Ignitors

marty D_2

Fact: Company I work for, couple hundred techs, is starting
to see steady increase in intermittant ignitors causing difficult to diagnose off on primary safety calls.

Question: Are we alone? Anyone know of a way to test ignitors in the field that appear to work fine, test fine, but get you up in the middle of the night a day later!!
Do ignitor testers work? I have always felt from a statistical standpoint, (lots more opportunity for defects,PPM than a transformer) this was going to happen.

thanks,
Marty

Unknown

May I assume

you are talking about spark igniters on gas heating systems? If so I have a step by step procedure for testing those systems. Let me know exactly what kind of problems you are having and maybe I can help you.

The Kid

Carlin ignitors

If you are talking about oil burner ignitors this my help.
Recently spoke to a carlin rep so this is about there carlin ignitors. with power off take an ohms reading across
the high voltage terminal proper reading is 2000 to 3000 ohms. next take a reading from one high voltage terminal to ground and the reading should be between 900 to 1500 ohms and do the same for the other terminal. There should be no more then a 10% diff between the two. next check the spark adjust the terminal 3/4 of an inch and energize good ignitor should jump. If it doesn't replace. also if it does notice the spark...if it is a very thin blue line replace. it should have blue/yellow spark 1/8 of an inch.I always take a new one in and test them side by side and its a big diff....

marty D_2

Hi

Hi Kid
We do the ohms check, never bad on an intermittant ignitor.
Visual check of spark is something I have been trying to access with multiple ignitors pulled from the field compared to new ones. To make sure, did Carlin say that if
the spark jumping the gap is a thin blue spark the ignitor is bad, and if it is more of an orange wide spark, then its good?? I have observed what you describe, but I really need to know what is happening electrically here. And the observation from one tech to another is very subjective. I would hope the product reps reading this site discuss this with their engineers and give us techs in the field something more to work with than color and width of spark.
Its a problem, and we need help. Its starting to cost service departments money not to mention unhappy customers.
Take something simple, make it complex, and you always pay the price.

Ted Robinson

Oil igniter

I am a HO, electronic engineer with experiece with one Carlin unit I have installed on my boiler. On a nearby AM radio the igniter makes a high level of radio interference. I would think that after a service person standardizes on using a check radio near the boiler installation, he would easily recognize a lack of interference as coming along with a weak spark. Would that work for you?

Paul Mitchell_2

Ground

I think you might have a ground problem. One of the mounting screws must have good ground contact to avoid interference.

The Kid

ignitors

Marty, I was also told (carlin rep) that there isn't a ignitor tester that he would recomend using..go figure and with the ones out there on the market, what are they providing.? Carlin did say to replace the one's that had a very thin blue line spark...> Good spark yellow/Blue and what i would discribe as fuzzy line spark. It is becoming a problem for sure... And as you have mentioned alot of unhappy customers... The ignitor i did replace, because of a nuisance reset problem has yet to come back in....knock on wood.....And that on did have a very thin blue line spark, altho it did jump the 3/4 in gap...

B. Tice

ignitors

I feel your pain. There is a bad need for an ignitor tester that works. I have done the ohm test and still had to replace.

Leo

It's about time Carlin is acknowledging that these do not work or don't. My experience has been a thin blue spark, a yellow or orange spark, a short spark or the ignitor getting very hot on constant ignition are all signs to replace. The ohms test or the Allanson ignitor testor are a waste.

Leo

eleft_4

May I add ,

> I think you might have a ground problem. One of

> the mounting screws must have good ground contact

> to avoid interference.



twist the connections before attaching the wire nut.

al

eleft_4

May I add ,

twist the connections before attaching the wire nut.

al

Jaitch

Our company has decided

That burner operating in intermittent (formerly called constant) ignition mode shall have iron core transformers.

Burners in interrupted (formerly called intermittent) ignition mode can continue with the solid-state ignitor.

I think the longer duty cycle of intermittent ignition was something that Carlin wasn't counting on and the failure rate does seem to be much higher for these units!

My own boiler is interuppted ignition with a Carlin solid state ignitor and I have had no trouble to date.....

No AM radios in the basement, however :>0

jon_6

carlin igniters

our company also uses the carlin igniters ,for the last 3 years we have used these pretty strong phazing out the iron core transformers. a real big problem we have been having is that they over heat, we bench tested some of the so called bad igniters (pugged them in to 120v direct) and let them run for .5 to 1 hr and found out that they do get warm and shut down and restart them selves when cool . we know have switched to beckett oem igniters and they are working good so far, the advantage to using these oem igniters is that it only takes 2 screws to hold down the igniter to the plate, real simple.

Al Gregory

I had many problems with them last winter when replacing transformers that run the whole cycle. Some would actually split the plastic case. Especially on boilers that would have very long cycles. Not so many problems this winter. I actually thought they fixxed the problem.