Silicon Nitride Ignitor

Patrick Bing AIR MASTERS Durango Co 81303

Does anybody haqve anything to say about silicon nitride ignitors

S Davis

Don't touch!

When installing them don't touch them with your fingers,the oil in your skin will make them fail prematurely.


Sorry thinking of the old style.

Andy_6

I have hundreds of them out there in Lennox furnaces and they are hands down the best yet for hot surface ignition. And you can touch them all you want. Dip them in water and even do wood burning and the things still hold up. Unlike the ceramic ignitors that break as you take them out of the box. Have not tried the upgrade kit yet though.

Unknown

Silicon Nitride Igniters

They come in three versions 24 volts used on SmartValve Pilots (Norton 401), 12 volts for RV use (Norton 301)
and the 120 volt low resistance (Norton 601). They so far have been a welcome replacement for Silicon Carbide Igniters. The upgrade kit is a good way to go if you are having problems with White Rodgers Part # 21D64-1. The Norton 601 resistance 50 to 300 ohms, 5 second warm up time, .4 to 1.o amps. The Norton 401 is 1 to 4 ohms but should be cahnged if over 10 ohms, 3 second warm up, 1.4 to 2.1 amps.

The White Rodgers Intell Igniter system use a silicon nitride igniter. This systems is also used on Lennox and Trane. They have been pretty reliable so far.

IT IS A MYTH THAT YOU CAN NOT TOUCH THE IGNITER. IT WILL NOT BOTHER IT AT ALL. THAT IGNITER GETS UP TO ALMOST 300 DEGREES SO ANY THING DEPOSITED WOULD BURN OFF.

I have a lot of guides and manuals on Hot Surface Ignition Systems if you are interested.

Unknown

S Davis that is a myth

touching them will not bother them at all. About the only thing that might want you to not touch them is that they are fragile.

Norton finds it rather interesting that the myth about touching them still prevails. They deny it at the top of one of their factory bulletins.

John Mills_3

We've had a lot of problems

with the Intell-ignition boards on A-S/Trane and the matching ignitors. They repositioned the ignitor which has helped. Gotta have a good ground or the board will put out too much voltage and fry the ignitor. Had trouble with the board and poor solder joints on the blower relays. Also had several that report open thermal limit when the limits are fine.

Haven't lost a single Norton 601 on an Armstrong/Air-Ease furnace yet, knock on wood. Simple 120v design though. They're booting the DumbValves now so that will be a good single stage furnace.

Patrick Bing AIR MASTERS Durango Co 81303

Hey Tim

We have spoken before on this subject.
I was having problems with an Amana furnace Model GUIC115FA50 . We replaced board , ignitor . Tightened all grounds checked polority . Made sure of a dedicated circuit.
When voltage was checked at ignitor plug Had 120 volts then 115 volts then a lower voltage . Havent been back to furnace since these were replaced . I Called the home owner and the furnace is staring its old ingition on second try again . As if the ignitor is gong out again. Board 50A65

The Reason I called to check how the furnace was running is because I have a second furnace same model with same symtoms installed 3 months ago. Amana Model # GUIC090FA50
Furnace starts on second try and ignitor failed . Checked voltage on ignitor plug 115 volts .Checked voltage from nuetral on transformer to common on board @ start up 5 then 3 then a steady 2 volts . Sometmes just 2 volts period.
I checked ground rod it was loose , I pulled it up out of the ground by hand , so I thought this was my problem. It was a 4'x 1/2" copper pipe . I had the electricians replace the ground rod and ground wire . No change in voltage readings . This system has a dedicated new circut from the panel . Dedicated circut ground is right next to new ground rod wire , which is right next to the incoming ground from the power pole which has its own ground rod @ the power pole . Go figure , any ideas . Oh and sure Id love the information . Patrick Bing Air Masters 1520 US HWY 550 south Durango Co 81303

Unknown

Try establishing a

ground from the board directly to the gas valve. This system must have a good ground on the low voltage side or it will not function correctly.

There have been some problems with the Intell-Igniter systems on some Lennox and Trane units. We do not see a lot of Amana around here.

Have you had any luck with Amana factory for a possible solution?

Patrick Bing AIR MASTERS Durango Co 81303

Tim

Ive talked to a Tech ****. person from Amana ,The say ground a bad ground . Or voltage back feed where polarity is crossed. Its strange two units same model same problem.

Patrick Bing AIR MASTERS Durango Co 81303

Tim Can a silicon Nitride board and igniter be changed out with a silicon carbide igniter and board . Ive had silicon carbde igniters lasting over 7 to 8 years .

