Trianco Eurostar lock out problem

[kelvinman]

Hi Guys, my oil fired Trianco Eurostar 50/90 external boiler was locking out and I spoke to a service man who told me that there is a known issue with this type of boiler -- it needs a low air mixture. I had it set by a man with a meter and he set the air slide at 9.8, (max setting is 15). Boiler locked out regularly, sometimes on first start other times after cycling off and on. I set the air back to 5.3 and it doesn't smoke and doesn't lock out. One other curious point which I welcome some advice on is this ---- in order to assure proper firing I had to extract the photo cell about 1 cm from its holder and rotate it 20 degrees anti clockwise. With the low air setting at 5.3 and the photocell extracted slightly the boiler works great.
(tonight I pushed the photocell back in and the boiler locked out).
Any opinions would be welcomed.
I wrote to Trianco but got no reply!!!

 

[Burnerman]

Do you know the CO2 readings from the gas analysis?
I guess as you are having to reposition the photocell, it simply cant see the flame in its conventional position.....

 

[Boilerman2]

I assume your eurostar is fitted with an Ecoflam Minor 1 burner? with Satronic control box?

The P.E. Cell will plug into it's holder in two positions, 90' opposed, make sure that the lens on the cell is facing the flame.

You have reduced the air from the engineer's setting, so now you will have no idea how the boiler is performing, I would suggest getting the engineer back, with his FGA to set the boiler up again, aim for 11% CO2, with a 0 smoke reading, as for cold start and intermittant lock out problems, could be one of a number of causes, such as filter blockage damp ignition leads & electrodes etc etc difficult to advise without seeing the boiler

 

[kelvinman]

Do you know the CO2 readings from the gas analysis?
I guess as you are having to reposition the photocell, it simply cant see the flame in its conventional position.....

Thanks for getting back so quick. This is a strange one, the OFTEC man with the meter didn't leave any paperwork -- only the bill!!! I assume he set up the CO2 properly as per the book. The oil pressure is spot on at 7.5 bar. As I said in the first post, another OFTEC man who looks after my mothers boiler (100 miles from me), told me that there is an known issue with the Max 4 burner and that you have to reduce the air to the point somewhere above the smoke point to get it to work properly. It is certainly a lot quieter running at 5.3 than it was at 9.8 - it used to start with a real "boof". It is also strange that re-positioning the photocell makes it work.

 

[kelvinman]

I assume your eurostar is fitted with an Ecoflam Minor 1 burner? with Satronic control box?

The P.E. Cell will plug into it's holder in two positions, 90' opposed, make sure that the lens on the cell is facing the flame.

You have reduced the air from the engineer's setting, so now you will have no idea how the boiler is performing, I would suggest getting the engineer back, with his FGA to set the boiler up again, aim for 11% CO2, with a 0 smoke reading, as for cold start and intermittant lock out problems, could be one of a number of causes, such as filter blockage damp ignition leads & electrodes etc etc difficult to advise without seeing the boiler

Thanks for getting in touch Boilerman2, the boiler has a Max 4 burner with Satronic and MZ177S p.e. cell. I only rotate it 20 degrees but I did notice that with the burner removed from the boiler and viewed from the firing end, the cell is obscured by the diffuser plate at the back of the nozzle. Moving the cell out and rotating it slightly I can see the full window of the cell.
This is the boilers first season on load and I appreciate that the CO2 setting is now all to cock but it works.
I take on board what you said but the boiler works 100% now the way I have it. On Saturday, when it is daylight, I will check the furnace for soot.
I still wonder if there are any known issues with this burner.

 

[oilman]

How did you work out it was burning with no smoke? You need a smoke pump, if you can see smoke just by looking at the flue it is much worse than you imagine.

The Max burners are a nasty piece of work IMO. VERY sensitive to air settings, and the CO2 needs to be set according to Trianco's instructions.

There is a problem with the burners, a really cunning piece of engineering. Turn off the power, take out the burner, remove the blast tube and see how the HT leads are routed. They may well be across the front of the photocell. If so, re-route them.

 

[kelvinman]

How did you work out it was burning with no smoke? You need a smoke pump, if you can see smoke just by looking at the flue it is much worse than you imagine.

The Max burners are a nasty piece of work IMO. VERY sensitive to air settings, and the CO2 needs to be set according to Trianco's instructions.

There is a problem with the burners, a really cunning piece of engineering. Turn off the power, take out the burner, remove the blast tube and see how the HT leads are routed. They may well be across the front of the photocell. If so, re-route them.

