The Epoch of the Axeman

 
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Lightning
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Post by Lightning » Sun. Mar. 29, 2020 11:37 am

Thank you fellas!! According to my daughter the heat has been smooth and steady upstairs. It wasn't a huge problem thru January and February tweaking the manual valve since it was basically "cold" outside. But now that we're having days with wildly varying temperatures I've been making a lot of trips into the basement to turn the heat on and off upstairs, all better now..

Good call on the end switch for use of something :)

Since I'm done with my underground pex run observations at the moment, I decided to move the temperature probes to the supply and return mains of the boiler. I'm not sure what useful information I could learn from it, but thought it might be fun to watch during various combinations of heat demands.

The probes are underneath the green tape on the 1.5 inch black pipe. On the displays, the left side is supply, the right side is return..

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Lightning
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Post by Lightning » Mon. Apr. 13, 2020 4:44 pm

Well, I have an idea I'd like to run by y'all.. It pertains to the anthrastat. I think there could be better control of the ashing during mild weather/low heat demand.

So here's what I've noticed.. During low heat demand the fire will go into a deeper sleep between combustion calls. This makes for a longer "ramp up to full fire" time when the combustion fan initiates. What I see happen a lot of times is that the combustion fan will kick on and shortly afterwards the anthrastat will engage the ash sled before the fire livens up. This tends to bury the fire somewhat since while ashing, the fuel bed descends and allows more fresh coal on top before the fire can ramp up. I believe this is also leading to a percentage of coal in the ashes since the fuel bed is being ashed prematurely before the entire fuel bed can ignite.

I've tried lowering the temperature on the anthrastat, but it doesn't really seem to have the effect I'm looking for, which is to keep the ash sled disengaged longer while the fire is ramping up. I would speculate that when the combustion fan comes on, cooler incoming air is flowing across the anthrastat sensor since its directly in its path.. This would make my effort to lower the anthrastat temperature not very effective.

So, what I was thinking is to have another sensor in the exhaust stream (located at the Pope's hat) in series with the anthrastat. When the exhaust stream reaches a particular temperature (at or around full fire) that sensor would close the circuit and leave the anthrastat in charge of controlling ashing for the remainder of the combustion call.

Have any of you thought about using the exhaust temp to help control ashing?

 
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lsayre
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Post by lsayre » Mon. Apr. 13, 2020 5:03 pm

I seem to recall where AHS toyed with monitoring ashing initiation temperature from above the fire rather than below it as an experiment. I don't know what the outcome was though.

 
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Lightning
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Post by Lightning » Mon. Apr. 13, 2020 5:08 pm

lsayre wrote:
Mon. Apr. 13, 2020 5:03 pm
I seem to recall where AHS toyed with monitoring ashing initiation temperature from above the fire rather than below it as an experiment. I don't know what the outcome was though.
Well that's interesting. I wonder where we might find any of that information. Or I suppose I could try and speak with the Main Man at AHS.

I think a combination of above and below the fire would yield the best control of ashing.

 
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hotblast1357
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Post by hotblast1357 » Mon. Apr. 13, 2020 6:22 pm

The wheel is already round..

 
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McGiever
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Post by McGiever » Tue. Apr. 14, 2020 8:29 pm

The Anthrastat is located where it is already due to that being the least hostile environment...

You're on the right path there, but a directly above fire or in direct exhaust stream measuring device must be rating for being constantly in that environment and to surviving any worst case scenario.

 
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coaledsweat
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Post by coaledsweat » Wed. Apr. 15, 2020 6:22 am

Your trying to fix something that ain't broke. Get some chrome knobs or paint it if you have to fiddle with it.


 
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Lightning
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Post by Lightning » Wed. Apr. 15, 2020 6:52 pm

McGiever wrote:
Tue. Apr. 14, 2020 8:29 pm
The Anthrastat is located where it is already due to that being the least hostile environment...

You're on the right path there, but a directly above fire or in direct exhaust stream measuring device must be rating for being constantly in that environment and to surviving any worst case scenario.
Thanks Mac. Here is some data I collected with the IR gun. I'm shooting the 5-6" stove pipe adapter. Was considering a thermal snap switch mounted there.. OR maybe just a timed delay to start ashing after the combustion call starts would be fine.

