Boiler Info Resource

[jebatty]

Was Googlin' this morning on boiler air control, came up with this site and, although it's focus is on natural gas boilers, it has lots of info on boilers, and you might find this specific link, as well as the other links, helpful in better understanding and operating your boiler.

http://www.energysolutionscenter.org/boilerburner/Eff_Improve/Efficiency/Combustion_Air_Control.asp

 

[TCaldwell]

jim, i have had this same discussion with cleveland hays, about o2 trim for wood appliances, i have a 2 distributor/installers in ct.they both wondered why i would want to spend for this on a wood appliance, in their eyes this is a industrial process with expensive equiptment in unchartered smoke, basically they were not willing to take a risk. their probe/sensor/electronics runs about $4300.00, before a pid and vsd and 3 phase motor. I am not the sharpest tool in the shed, but pretty persistent, so i have gone my own direction, last winter i shelved the standard garn control package and single phase motor, in favor of a 2hp 3 phase motor capable of 80 hz all day long, installed a hitatchi vsd with imbedded pid. now manually i can control fan speed. the pid is minimally programmable, but inputs a 4/20 milliamp. I aquired a adc insitu flue gas analyser /it has a bosch 4 wire 02 sensor housed in a stack mount probe, it was programmed with a wood specific value as well as a specific co2 % by volume, enabeling me with a flue mount tthermocouple to display flue temp, co2, o2, net effiency, but more importantly scale it's 4/20 milliamp signal to the vsd., based on a 02 percent. as said earlier the pid is not robust enough to controll the process well enough, so i have a allen bradley plc due soon that should work well. My first observations with me acting as pid and manually playing potentiometer was that the garn would take all 80hz and could atbest maintain a 2 level a first 25%of burn, showing a little smoke , the rest of the burn could easily be modulated to maintain a 4 level , and suprisingly at end with 35hz, all wood burned. I will post more when the plc is programmed. tom