Jotul GF3 B-Vent Pilot and Spill Questions

[fsisco626]

Good morning everyone! Hope you are all well.

Been scouring the web for a few hours and have been unable to find the troubleshooting information I need, hoping you fine folks can help me out...the Jotul manual certainly isn't very forthcoming with helpful information or diagrams.

I have a Jotul GF3 BV that was working fine a week ago. I turned the pilot off when I went on vacation for a week, came back and can't get the pilot to light!
I measured the TC at ~14mv so I went ahead and changed it out, now I'm getting ~30mv so I think that should be OK. I checked the thermopile and was able to get up to ~550mv after 60 seconds or so, so I think thats okay as well.

Now, I somehow completely over looked that one wire from the spill switch was dangling on the floor, I think it must have become brittle and been yanked off by the cats or something. Will the spill switch prevent the pilot from lighting or only the main burner?

Can someone help me identify where the spill switch should be connected? I can't for the life of me figure out where it should have been connected. In the attached image you can see the wire dangling below center, it had a terminal of some sort attached to it but it must have become brittle and broken off.

I believe the wire bundle dangling to the lower left are for the optional blower, they have never been connected to anything so I have just been ignoring them.

 

[DAKSY]

There has to be the remains of an attached wire on the gas valve. According to the manual I found, it’s wired to the thermocouple system. I’ll try to find a schematic.

 

[fsisco626]

Thanks for the response, here is an image I just took from the right side of the gas valve, this is how things were sitting when I got to it.

1 and 2 are the leads from the spill switch, you can see that lead #1 goes on top of the gas valve somewhere, then appears to route back to a solenoid or something on the end (with the red stripe). Do you think that #2 also would have gone over top somewhere? I honestly cannot for the life of me find where it would have been connected. The other end of the white jumper wire had what appeared to be some variant of spade terminal on it, but I can't find any empty terminals other than the thermostat/switch wiring block and the thermocouple/thermopile terminals.

 

[49er]

It's hard to see from the picture but is wire #1 connected to to the bottom terminal on the valve, TP/TH? It kind of looks like it could be attached from the back view.
Also, I think the bundle you're calling the blower could be the On-Off-T-stat switch.
If both these things are correct I think you might need to splice the broken white wire's together and connect the spade terminal to the TH terminal on the valve.

It wouldn't hurt to wait though until DAKSY or one of the other pros here chime in on my thinking.

 

[DAKSY]

If the #2 wire is long enough to reach the terminal block, it should be connected there. I would first attach it to the TH-TP terminal. If that doesn’t work, try the TH terminal. If that doesn’t work, try the TP terminal. There’s not enough voltage in those wires, so don’t worry about damaging anything.

 

[fsisco626]

I attempted to light the pilot on all three terminals and had no luck, I held it for about ~60s on each one.

It's hard to see from the picture but is wire #1 connected to to the bottom terminal on the valve, TP/TH? It kind of looks like it could be attached from the back view.
Also, I think the bundle you're calling the blower could be the On-Off-T-stat switch.
If both these things are correct I think you might need to splice the broken white wire's together and connect the spade terminal to the TH terminal on the valve.

It wouldn't hurt to wait though until DAKSY or one of the other pros here chime in on my thinking.

I inspected those wires closer, it is clear that they have not been used in quite some time. The spade connector is pretty gross and the other wire is clean cut but dusty so definitely hasn't been used. I don't believe they are related to my current problem unfortunately.

 

[49er]

Going by the manual that DAKSY posted the spill switch only stops the main burner. I would forget about the wiring for now and concentrate on getting the pilot going.
You said that you replaced the thermocouple and are getting good mv readings on it and the thermopile. How are you getting those readings if the pilot light won't light?

These are probably silly questions but if you're on propane, make sure you have gas in the tank. You didn't happen to turn the gas valve off at the stove while working on it and forget to open it back up?

I would remove the glass and use a match or BBQ lighter at the pilot and hold in the pilot valve to confirm if you are getting gas there.

 

[stovelark]

The spill switch is wired in series with the thermocouple. It opens the TC circuit if its activated, make sure the switch is closed. I think Jotul used a re-settable spill switch and some had self re-setting ones.

 

[fsisco626]

You said that you replaced the thermocouple and are getting good mv readings on it and the thermopile. How are you getting those readings if the pilot light won't light?

I can light the pilot but it wont stay lit. I assumed it was because of the spill switch but that is a good point, the manual says it only affects the main burner...

Basically, I can hold in the gas control knob on "PILOT" and light it using the igniter, the pilot will stay lit for as long as I hold the knob in. As soon as I release the knob the pilot goes out.
I got those mv readings by connecting a multimeter to the TC and performing the lighting procedure, I held it in until the readings stabilized before releasing.

 

[fsisco626]

The spill switch is wired in series with the thermocouple. It opens the TC circuit if its activated, make sure the switch is closed. I think Jotul used a re-settable spill switch and some had self re-setting ones.

So would the spill switch being disconnected prevent the pilot from staying lit? Possibly?

 

[DAKSY]

How are you testing the thermocouple? If you aren’t removing the TC completely from the valve, I don’t believe you are testing the it correctly. The way I was taught to test a thermocouple was to disconnect it from the valve. Your multimeter probes need be in contact with the extreme end of the button that bottoms out in the valve & on the copper casing. Envelop the business the end in a flame & read the millivolts.

 

[fsisco626]

How are you testing the thermocouple? If you aren’t removing the TC completely from the valve, I don’t believe you are testing the it correctly. The way I was taught to test a thermocouple was to disconnect it from the valve. Your multimeter probes need be in contact with the extreme end of the button that bottoms out in the valve & on the copper casing. Envelop the business the end in a flame & read the millivolts.

I tested it by unthreading the fitting from the valve body and placing a positive alligator clip on the copper line and the negative clip on the very end of the fitting, then lighting and holding the pilot until the reading stabilizes. Ill double-check in a little bit, but I am fairly certain it was ~30mv.

 

[stovelark]

DAKSY, I believe your method or the OP's will work, its just hard to get a TC reading sometimes with TC still installed.
Yes if spill switch is open, it interrupts the circuit and will not allow the pilot to stay on. That's the safety switch aspect of it.

 

[fsisco626]

Apologies all, I've been very sick for two weeks now so I haven't gotten back to this. I'll go through this thread again this afternoon, retest the TC, and post results here.