New Boiler Build for New Steam System.

I'm still fiddling with my feed settings....currently running 18s feeder & blower & 65s blower only.

I think I'm having to alter settings to compensate for my loads of coal having been mined from different depths in the seam...the coal i currently have is quite obviously mined from the bottom of the seam...its black-black and dense compared to the coal i get in the summer that is brown-black and not so heavy per "bucket weight".....i also managed to fit another 100kg in the truck i used to get coal, however the actual volume of coal was no bigger than my last couple of loads.

That ties in with what the guys at the mine told me some time back....as the weather gets colder they sell coal from lower in the seam so that when you need heat the most you have the best coal they can supply (pretty much no one here stocks up on coal ahead of time and a 1 ton bin is considered pretty large)....that theory works well in a handfired stove or boiler....not so much when your running a stoker...however, i can live with it.

Now i just need get my system for loading coal into my bin sorted out.....i'm going to try a venturi vacuum transport system to get it off the truck and into the bin...all powered by a 30cfm air compressor....well thats the plan anyway.

Callum

Sorry if I missed it but are those feed and air times suspended when there is no load on the boiler (e.g., by an aquastat)?

Not sure why you say a stoker would be different from handfiring in terms of wanting to use the coal with the highest btu's during the time of heaviest load on the system. Could you please explain?

If you search the forum I think you'll find several attempts by members to use vacuum methods to move coal. From memory the ones that worked the best involved the smallest-sized (rice) coal. Creating large volumes of airborne coal dust might also be an issue. Around here as an alternative people might go with a loader, conveyor, chute, auger, wheelbarrow, drum cart or bucket brigade of 5-gallon pails (sorry you metric folks probably don't have those ).

Mike

Pacowy wrote:Sorry if I missed it but are those feed and air times suspended when there is no load on the boiler (e.g., by an aquastat)?

Not sure why you say a stoker would be different from handfiring in terms of wanting to use the coal with the highest btu's during the time of heaviest load on the system. Could you please explain?

If you search the forum I think you'll find several attempts by members to use vacuum methods to move coal. From memory the ones that worked the best involved the smallest-sized (rice) coal. Creating large volumes of airborne coal dust might also be an issue. Around here as an alternative people might go with a loader, conveyor, chute, auger, wheelbarrow, drum cart or bucket brigade of 5-gallon pails (sorry you metric folks probably don't have those ).

Mike

Yeah the aquastat works as normal.

Different coal grades burn differently...with the coal i get here in a handfired at least, the way the better coal in the winter works is that you don't need to increase the amount of coal much to keep a set area warm (i.e a house) when the outside temperature is lower...with a stoker that(unless adjusted) fires identically all the time that means that your fire varies....in my case with a stoker, as the coal gets better grade it burns longer....which if i don't alter anything means i have live coals getting pushed over the edge....so i need to either slow the feed down or up the air flow to compensate.

It is rice coal that i am running on.....and i aim to fix the dust issue with a water spray just before the outlet of the tube.....we don't have 5 gallon buckets....we have 20 liter buckets

Callum

Thanks for the explanation. I don't really follow the premise that the stoker adjustments wouldn't be changed if the burn characteristics of the coal are changed. It seems like that would be ensuring that one or the other (or both) of the stoker burns would be inefficient (i.e., sub-optimal fuel-air mixture). I tried to avoid burning junk coal in the dead of winter, saving it for shoulder periods. Use the good coal when you need the highest output. Adjust fuel-air mix when the coal type in use changes.

Mike

I had my first unintentional stoppage today.......i came home after work to find my boiler temp down to 75f ....it must have had no fire happening from about lunch'ish' time for it to be down to that temperature....the combustion fan running the whole time wouldn't have helped matters either.

It broke the shear pin.....and guess who couldn't remember where he had put the little bag with the 5 spares that he had got for just this occasion?

I just had time to break pretty much every traffic rule on the way across town to get to the hardware store before it closed.....but i made it, and got MORE spare pins.

New pin installed and the stoker fired itself right back up without needing any relight, i did over-ride the timer so that it fed coal nonstop until i had a full pot of coal however.

It took about an hour to bring the house and DHW cylinder back up to temperature once the fire was back to full size

Fortunately my wife had taken our son out and about for the afternoon so no women or children were chilled during this production.....of a 3 piece shear-pin.

Callum

I usually remember where the spare parts were kept when I get more spare parts.

David

Ain't that always the case?

I have part two of my shear pin drama to report.....

At 6am this morning i was awaken by my wife with the words no coal-boiler man ever wants to hear......"the radiators are cold and the house is chilly"....

My first thought was that whatever had caused the shear pin to break yesterday had done it again.....but when i looked at the boiler the shear pin was still intact..... but nothing was going round and the motor was hot to the touch Whats going on here?

I booted up the stoker stove in the living room and switched on the electric for hotwater before going to work at 7:30....Luckily i only had one thing that i really needed to get finished at work this morning so that it could be picked up this afternoon so I was back home with some more serious tools of mechanical butchery by 10:30am.

First i tried to get the shearpin (5mm grade 8.8 cap screw actually) out back out.....nope.....fine then, be like that, i'll cut the head off it and punch it thru.....nope ....hmmm ok this might be a little more serious that it first appeared......i'll take the gearbox off and see if i can back the auger up with a bar to clear whatever has jammed it (the gearbox has a drive plate onto the auger so you can remove the gearbox even if the shear pin won't come out for some reason)

As soon as i removed the gearbox the problem was obvious....a 4" or so circle of rubber was under the rear of the auger and was jammed against the bottom of the tube.....i think the reason that the shear pin was still intact was that the rubber caused a gradual or 'soft' jam instead of the sudden stop that a stone causes and the pin could stand up to that....once i had the gearbox off the shear pin punched out with only a minor amount of violence needed...altho it is stepped with the load that had been on it.

Got everything cleared out and put back together by about 12:30pm.....i had to relight the fire this time....i'm now waiting to see what other fun things are in my coal .

Callum

You got a bonus. You thought you were getting just coal and someone gave you a rubber circle and didn't charge you extra!

Your not being ungrateful are you?

blrman07 wrote: Your not being ungrateful are you?

.................................A thousand clinkers upon your grate sir......

You put those shear bolts in a very safe place...
So they don't get lost...
So safe that you can never find them again...
Just ask the little elves that are playing with you...
To put the bolts back where you can find them...
Or just stop looking for them...
Then they get found!...

Ain't that the truth....

Found my missing bag of shear pins ......hanging on a nail stuck in the wall.....right beside the power switch for the stoker .....i obviously need more coffee...or beer...or something...

Callum

See...
The elves did put them back...
So you could find them...
LOL...

HAH!!!,

I am sure the same elves helped themselves to my "brand new" Hubble clamp meter in its carry bag no less and probably
took it to Unhippys part of OZ on a first class ticket on a container ship out of Long Beach, California, USA.