Probably openeing a can of worms, but.........

[wotsupnow]

As an ex-tv engineer ( from about 10yr back ) when our boiler has failed I've managed to repair it. It is a Ferolli 701 with the VMF7 pcb.

Looking through this forum I've seen quite a few posts saying " if relay4 is blackened and buzzing then the pcb needs replacing " , I have had this on ours and repaired it ( been running 1yr since ) , at the weekend it started cutting out intermittantly which is how I stumbled across this forum, rather than anything serious it turned out to be the overheat cutoff switch, simply nudging the wires would trip it, one connector wasn't crimped! surprised it worked this long ( 9yr ). The only fault I couldn't fix was a smell of gas when the burner was lit, suspecting the modreg valve I got Ferolli to send an engineer, he used a sniffer and soon found the prob, the burner pressure test point was leaking, he put a screwdriver in to tighten it and it fell off the pipe! it looked to have only been held on by two spots of brazing....£6 for the pipe £75 for the engineer......I guess I could have pursued Ferolli for faulty workmanship but just glad to get it going again as it was November.


So, to the worms........... I am offering to repair VMF7 pcbs with blackened relays for a nominal fee, certainly much less than a new one...
would there be any interest ?

Pete

 

[corgiman]

Nope

also you are going to enter a market with some serious competion

raden wont like it

not many professionals even contemplate using recon PCB's

 

[ollski]

So, to the worms........... I am offering to repair VMF7 pcbs with blackened relays for a nominal fee, certainly much less than a new one...
would there be any interest ?

Pete

I would imagine your public liability insurance versus any demand to resolder the board would far outweigh any profits if you are only doing one single board.

 

[Agile]

Firstly many of the boiler engineers here are quite competent to replace relays if they wanted to.

In any case there are several firms which do boiler PCB repairs and give a warranty on their work.

Secondly, its not really permissable for an engineer to use repaired PCBs because they are not approved/tested by the manufacturers.

From a commercial point of view fitting a repaired part means that its already old and will have a greater chance of failing later which the owner will expect to be replaced free of charge. A new part is much less likely to fail within 12 months of fitting.

Tony

 

[corgiman]

Firstly many of the boiler engineers here are quite competent to replace relays if they wanted to.

In any case there are several firms which do boiler PCB repairs and give a warranty on their work.

Secondly, its not really permissable for an engineer to use repaired PCBs because they are not approved/tested by the manufacturers.

From a commercial point of view fitting a repaired part means that its already old and will have a greater chance of failing later which the owner will expect to be replaced free of charge. A new part is much less likely to fail within 12 months of fitting.

Tony

Succintly put Mr Tony I concur

 

[wotsupnow]

Agile, the relay isn't the fault, a component on the board fails which then switches the relay at 50hz ( the buzzing ) and the subsequent arcing inside as it trys to power the fan causes the blackening.

However, points taken, I'll crawl away and leave you all to it........
just seemed a shame to replace boards like this when the repair is simple.

Pete