There were several combustion calls between these two data sets. You can see ramp up to the appearance of full fire is of course variable in time depending on how deeply its sleeping at initiation of the combustion call.

The goal here is to delay ashing to start until the "appearance" of full fire is achieved. The "actual" full fire wouldn't be achieved until the stove pipe temp levels out. It doesn't run long enough for me to see that happen..

I'll collect a few more data sets..

Temp -- Time -- Activity
150 3:13 combustion call starts
171 3:14
187 3:15 ashing engaged
194 3:16
201 3:17
220 3:18 appears to be full fire
237 3:19
265 3:20
281 3:21 combustion call ended
Notes - combustion call 8 mins long


135 6:19
140 6:20 combustion call starts
168 6:21
185 6:22
191 6:23 ashing engaged
196 6:24
201 6:25
205 6:26
217 6:27
236 6:28 full fire
264 6:29
286 6:30
303 6:31 combustion call ended
Notes - combustion call 11 mins long

Current anthrastat setting 120 degrees.

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Last edited by Lightning on Wed. Apr. 15, 2020 7:15 pm, edited 2 times in total.

 
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Lightning
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Post by Lightning » Wed. Apr. 15, 2020 7:04 pm

coaledsweat wrote:
Wed. Apr. 15, 2020 6:22 am
Your trying to fix something that ain't broke. Get some chrome knobs or paint it if you have to fiddle with it.
I know it's not broke ;) just wanting to explore some ideas..

 
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coaledsweat
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Post by coaledsweat » Wed. Apr. 15, 2020 7:39 pm

Here's an idea, buy a cheap PLC and you can program it to do whatever you want. Delay, interrupt or whatever the ashing cycle.

 
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Lightning
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Post by Lightning » Wed. Apr. 15, 2020 9:50 pm

I'm kinda having mixed feelings about this idea.. Forcing the ash initiation to wait till the appearance of a full fire will effectively cut the ashing time down to 1/3 or less. To compromise would mean to ash faster when it does finally ash which brings me back to throwing a lot of coal on the fire in shorter time. It's a paradox. My initial reasoning here was to not bury the fire..

I think my only option is to slow the ashing down some more by lowering the number of clicks on the ratchet. Current clicks on the ratchet is sometimes 1, sometimes 2..

Edit - a timed delay of 4-5 minutes would probably be more appropriate, just to give the fire a head start with ramping up.. You can see that in this data set it pretty much reached full fire and shut down.


143 9:30 combustion call started
163 9:31
181 9:32
193 9:33 ashing engaged
202 9:34
212 9:35
220 9:36
244 9:37 full fire
266 9:38 combustion call ended
Notes - combustion call < 8 minutes

 
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Post by titleist1 » Thu. Apr. 16, 2020 11:50 am

Lee, if its just a delay you want there are $20 solid state timers that offer this feature. Something like the one below. I happen to use this one for a simple mechanical timer replacement and it has many timer features I dont use - like "countdown" which I think would do what you want. The instructions for configuring these tend to be a challenge to decipher but usually there is some online discussion from users to get you what you need.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DFCHN7Z/ref= ... UTF8&psc=1

 
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Lightning
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Post by Lightning » Thu. Apr. 16, 2020 12:04 pm

titleist1 wrote:
Thu. Apr. 16, 2020 11:50 am
if its just a delay you want there are $20 solid state timers that offer this feature. Something like the one below.
Thanks brother.. It also occurred to me just today that I could also put a bigger pulley on the gear box. I wanted to slow down the tube rotation anyways...

 
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Lightning
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Post by Lightning » Thu. Apr. 16, 2020 6:43 pm

I installed a 4 inch pulley on the gear drive box today. Before the pulley swap I counted 6.75 RPM of the coal feed tube. The new pulley spins the tube at about 5.9 RPM. This also will slow the ashing the same since it is triggered by the rotation of the tube. Both (the coal feed tube and the ashing) will be reduced by about 13%.

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Post by Lightning » Thu. Apr. 16, 2020 7:41 pm

While I was at it, I installed the BBQ probe to see what the flue gas temp looks like...

Idle
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End of combustion call
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