How to test a fan on a Worcester Greenstar 28i Junior

[watertight]

Guys,

I wonder if you could offer me a bit of advice, been helping my friend with his heating system lately and got a call this evening to say that his combi has suddenly broke down, I went to have a quick look thinking it would be something and nothing but am at a bit of a loss as to the issue. It appears that during the ignition sequence the fan does not start up. I wanted to test this but the manual doesn't appear to show me which of the terminals I need to test with my multimeter, I'm hoping that one of you experienced engineers will be able to point me in the right direction, I'm sure it should be easy!


Yours,

Mark

 

[Gasguru]

Join the CC if you're qualified otherwise forget it....you're playing around with a fully pre-mixed burner type boiler.

From your postings you appear to be a plumber....but not gas-safe.

Either find a proper boiler repair engineer or call in Worcester on a fixed price repair.

 

[holty]

Even if it was the fan. this will certainly need an analyser to be able to set up the co/co2 after fan replacement. without one, forget it. as mentioned wb fixed price repair.

 

[DeltaT2]

Guys,

I wonder if you could offer me a bit of advice, been helping my friend with his heating system lately and got a call this evening to say that his combi has suddenly broke down, I went to have a quick look thinking it would be something and nothing but am at a bit of a loss as to the issue. It appears that during the ignition sequence the fan does not start up. I wanted to test this but the manual doesn't appear to show me which of the terminals I need to test with my multimeter, I'm hoping that one of you experienced engineers will be able to point me in the right direction, I'm sure it should be easy!


Yours,

Mark

Mark, Worcester Tupperware Bosch are a pile of sh.te now, they're not the boilers they once were that's for sure.

The pre-mix type boiler fans have an on-board PCB, this makes them very expensive & difficult to test, with the fan speed varying according to the heat required. Tell your pal to get a fixed price repair from WTB, as advised above.
HTH

You must forgive the chaps above, they think anyone that's in the combustion chamber pot are God's gift to the Gas industry, when most are non-timeserved short course cowboys with a few ACS!!.........

 

[Happyplumber]

Behave yourself Dicky!

 

[adlplumbing]

delta t your only jelous

but it is question for behind closed doors

 

[watertight]

Guys,

Many thanks for all your comments, I'll follow your advice, was hoping to do a favour but in this case I'll pass on it!

Yours,

Mark

 

[hobbyist]

Sorry to bump up an old thread, but I've just had my fan on a 28i replaced by a service engineer at age 26 months. The new fan is working fine, but we got to chatting about the way repairs always involve swapping complete components and whether the fan PCB alone could be replaced. The engineer said he would be interested to know whether the circuit had failed due to moisture within the older enclosed plastic shell on this version, and I said that I'd take a look at the old board based on my (limited) hobbyist electronics knowledge (and perhaps with the help of my friend who services consumer electronics products for a living). The problem is it would be nice to know the values on the terminals of the plug and any other information relevant to testing the fan unit. The responses on the thread seem to be rather unhelpful. I shan't be putting the fan anywhere near the boiler as I am a firm believer in letting the experts handle gas appliances, but I wouldn't mind having a spare fan if the fault just turns out to be a PCB capacitor or similar. Can anybody describe the normal service test procedure (with fan disconnected from the boiler)?

P.S. This engineer who specialises in Worcesters said that fan failure is quite a common fault.

 

[Dan Robinson]

The responses on the thread seem to be rather unhelpful. I shan't be putting the fan anywhere near the boiler as I am a firm believer in letting the experts handle gas appliances

You might, but someone else might not. That is the point.

 

[hobbyist]

And knowing the test values across the fan terminals would make the difference to a person wanting to change a fan themselves? I'd have thought that the information that a do-it-yourselfer changing the fan would have to get the air/gas manifold off and change the gasket on the top of the heat exchanger (which looked fiddly to me and then requires a CO/CO2 test) would put most non-experts off. If data on a mere fan is secret knowledge restricted to the cognescenti one wonders if the forum has much utility. Or is it that very few service engineers actually do any test beyond observing that the fan isn't working and the blue light is flashing slowly? I noticed that my bod had a special edge connector from Worcester to make getting multimeter readings from push-on connectors easier, but the problem was there was no provision for the fan on his and he gave up on the meter.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Most customers won't want to pay an engineer to fart atse about trying to fix a fan PCB when they can go and buy a new one and get the boiler working.

There is a cost benefit analysis, and paying someone by the hour to repair a sub-component and end up with a non-guaranteed repair doesn't make sense.

The info you require is not available for all makes and model of boiler anyway. I have it for some boilers.

This forum is to give advise of DIY work. This is not considered DIY work by the site owners or the professionals that give their advise for free.

That credit card thing he has is of limited use.

 

[Agile]

And knowing the test values across the fan terminals would make the difference to a person wanting to change a fan themselves?

The answer to that is yes!

You have already indicated that you are prepared to open a boiler and replace/repair components even though you dont have the required training or test equipment to set up the boiler afterwards.

In any case normally little electronics information is available from the manufacturers.

Those engineers with above average knowledge of electronics make these measurements and record they results for their own use and to share with other gas engineers but not on a public forum for DIYers.

Tony

 

[hobbyist]

You have already indicated that you are prepared to open a boiler and replace/repair components even though you dont have the required training or test equipment to set up the boiler afterwards.


Tony

With the little respect I can muster for an answer like that, your comment is complete balderdash and bears no relationship to anything I said. I paid an engineer to do the job, as would have been crystal clear if you actually read my posts. I did watch the job being done, however, and stated that I wouldn't want to do it myself. My only interest was in trying to get a working spare part that an engineer might fit in future. If tradesman don't want to share knowledge why do they bother to post at all?

 

[Agile]

Nobody posting on this forum admits that they are going to do the repair themselves because they know that they are not going to get the information if they do that.

So many pretend that they have a neighbour/friend/relative who is going to do it for them. We still dont give information about gas/combustion issues because apart from being silly its against the forum rules.

If you had sufficient electronics knowledge to repair the fan PCB then you would probably be able to do that by testing the components ( and it would not usually be a capacitor ).

I also have a Worcester PCB plug interface for testing!

Was your gas engineer really only 26 months old as you said?

Tony

 

[Dan Robinson]

Hobbyist is missing the point entirely. If we told you how to do what you want, then that information is n the public domain and then any Nimrod with a multimeter, soldering iron and inflated opinion of their abilities will have the information at their finger tips to potentially cause harm to others.

You could be the finest electronics engineer in all of Christendom, but the next chap might just be good at burning the legs off ants, but not realising that is the limit of his abilities.