Is the ignitor bad, the mother board? The dreaded 5 blink status

[riley]

HELP.

We have a PB105 had it installed in October it is running in parallel with our OB. We have 3 heating zones and a 4th for indirect HW.

Boiler was working fine for about one month - started to stop igniting and giving the dreaded 5 blink status. Tech came and replaced slide plate - still not working. Now thinks that perhaps it is the mother board? Any thoughts.

We do not have the optional air intake - all of the oxegyn comes from our basement and house - see a lot of talk on here about the switches - all of ours are in the on position.

Anyone have any thoughts or anything like this happen to them.

 

[AndrewChurchill]

It's possible the ignitor has failed. Pull it out and do a resistance check on it. I took a reading off a brand new ignitor and it was averaging 55 on my lowest resistance setting.

All of my switches are in the off position. These settings allow more pellets to be fed into the burn pot. I've noticed that if there aren't enough pellets in the burnpot they won't ignite because they are too far below the ignitor.

Try turning the dip switches to the off position. If this doesn't work you can always turn them back on.

 

[riley]

Thanks Andrew.

We will try the switches. The tech is supposed to return today we will suggest these things to him. He is at a loss at this point as well.

 

[riley]

I wanted to post an update to this issue in th event that someone else runs into the issue.

In the end (so far) after replacing the boards, setting the switches in various positions, replacing the slide plate, what it turned out to be in the end was bad exhausting.

On our vent pipe when it was installed they put some type of catch screen on the end - well it got clogged up and was not allowing propering venting. The tech removed it - cleaned the vent, and the interior of the boiler - and now the exhaust is running properly and the boiler no longer smokes profusely on start up (someone had posted that on here) and the ignitor appears to be functioning properly.

It has only been a couple of hours but prior to this it would not maintain temp and would shut down and give the dreaded five blinks.

Hope this is helpful to someone in the long run. Thanks everyone for posting on here.

Have a great weekend.

 

[riley]

Spoke to soon all...

The issue continues.

Failed to ignite on Saturday - tech came out again and replaced the ignitor. Worked until this afternoon - still will not restart.

Now am looking for advice as to whether or not I should get rid of the whole thing....really frustrated.

 

[AndrewChurchill]

I wouldn't give up. You may just need to do some tweaking. Several members of Hearth.Com have the same boiler and are very happy with it.

Have you checked your air intake flap? I had a problem with ignition because my air flap was stuck shut.

Another thing you might consider is using the outside air kit. A couple of us have had ignition problems during warm weather and if your basement is heated you may be experiencing the same thing I do during warm weather.

 

[riley]

Thanks Andrew. We taped the vent on the chamber door and set the #1 and #3 swithces to on and it finally ignited. We have set it to manual to see if we can keep it burning. It is going to be in the 20s tonight so we will be calling for heat consistently.

We are wondering if the ignitor just doesn't have enough power?

Our dealer tech is going to contact Harman again on Tuesday so we shall see. I did see that on iburnpellets.com I think it was that said that your burn pot was loose and creating a draft problem??? Was that you? If so, how do you tighten it?

 

[AndrewChurchill]

Nope, my burn pot was not loose. Have you cleaned the fines out of the ignitor chamber? I do this about once a week.

 

[riley]

Yes we did. Sorry - someone on the iburnpellets site mentioned that they had an issue with re ignition and corrected the issue by tightening the burn pot??? To correct a draft issue.

So if we have:

1. replaced the slide plate
2. had the entire stove cleaned out - including the flue the venting and removed the screen from the end of the vent pipe
3. replaced the ignitor
4. replaced the board
5. just removed the plate on the burn pot and cleaned that out

What else is there to correct? Can you think of any issues - our esp was reading around 303 the other night when it was burning and the tech was here. Before we replaced the mother board and cleaned it was around 145.

At a loss - honestly don't know what to do next.

How much was the outdoor sensor? Do you think it makes a big differnce?

 

[riley]

Yes we did. Sorry - someone on the iburnpellets site mentioned that they had an issue with re ignition and corrected the issue by tightening the burn pot??? To correct a draft issue.

So if we have:

1. replaced the slide plate
2. had the entire stove cleaned out - including the flue the venting and removed the screen from the end of the vent pipe
3. replaced the ignitor
4. replaced the board
5. just removed the plate on the burn pot and cleaned that out

What else is there to correct? Can you think of any issues - our esp was reading around 303 the other night when it was burning and the tech was here. Before we replaced the mother board and cleaned it was around 145.

At a loss - honestly don't know what to do next.

How much was the outdoor sensor? Do you think it makes a big difference?

 

[AndrewChurchill]

I think the outdoor air kit is around $100. Do you have the outdoor air sensor installed?

 

[riley]

No we don't. Do you think it makes a big difference?

 

[AndrewChurchill]

I ran mine for a couple of months without it and once I installed it the boiler seemed to run better. Of course I installed it around the same the daytime and night time temps started to get cold so I can't say for certain the sensor made all of the difference.

At the very least it will help you save some fuel.

 

[riley]

Thanks. If we ever get this thinking going on a regular basis I think it makes a great deal of sense to have an outside temp sensor.

It's been an hour or so and it is still running. We have it on manual so hopefully it stays lit. We will keep you posted.

Thanks again.

 

[AndrewChurchill]

Do you have your over heat zone wired up?

 

[riley]

Hi - sorry - what is an over heat zone?

 

[AndrewChurchill]

Your PB has an electrical connection that you wire to either a dump zone or your largest heating zone. What this does is if for some reason there is no call for heat and your boiler reaches 205F instead of having the pressure relief go off it opens a heating zone and starts circulating the water through that zone until the boiler temp drops to its designated temperature.

If you're running in the auto ignite mode this isn't too much of a concern since you're only going to have a hand full of pellets in the burn pot at the most. But in your case of running in manual the boiler never shuts off and if there isn't enough demand for heat the boiler temp could potentially rise to the point where the pressure relief valve would open.

Now this probably won't happen since the minimum feed rate is a little over 1 pound per hour, but it's better to be safe than sorry.

 

[nmerrill]

Just checking, but it sounds like you two are talking about 2 different things -

Outside air supply

Outside temp sensor.

Both are options on the pb105
I think Andrew was asking if you have the boiler hooked up to an outside air source, as opposed to drawing combustion air from the building.
Is the house very tight? do you have enough combustion air?

 

[AndrewChurchill]

I was talking about both things.

 

[Wayne64SS]

I know this is probably not worth posting but when I clean my PB I have to do it with the front open. I open it up and place the ash pan underneath it. Then I scrape the chit out of the burn pot. It accumulates alot of hard carbon buildup along the sides and the bottom, especially down near the feeder.... when i was getting the 5 blink it was because i wasn't cleaning this area well enough...i watched it one day and it was on low burn about to go off, but a fire WAS there. The PB decided it was time to ignite and turned on the ignitor and fed a few pellets, but it never actually got the fire going. It stopped feeding and gave the 5 blink and what was there went out. It was almost as if the PB couldn't tell it actually did have a small fire going. I dunno if maybe the carbon was blocking where it takes its heat reading or what... but after i gave it a good cleaning with the door open the 5 blinker went away. Hasn't come back since. Just keep 'er clean and don't be afraid to scrape.

 

[AndrewChurchill]

I typically clean my burn pot twice a week. I also open the hopper when I do this cleaning. I will occasionally remove some of the ashes from the viewing window, but not very often.