Above 1200 Sq/FT 86's 20HP shop

[86turbodsl]

While York, PA isn't cold, cold, by a lot of standards, it is feeling chilly to me today..... In anticipation of being on PTO tomorrow, I just turned up the thermostat in the garage..... 10 seconds later I could hear the natural gas boiler kick on...... It will take about an hour per degree to warm up.... I only bumped the thermostat to 54 degrees. I'll see how it feels later today....

Good luck with your boiler programming! It will be great when it works!!

It will be glorious to have warm feet out there. I'm limiting time now to keep from the long reheat time indoors. It took me 10 mins to get cold and 2 hrs to warm up inside. I have very poor circulation in my feet.

 

[86turbodsl]

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[86turbodsl]

This is how I feel about tig/mig. I'm slow, and so is tig. everyone's happy.

Well i guess everyone has their thing.

 

[86turbodsl]

FINALLY. I got the remote working. Ran the line, terminated the ends, couldn't get a connection. turned out the computer refused to boot. I had to reset the whole config, then it wouldn't do USB, so after a lot of jiggering and resetting, it's working.

I have a lot of work to do yet, including some wiring, but at least i don't have so much legwork to go out and check on things.
I'll probably add a camera to the setup as well, so i can see when the fit hits the shan also.

 

[Strouty]

Congrats on getting that setup, should be helpful in the process. As for the door knob, can you attach it with something better than solder?

 

[ClappedOutBport]

It will be glorious to have warm feet out there. I'm limiting time now to keep from the long reheat time indoors. It took me 10 mins to get cold and 2 hrs to warm up inside. I have very poor circulation in my feet.

Ah. I'm the same. Very poor circulation in my extremities. Hands can start to go numb and white in the 50s. 40s are about as cold as I can work if I'm not say splitting wood. As for handling steel parts and **** barehanded, nah. That's why I don't live up North lol.

 

[Johanfpa]

Good job on getting the remote setup working anything that save loads of going back and forth is a bonus.
Suffer with poor circulation as well and find my neoprene lined wellies great to keep my feet warm in wintertime.

 

[1Garageman]

Great job setting up the mobility computer software setup! That will be so nice to almost remotely be inside the building!

 

[86turbodsl]

Ah. I'm the same. Very poor circulation in my extremities. Hands can start to go numb and white in the 50s. 40s are about as cold as I can work if I'm not say splitting wood. As for handling steel parts and **** barehanded, nah. That's why I don't live up North lol.

Yeah i think it's hereditary. My grandma was like this too. I'd just about kill to live in the south, but my damn chosen career is all in the north. !@$!#%%%. wish i had realized it before college.

 

[86turbodsl]

Good job on getting the remote setup working anything that save loads of going back and forth is a bonus.
Suffer with poor circulation as well and find my neoprene lined wellies great to keep my feet warm in wintertime.

Ok, you'll need to translate that for me. wellies are? Greetings to Scotland! I used to date a gal from Scotland USA, Alma, MI.

 

[Seagoon]

Wellies are Wellington boots which are knee-high boots made of rubber to be waterproof. Your name for them may be galoshes - which to us are ankle-high waterproof boots.

 

[86turbodsl]

Ah, my wife has a pair of those. She calls them muck boots as she wears them out to the horse barn to keep her feet dry.

Thanks for the explanation.

 

[86turbodsl]

Congrats on getting that setup, should be helpful in the process. As for the door knob, can you attach it with something better than solder?

I did think about brazing it on, but decided if i didn't screw anything up, it wasn't likely to be an issue. The knob only fell off because i kept the pressure on it after i shut the flame off, and some oil in the sump kept burning for a while. so the knob heated up and it dropped off. If i had turned off the pressure, it would have been fine.

 

[86turbodsl]

Dangit. My kids' truck failed a brake line. I'm trying to get him to start handling things on his own, so i sent him to O'reilly's to get a new brake line. He said they matched it up and sent him on his way. We bend up the new line tonight after he got home, i didn't know where my caliper was, so i just bent up the new line using a mandrel and went to install it, and the damn nuts were metric and he needed SAE. Can't trust anybody anymore. I didn't realize it until i tried to screw it in under the truck. Half a mm larger nut than would fit. I sent him back to the store, but he'll at least get an education to check everything before he believes the store rat. UGh.

 

[Pressingonward]

Sounds like you guys might have reynauld's syndrome. Causes hands and other extremities to turn white and numb at fairly moderate temperatures. I have it too, makes working outdoors in the winter a bit of a challenge. I've found if I can reheat my hands and get blood flowing again my body will then adjust to the cold and it won't happen again for a while.

