Eko 40 secondary air question

[leatherguy]

I just read the sticky " fine tuning Eko boiler" and proceeded to check my air settings. (I'm getting alot of orange to white flame from the nozzle). My primary sliders were set to 3/8 inch ( I thought OK) and then I screwed in my secondary disks, and screwed them out 2.5 from firm closed. (I also cleaned off a small cut off burr on the tube.) My question is how firm do you screw in the disks before you start counting turns. I turned them in firmly but maybe 1 full turn after you feel the initial touch. Is that to much.
After my adjustments I got a nice blue white with hint of orange I liked it. This morning 1 hr after starting new fire I was getting the orange fire ball again. The outside temp was about 25 deg colder this am than when it changed settings. My wood is 2 yr dry hardwoods, Fan speed 50% w/shutter opening at 40 to 50 % about 1.25 inch across the chord.
My gut tells me to much air, but which one.
My wood is all the same, I'd like to set it and forget it.

 

[taxidermist]

on a 40 you need to be 100% fan shutter open. 3.5 turns out from litely seated. I run fan speed @ 100% Remember you will not get a constant blue flame during the entire burn.

 

[Bricks]

I am only on my second season with my EKO 40. My wood is a mix of red oak, Elm Shag Bark Hickory some of it is punky ( wind storm years ago ). I run my EKO pretty close to factory settings 7/16" and 2.5 turns fan speed 100% but only 15- 18 % shutter opening. Works great for me. I don`t have storage, if I open my shutter all the way I can`t keep wood in the thing and my stack temp is way to high.

When it comes to settings like stated earlier the burn constantly changes.

 

[rkusek]

I just read the sticky " fine tuning Eko boiler" and proceeded to check my air settings. (I'm getting alot of orange to white flame from the nozzle). My primary sliders were set to 3/8 inch ( I thought OK) and then I screwed in my secondary disks, and screwed them out 2.5 from firm closed. (I also cleaned off a small cut off burr on the tube.) My question is how firm do you screw in the disks before you start counting turns. I turned them in firmly but maybe 1 full turn after you feel the initial touch. Is that to much.
After my adjustments I got a nice blue white with hint of orange I liked it. This morning 1 hr after starting new fire I was getting the orange fire ball again. The outside temp was about 25 deg colder this am than when it changed settings. My wood is 2 yr dry hardwoods, Fan speed 50% w/shutter opening at 40 to 50 % about 1.25 inch across the chord.
My gut tells me to much air, but which one.
My wood is all the same, I'd like to set it and forget it.

what was the primary set at? mine is near the 9 or 10mm per the book (about 3/8"). 3.5 turns on secondary. I now keep the shutter wide open 100% but use the setting on the controller to limit the fan speed to 50 or 60% (no storage). Seems to work well with my 2yr old wood. If using wetter wood I think I would run fan speed higher.

 

[taxidermist]

Yeah if you dont have storage I could see where you want to limit the fan speed as to help prolong the burn cycle. With storage you want a hot ripping fire as long as you can transfer the heat to storage fast enough.

 

[Duetech]

Taxidermist hits it right when he says you wont get the same flame for 100% of the burn. Charcoal and fresh wood will vary in dominate fuels. My older EKO did not have adjustable fan speed. As well I was set up for idle/run/idle/run
because I did not have storage. Since I could not restrict fan speed I had to obstruct air flow to extend my burn time. End result was early in the fire I had some orange in the fire but usually by 1/2 way through it was mostly blue. A constant variable even with 20% mc is wood type. Low btu woods were a consistant problem with settings for high btu woods. An extra monkey wrench I found was condensation from warm air hitting cold wood (unit was in unheated bldg) in extremely cold periods.

Simply put though orange in the fire usually means too rich a mix (either too much primary air or too little secondary air). Remember factory specs are not specific item oriented. Every mfg process ideally works within limits but there are swings in tolerances in those limits. Not every car of a certain make or model got the best mileage but in the make or model some were excellent and some were horrible and each could improve or worsen with a simple change of octane.