Thanks "oilman" as I said yesterday, I will have a look inside the furnace tomorrow for soot. This boiler was really getting on my nerves but is working great with the settings as I have described. I did suspect the Max 4 was a bit temperamental, (more mental than tempered). I will double check the ht leads tomorrow also.

Thanks again guys.

 

[ave]

[



Hi boilerman I have the similar problem I notice you are in suffolk are you able to have a look at my boiler as I am unable to find anyone local cheers ave

quote="Boilerman2";p="1370902"]I assume your eurostar is fitted with an Ecoflam Minor 1 burner? with Satronic control box?

The P.E. Cell will plug into it's holder in two positions, 90' opposed, make sure that the lens on the cell is facing the flame.

You have reduced the air from the engineer's setting, so now you will have no idea how the boiler is performing, I would suggest getting the engineer back, with his FGA to set the boiler up again, aim for 11% CO2, with a 0 smoke reading, as for cold start and intermittant lock out problems, could be one of a number of causes, such as filter blockage damp ignition leads & electrodes etc etc difficult to advise without seeing the boiler [/quote]

 

[Boilerman2]

have a look at www.elanar.co.uk

 

[coldgirl]

Hi,

Can anyone help me to make sense of the problems with my boiler PLEASE.

The boiler was installed about two years ago. since then it has had a problem every few months. It locks out and to start with can be restarted, the time between lockouts decreases over a couple of days until it will fire up and lock out a minute later or not fire up at all. Our plumber has showed us how to clean the photo cell. It all happened again over new year and an oil engineer serviced it and checked it all. Only one week later it happened again, the same engineer came out, cleaned the photo cell again (said there was a slight film on it) and removed the snorkel incase it was the flu. It is now a week later and we are again not able to get the boiler started.

The plumber says no point in him coming out because he doesn't know much about oil boilers!

The oil engineer says he has done everything he can and can't find anything to cause the problems and to contact Trianco.

Trianco say to contact the oil company because it is the Sulphur level in the oil and we should have an additive put in the oil.

The oil company say that the oil meets British Standards, that as it is only a week since it was all cleaned can't be the oil, and that as we have an aga (not in use because it stopped running last year after being fixed once already!)we should not put an additive in.

Can any one tell me how to sort this out. Is this a common problem with this boiler. I am recovering from chemotherapy and find it hard to keep warm even when the heating is working! Please help.

Thanks

 

[robcol1305]

I have the same issues with lock outs and know what a mega pain it is so in your circumstances Cold Girl, I really sympathise.
I have been able to get the boiler back up running having used a cotton bud to clean the photo cell but doubt this will continue to be successful the more times it occurs.
In addition our engineer raised the lowest baffle box up slightly to allow more air to circulate around the remaining baffles. I believe Trianco originally advised him to remove the top two all together. This will supposedly stop the soot build up(?).
I’ve also heard this about Trianco blaming the oil supplier. I belong to an oil syndicate so I can safely say I get the same oil from the same batch as 10-15 other neighbours but I seem the only one affected.
Please keep the post updated with developments. All assistance appreciated.

 

[coldgirl]

Thanks for all the help. I managed to get the trianco authorised engineer to come out. He came out, said it was the fire valve and had to come back to replace it. Only one week later it, once again, kept locking out. He came out again and checked all the settings (said it wasn't set up correctly)and got it going and so far so good but I have a feeling it will start to playing up again but hope I'm wrong!

 

[Boilerman2]

Low sulphur in heating oil should not cause lock outs on P.J Burners, it does cause havoc on Vapourising burners, and some oil pumps have apparently been wearing premeturely due to low sulphur, but this is subject to much controversy it seems all too easy to blame the oil, it is very unlikely to be an oil issue, in thiry six years in the oil firing industry i have had no more than 6 oil related incidents

 

[robcol1305]

Would you say it's not necessary to add an additive then? Such as 'Boilermax'

 

[oilhead]

Contact Trianco technical again and ask for the revised combustion settings.
After similar problems last week, I was sent the new specs. Basically, they downrate the boilers to allow for the 'increased calorific value of the new spec oil' (their words, not mine)
Reducing the sulphur content from 200 ppm to 100ppm means there is an extra 0.1%, which hardly equates to a 15% reduction in oil throughput. It has stopped the burner head fouling up and kept the photocell clean and the boilers in question now work reliably.