 

[86turbodsl]

I think ive read about that before. Seems to line up.

 

[bimmer1980]

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hopefully the turkey is roasting and the boiler is making heat!

 

[86turbodsl]

The turkey was roasted well and the boiler is silent lol. Happy thanksgiving to all!

 

[ClappedOutBport]

Sounds like you guys might have reynauld's syndrome. Causes hands and other extremities to turn white and numb at fairly moderate temperatures. I have it too, makes working outdoors in the winter a bit of a challenge. I've found if I can reheat my hands and get blood flowing again my body will then adjust to the cold and it won't happen again for a while.

That's exactly what I have. Or at least what I have diagnosed myself with.

 

[86turbodsl]

Talked to my brother today. Sounds like he may have it too.

 

[86turbodsl]

Last couple of days, been working on heat. I've been debugging the changes i've made and it's slow going. 50 trips out to the shop probably. It might be nice to program inside, but a lot of the time, i have to trek out there to check the physical state of the system. I'm hoping it gets better. Right now i'm fighting the loss of one of my temp channels. I don't understand it. PLCs are fussy to get right. Only thing i like about them is once you get it working right, it tends to stay working right.

 

[bimmer1980]

Ug.... I know very little about PLCs. The last I dealt with them was during an internship for a couple of machines I had designed and built. There was another intern that was an EE and she did the control set up. For the other machine, one of the machine techs did the PLC setup and programming.

I get the global logic of the PLC, in puts and outputs, but the details and coding of it is where I have no interest....

Good luck!!

 

[86turbodsl]

Thanks. I did get the channel back. Just rebooted. I have the preheat tank logic right. Its holding temp nicely. My timer logic works good. Basically i limit heater element on time to a few seconds to avoid burning the oil. Todays task is figure out boiler pump logic and oil flow. Also install my camera. Then if i get ambitious get the burner control reinstalled.

Plc logic is puzzling to me. Why you would want to use so many different number systems in the same place is beyond me. Binary, binary coded decimal, hex, octal, signed decimal, oh my!

 

[86turbodsl]

Ok, got the IP cam installed, making good progress. This is really working out sweet.

 

[Strouty]

How are you adding photos? I can’t see $hit, they are just stuck together thumbnails that can’t be seen without a magnifying glass….

 

[86turbodsl]

That one was copy and paste. The new forum software is a bit of a pain for me to upload. Ill try and update it.

Are you looking on your phone? I was able to zoom in and see everything.

 

[Strouty]

I can zoom in, but it loses quality fast so the details are washed out.

 

[86turbodsl]

probably just the camera. it's old. it's more so i can monitor for flame or giant issues. I finished wiring up the burner tonight, it's giving me fits and it's 9pm, so i'm probably done for tonight. Still lots of debugging to do. Warming up presently so probably not a huge deal.

 

[86turbodsl]

I tried to get the burner fired last night, but there's something wrong in the connection somewhere. Not sure what. I'll troubleshoot that tonight when i get home from work.

 

[86turbodsl]

Success! The burner logic was backwards. Once i fixed that, i was able to get the burner ignition to fire. BUT, the system was not burning because it was full of water... Pulled about 2.5 gallons out of the sump and got it to run. Now it's all about tuning. But at least i can fire it. With eyes on, and boiler will no longer overheat.

 

[Strouty]

That is great news!

 

[86turbodsl]

Ok, didn't get much done during daytime, but now that it's after work, i have the boiler / burner running.
I haven't gotten it up to the setpoint yet, but have seen a couple things i want to change.

1. Add a barometric damper to allow more saturation time on boiler surfaces.
2. Move doorknob further into burner because it's too far from the burner tube,
which allows oil spray onto parting line between burner and burner tube, which
gives drips onto floor/catch pan.
3. Add a shield onto the parting line so oil drains back into drain in burner
4. potentially add a stainless burner tube inside the burner tube, so there's a hot surface for further
evaporation and ignition.
5. probably long term - when new boiler is ready, add combustion air.

for right now, i'm testing the circulator logic to make sure that works right, then i'll tinker with the burner more.

 

[86turbodsl]

Update on run: The burner only got the boiler up to 140F and pretty much held it there. i think the boiler was thermosiphoning into the big tank, and keeping temps in boiler low. i suspect that will be the case until the tank temp is up a ways. I terminated the test because it wasn't going to hit the logic for circulator, so i added emergency logic to run the circ for when temps drop too low. That equalized the boiler and tank.