Glenn Harrison_2

401 and 601 ???'s

Hi, Tim. Just want to make sure I read your post correctly. The Norton 301, 401, and 601 are Silicon NITRIDE??? I was under the impression they were a newer generation of the silicon carbide ignitors. I have Norton brochures on the 401 and 601 and don't remember seeing them listed as silicon Nitride. Will have to dig up my literature on those and look again.

John Mills_3

A-S/Trane

you can replace the SiNi controls with the older controls except in the variable speed 90 models. Our local tech rep mentioned that he had one that he had to, never could get the Intellignition to stop eating ignitors.

jim lockard

Burn down-Tim

Tim --Had a sil.nit glow stick burn down to a nub replaced it while I ordered a new board (Amer Stand product) the Ing. was on all the time that furnace was fired. R/R the board and 3rd ing. all is well going on 2 years now. Sounds like you had same exp. John Mills. Just a little something for the Wall. J.Lockard

Unknown

Patrick, in most

cases it has gone the other way. Silicon Nitride is supposed to be the cure all for Silicon Carbide problems. I think there may be a factory application problem that needs their rep to take a look at the two jobs. I would put some pressure on them to provide you with some direct assistance.

It also sounds like the boards may be having a problem with adapting to the Root Mean Square voltage for those particular boards.

Unknown

Glenn, my literature has them

listed as made from high - purity ceramic metallic composite (same as silicon nitride) the silicon carbide are high purity CRYSTAR recrystallized silicon carbide. I believe silicon nitride as a name belongs to White Rodgers but I was told they are all the same basic material. The SiNi have a tungsten element encased by Silicon Nitride Ceramic Insulators so that they can run on 80 volts or so. The 301, 401 and 601 can not do that sorry if I caused any confusion.

jw

Sometimes it helps to.....

When I have grounding problems external to the equipment I find that wiring the neutral and the ground together helps. What this does is to make sure that there is no potential between the neutral and ground at the board, which can cause headaches from stray currents. Not kosher, but it works.

In the equipment! On older furnaces & boilers where the mfg thought the cabinet or burner assy was a good enough ground path (which it was when new and non corroded from a damp basement) you can add a ground wire from the mounting screw of the flame rod back to the control. Does not take much resistance to lose mA current.

Thirdly, do a combustion test! If the flame is not right it WILL affect the rectification of the current from a.c. to half wave d.c. and give you fits. Plus you can see if the flame is producing too much CO which will destroy your HX and I believe shorten the life of an HSI and perhaps coat the flame rod with a layer of insulating oxide.

Glenn Harrison_2

Got it

They're a Norton variance of the Si Ni ignitors. Thanks for the info.

Kevin_12

hsi

I'm not sure the model # but the lennox furnaces I've seen have a silican nitrate glow plug that gets 70 volts to it and ohms out between 14-19 ohms. Once I had a brand new lennox furnace that wouldn't fire and the resistance was 35 ohms. it just wouldn't get hot enough I guess.

jimmy_2

lennox models

lennox is designed with a surelite ignition board. It will lower the voltage to the ignitor until flame failure, at that point the board will recognize the failure point. So if your getting low ohms and 70 volts, look at the board. Model and Year are important on that problem, new design.

Patrick Bing AIR MASTERS Durango Co 81303

Hey theses igniters are White Rogers 11111701 Silicon nitride if that helps . WEll there are a few more checks before I insist that Amana send help . I Have recently installed the same furnace model in a new house . will have to check to see if it is the same board and igniter . If so Ill check the voltages going to igniter . If they are the same as the others on the remodel jobs it would seem to me that its a factory problem . Amana wants me to check for voltage from ground to furnace cabinet ,and to check voltage to igniter with an analog meter or a true rms meter whatever rms means ( root means square ? ).Tim says to check ground from the board to the gas valve.

Unknown

Patrick, the literature

I am going to send you will explain RMS and how it is used with their igniter. I am not a big fan of digital meters as some are not accurate on all types of systems. I prefer an analog meter for more accurate readings. We have a lot of odd ball voltages on equipment today AC, DC, rectified AC etc and accurate readings become very important as wrong diagnosis can occur because we read incorrectly on the meter.

GEO_3

The White Rodgers igniter in the Amana is 84 volts. W/R also makes a retro kit that adapts older hsi when you have a customer thats tired of replacing igniters. The mounting kit doesn't fit everything so err on the side of caution.

Boiler Guy

Malfunctions

I did not notice any reference to ensuring proper polarity of the line voltage to the appliance. I have been messed up by this a couple times in dealing with ignition problems.
Just my $ .02