs out of a low power amp. As is only requiring amp to do so for <1 minute as components start to overheat instead of a continuous rating

Jamie Hall

All true, @Leonard ! On amps -- my main rig is a Dynaco/Haffler PAT4 (needs replacement caps in the low level/phono power supply.. someday) driving an AudioSource Amp 3 -- but once in a while I fire up the Harman Kardon A50K I built back in 1962. I love the sound -- but getting output tubes for it is almost impossible.

Leonard

When you replace the caps might be good to look for ones with low ESR (equivalent series resistance) . They likely will makes less ripple on output voltage.

I've also had to replace caps in things, they make poor quality caps these days. Got several TV converter boxes (digital ATSC to old analog NTSC), after few years they died. Opened it up and caps ends were bulging. Makes it easy to troubleshoot.

Other time Bose amp in wife's new 91 Chevy Caprice died. Amp was at top of trunk. Turned out they used ~ 60deg C caps instead of ~ 90 deg caps. Was hot in trunk in summer sun. All the caps died. Went to junk yard and found a Ford JBL amp, molded up a connector using bondo and hooked it up. Easier and sounded better.

ChrisJ

What model Maranty @Leonard ?

The best FM I ever had was a Fisher FM-200 with the external MPX-60 using a roof yagi on a rotor. Nothing else seemed to have the selectivity that did. I could clearly get 103.5. 103.9 104.3 without any overlap from the same direction. The furthest station I was able to get in clear stereo was 150 miles +-

The FM-200 was an early 60s mono tuner.
The next one was a late 70s Yamaha CT-81

Leonard

Marantz 2238B

I'm on a hill top, as a kid I put in 20 element Channel master VHF/FM antenna and rotor. That's how I got RI from NH, at night. WPRO ~ 92.3 ? mhz. Station came in fairly weak. Later found, fixed ,and put up a yagi for FM

At time think only Macintosh had better FM tuner , but it was like 3X more and I was at my price limit. Back when Tech-HiFi was around.

Only few years ago I finally got the JBL 100's. Craigslist , some BSEE was selling them cheap, he had better speakers and wasn't using them.

JBL100 sound GREAT, can close your eyes and sounds like a saxophone is playing right in front of you. You don;t hear the sound coming from speaker's direction. And sound is crystal clear, no speaker distortion or coloring what so ever. 100's were used in recording studios as monitors. I play alto saxophone so I know what it should sound like, and it DOES.

ChrisJ

> @Leonard said:
> Marantz 2238B
>
> I'm on a hill top, as a kid I put in 20 element Channel master VHF antenna and rotor. That's how I get RI from NH
>
> At time think only Macintosh had better FM tuner , but it was like 3X more and I was at my price limit. Back when Tech-HiFi was around.
>
> Only few years ago I finally got the JBL 100's. Craigslist , some BSEE was selling them cheap, he had better speakers and wasn't using them.
>
> JBLs sound GREAT, can close your eyes and sounds like a saxophone is playing right in front of you. You don;t hear the sound coming from speaker's direction. And the sound is crystal clear, no distortion what so ever. 100's were used in recording studios as monitors. I play alto saxophone

It's rated 1.9 microvolts. Most pioneers from then were both more sensitive and had better selectivity.

One of my favorites was the pioneer QX949a.

Marantz was good but really nothing special after Saul sold it in the mid 60s.

ChrisJ

We are WAY off topic.

We need to get back to the OPs issue and my opinion is telling him his new generator isn't good enough isn't a good enough answer. There has to be an easy work around.

My boiler with flame rectification works just fine on a cheap Coleman 4kw single cylinder generator from 1992.

Leonard

Bought my Marantz about ~1975
Tech HiFi store had a room full of all brands of receivers, I tried them all, they had EVERYTHING. Marantz was only one that pulled in that RI station well, at least where I was. Think? I tried Pioneer too. I was in the middle room, top of the line room was small and was way out of my price by 2-4X more than the Marantz.

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Doesn't sound like OP has done any testing yet, has not posted any results.

My first guess is somehow OP set up transfer switch so that it opens neutral to ground bond that flame rectification needs to work. Like I said test it, at furnace put jumper between neutral and furnace ground terminal. Makes me wonder if flame rectification modual instructions say to ground it to furnace frame, and it isn't. Maybe on utility power it's using N/G bond in breaker panel.

2nd guess is test gen voltage and HZ with a kill-a-watt meter

Need to check the basics first.

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Believe cheap Coleman 4kw 1 cylinder gen uses a cap for voltage reg. OP might try shutting off everything else in house and see if furnace works on gen power. OP might have a reactive load someplace that is making gen make crummy power quality.

Oil end bearing of genhead in Coleman. Otherwise can bind, heat up, and melt plastic end bell, then it's junk.

ChrisJ

> @Leonard said:
> Doesn't sound like OP has done any testing yet, has not posted any results.
>
> My first guess is somehow OP set up transfer switch so that it opens neutral to ground bond that flame rectification needs to work. Like I said test it, at furnace put jumper between neutral and furnace ground terminal.
>
> 2nd guess is test gen voltage and HZ with a kill-a-watt meter
>
> Need to check the basics first.

I don't isolate my neutral, never have and the flame rectification works just fine. Not only that, but ground and neutral are bonded at the panel so why would it even matter if the generator isn't grounded? Mine always was, I'm just trying to reason this out.

Leonard

I have no idea how OP installed transfer switch. In many things I've seen DIY and even contractors do a lot of screwy things that are outright wrong. (electrical, plumbing, building structural , etc). Also seen a LOT of DIY jobs where power ground wire was just cut off short rather than connect it to outlet terminal just 4 inches away. I'm a MSME.

So I don't ASSUME anything is done right till I check it. That why I'ld jumper neutral and ground at furnace as a TEST, don't just ASSUME they are connected on gen power. Test it. (flame rectification issue)

Leonard

New idea on how gen spikes might goof up furnace controller.

See posts #64 and 65 of this thread on that gen site.
https://www.smokstak.com/forum/threads/some-oil-burner-furnace-electronics-have-trouble-with-un-clean-gen-power.198835/page-4#post-1650760