Using phone to log boiler cycles

Dave Carpentier

My recipe for poor-man's logger on my CI boiler:

-Old phone that was hanging around (Samsung S4)
-Got onto GooglePlay via wifi, downloaded "Sensor Logger" (by Kelvin Choi) (free)
-Used microphone sensor, set to Audio Loudness Only in config (dont want the actual audio, just the levels)
-Put the phone into Developer Mode to be able to disable screen saver while running on power adapter, as it turned off mic.
-Set phone on box near burner, start recording
-I let mine run for 7 hours, and it made 213,000 data points
-Stop recording, export csv file and chart it with something.. I used a web site called Plotly Chart Studio to get this..

In Plotly, you can zoom and scroll and hover to show data sets.

I noted the On/Off time points, converted from the seconds to minutes and found;
- My burner ran 14 times in 7 hours.
- In rounded numbers; it ran 9 times for 5 mins, 3 times for 6 mins, once for 8 and once for 9.

Good example of an oversized conventional boiler for the load ?
It's shoulder season, I look forward to repeating this procedure once the real cold sets in.

Hot_water_fan

I forgot - is this oil or gas? 

Dave Carpentier

Oil into hydronics.
Boiler is "always hot" 130-150 or so.
Outdoor temps are in the high 20's F

EdTheHeaterMan

I am not sure that I would want to talk to my boiler 14 times in a day... I don't even think I have my boiler's phone number.

I guess some people really love their mechanicals.

Dave Carpentier

Ed- my boiler is a heavy breather for sure.

Hot_water_fan

Nice! It’ll be interesting to compare the cycle length on the coldest days to the fuel usage straight from the receipts. 

hot_rod

Yes on less then design days a non modulating boiler will have shorter cycles, how could it not?

cycles on design day will be interesting to see,
Unless  the boiler hangs up on you🧐