My theory is, turn on the electric in tank element and main circ when temp of system drops to 35F, no matter what, to protect against freezes if something fails or it gets cold while i'm out of town or whatever. Maybe i don't need it, but I'm a belt and suspenders kind of guy on expensive stuff like this.


When i shut off the oil flow, the burn went for at least 5 mins, which means there's too much oil in tube not burning timely. I probably confirmed need for combustion air. The oil control timed out so i have to manual reset, and don't feel like going back out, so we're done for tonight.

 

[Strouty]

I have a normal thermostat and a Nest, if the nest fails or has a brain fart, the normal one will kick on at 36. Of course all this is moot if the power goes out. Sounds like you made some good progress,

 

[bimmer1980]

What temp are you hoping to get coming out of the boiler? I think I have my temp in my natural gas boiler for about 120 or 140 degrees that goes into the floor. It's my understanding that you don't want to be too hot on the water going into the floor.

On your list of items to do, what do you think would get you closest to a steady state burn in the boiler?

Do you have a fresh pic of the burner set up? knob, oil drip, burner tube, etc? It's been awhile since I've seen your burner set up.....

I will say, when the floor is cold soaked, it will take awhile to raise the temperature. I generally plan for roughly 1 degree per hour. 1600 sq ft, fully insulated, walls (R20+), roof (R30+), under-slab (3.5"). The slab runs maybe 10 degrees warmer than the ambient air at 6' from floor.

 

[86turbodsl]

@Bimmer, you must have a low temp / high efficiency boiler. 120-140F is down around condensation temps for gas, that usually speeds the rot out of the boiler. Oil is different, but i'm trying to keep water return temps up above 135F to avoid.

Efficient oil combustion typically is up around 170-180F. The boiler dumps into a big 100G tank, and the honeywell controller uses variable speed injection into a floor loop off the big tank to control the floor temp to the desired temp. While it doesn't have a slab sensor, it does have outdoor reset and none of that functionality is included in my controls. I'm only handling the burner / waste oil portion.

I'll upload some current photos tonight, but i think some changes are in order. For the oil dripping at a minimum.

Steady state burn will take a bit more tuning of the burner section, and watching times closely. The ideal conditions aren't always the same. I was able to watch the burn and tweak oil flow and air pressure from the cam last night, and once i have that worked out, i'll do stage program on the plc where it will step thru the ideal conditions for the burn, once that's done,
it should be pretty automatic. Barring equipment failures anyway.

Once i get that part done, i'll do full auto heat while i get the new boiler manufactured. I think long term that's the only thing
that's going to fix it. Since the burner tube GLOWS RED during operation. And that's right out in the open. I need all that burner tube to be internal to the boiler and it's not going to happen on this 1930 Kohler.

 

[86turbodsl]

I have a normal thermostat and a Nest, if the nest fails or has a brain fart, the normal one will kick on at 36. Of course all this is moot if the power goes out. Sounds like you made some good progress,

That's a good idea, but my backup would be electric in any event, so that sort of a solution just adds complexity. I'm already temp sensored on the important stuff, it's as easy as adding a ladder in the program.

 

[bimmer1980]

Account Suspended

I had to do some research on the waste oil burners.... I thought the above link showed a nicely packaged burner assembly. It does seem that combustion air is crucial.

 

[86turbodsl]

Yeah, those retention head style burners use pressurized oil and a nozzle, the combustion air is provided by the burner blower built into the case. Recall that i am building a babington style burner, the pressure source is actually air, and the oil is atomized by oil flowing over a curved surface with a tiny hole in it for air. The benefit of this is my oil source doesn't need to be really clean, since oil doesn't flow thru an orifice. The downside is introducing additional combustion air without disrupting the airstream coming from the doorknob is tougher. I can increase the air pressure to add air volume, but that also increases oil flow, at the additional cost of compressor work. So the real solution is find a way to introduce additional combustion air without adding compressor work and disrupting the oil stream. I have an idea how to do that. Good thing i sit directly across from a CFD expert with a PHD... Lol.

 

[86turbodsl]

It was really nice today, hitting near 50F on Dec 2. Spent a lot of time out in the yard cleaning up, had the garage door open, and still running the boiler and debugging. At this point, i don't care about wasting the heat, it was warmer outside than inside.

Here's some shots of the current system. I added the barometric damper today.