Outdoor Wood Furnace Info
Outdoor Furnaces - Manufacturers WITH EPA-Certified Models => Central Boiler => Topic started by: bowood on January 02, 2016, 09:10:38 AM
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I got an E1450 thanks to this forum. The resources on here, especially pictures, helped me a lot. One picture I couldn't find is one with more information about the WIFI/network capabilities and the myfirestar website. I got this up and running and have attached a screen shot.
It is fun to see the various stages (solenoids) going off. Any idea why the furnance vents after reaching its set point? It runs the fan through the charger tube but shuts off primary air. It seems to be to drop the temperature of the reaction chamber quickly. It seems like a waste of heat that it could instead have just let get absorbed. Perhaps it can't let it stay so hot without air flow.
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Neato chart.
Maybe it vents to help reduce creosote buildup?
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That is cool, I wished that my G200 came with something. I bought the WIFI mFi controller and sensors and can view my temp and my fan on my FHA in the house. This is a screen grab from it.
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A couple interesting things of note. It appears that your reaction chamber temps are only getting up to around 800 degrees. I wonder why that is? I wonder what mine are. Second thing is it looks like you are running 170 on 190 off. I wish I could run those temps. Heatmaster has mine locked down at 160-180. I could squeeze some more btus into the water to air hx if I was up a little higher like that. Last year when I was running 175-185 and running the water directly through my water to air hx I could get 130-145 temps out of my heat registers. Now that I am running 160-180 and running the water through a FPHE and then to the water to air hx I get 120-135 temps. I think that the house feels more even with heat and doesn't get that 'hot/cold' that I used to get with the air but I am waiting to see when we get real cold how things are.
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My E1450 is running 175-185, but when it hits the set point it has quite a bit of heat still working its way into the water, so it tends to get to about 190 before changing direction.
Today it is nicely running "high" with all three solenoids open when demanding heat. I think high on this furnance is 750F. It got up to 1000F. There is a note down at the bottom of the page that says: "Due to the temperature limitations of the sensor, it is not positioned in the hottest area of the reaction chamber. The actual secondary combustion temperature may be over 1000° hotter than displayed."
I suspect the venting is just to reduce the uncertainty of the high variability of the reaction chamber upon reaching the set point. For example if it just clamped everything shut at 1000F I bet the water would pass 200F when reaching equilibrium. It would probably benefit creosote reduction if it did not need to do this because it would stay toasty hot for a lot longer.
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Interesting, they must be using PT100 or RTD sensors which work up to 932 degrees F. I wish I could find someone that was knowledgeable with the Siemens LOGO controller that runs the G200. It appears to have a lot of expandabilty it could accept more PT100 sensors. I think it would be pretty easy to place a sensor probe in the reaction chamber.
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My E1450 is running 175-185, but when it hits the set point it has quite a bit of heat still working its way into the water, so it tends to get to about 190 before changing direction.
Today it is nicely running "high" with all three solenoids open when demanding heat. I think high on this furnance is 750F. It got up to 1000F. There is a note down at the bottom of the page that says: "Due to the temperature limitations of the sensor, it is not positioned in the hottest area of the reaction chamber. The actual secondary combustion temperature may be over 1000° hotter than displayed."
I suspect the venting is just to reduce the uncertainty of the high variability of the reaction chamber upon reaching the set point. For example if it just clamped everything shut at 1000F I bet the water would pass 200F when reaching equilibrium. It would probably benefit creosote reduction if it did not need to do this because it would stay toasty hot for a lot longer.
That would be my guess as well that the sensor isn’t in the actual hottest part of the reaction chamber.
I’m still looking for something similar for my G400, I plan on mounting it in the door with the end of the probe as far into the refractory as practical.
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I have the Firestar wi fi option on my Edge and love it. Having real time information anywhere, anytime, on your phone is pretty cool. Water temp, reaction chamber temp, burn time... It even texts or emails you if you run out of wood, water temp is high or low, left the firebox door open etc... I really like it.
It helps a lot in learning these stoves too. You can see what moisture content does and what effect the size of logs/splits do, by watching the reaction chamber temps.
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Interesting, they must be using PT100 or RTD sensors which work up to 932 degrees F. I wish I could find someone that was knowledgeable with the Siemens LOGO controller that runs the G200. It appears to have a lot of expandabilty it could accept more PT100 sensors. I think it would be pretty easy to place a sensor probe in the reaction chamber.
Go to Omega, they have all kinds of wireless temperature loggers that can accept 9 different thermocouples. Also have a receiver available that will transmit to a webpage.
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On a related note. Do you know how a Central Boiler determines "Fire Out"? From the stats I can't tell. I have a backup condensing propane burner for the house on the same line, so the water temperature cannot plummet all the way back down, yet the Central Boiler still knows when the fire is out.
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Is the propane connected into the firestar controller? At what point does the propane kick on? I would think that if it didn't have the propane kit that it would determine 'fireout' from running for over a specified amount of time without a gain in temp. The OMEGA product looks nice butttttt at $300 for just the controller it is really pricey. Looks like a really good industrial product though. Sensors are also $50-$100 each. Thats what is nice about the mFi controller stuff. Reasonably priced. We will see how long it lasts.
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On a related note. Do you know how a Central Boiler determines "Fire Out"? From the stats I can't tell. I have a backup condensing propane burner for the house on the same line, so the water temperature cannot plummet all the way back down, yet the Central Boiler still knows when the fire is out.
bowood - I believe it is determined by an X amount of time the blower runs trying to get the fire going again. If it doesn't "see" a measurable rise in temps over an X amount of time AND with the water temp falling below 150 degfrees F, it "assumes" there is a "Fire Out" condition.
I set my oil burner aquastat to 150 so if the OWB water temps approaches it, the oil burner senses it and fires up (OWB heating season only). Essentially its my warning system notifying me that the water temp from the OWB has fallen to or below 150 for a reason. One time it was due me being lazy by not clearing any of the air holes in the fire box (my E-Classic 1400 doesn't have the removable panels that most models now have) of creosote buildup and the fire snuffed itself out. Another time it was due to bridging. Another time (last winter) it was due to the bolt that holds the plate attached to the solenoid at the top of the primary air tube had corroded to the point that it could no longer support it. It essentially choked itself to death. Roger
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The wifi module is on my wish list!
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I have the propane starter on the E1450 as well as a separate propane furnace that came with the house. The propane furnace keeps the water around 130 depending on the outside temperature. So 150 without heat increase could be the magic cutoff where the central boiler realizes that the fire is out.
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When it calls 'fireout' is there enough coals left to restart or are you starting from scratch?
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I haven't yet tried to let coals re-light the fire. I just put the wood in and press the auto-light button. I'm spoiled by the propane ignition. It gets it hot very fast so there is little smoke. It's hooked to a 1000 gallon tank.
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Honda - If I'm lucky I may have some coals available to help rekindle the fire but generally they are all dead and I need to start from scratch to get it going again. But, having said that, it doesn't take long to get the water temp from 150 to 190.
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When I was looking for a gasser I was going to go with the 1450 or the g200. I liked the 1450 because of the fire star controller and the optional propane for relighting incase my wife let it go out. The price was at best a few thousand more than the g200 though and the g200 got better test results than the 1450. Th g200 also had the very good reviews of the Heatmaster company standing behind it. I can be a geek though and would like to know the reaction chamber temps and the exaust temps.
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When I was looking for an OWB, my CB rep offered the optional propane ignition unit but I turned it down. I didn't think I'd need it (hindsight is 20/20). The basic fire star controller came with my unit but the wifi option was not available for the OWB at the time I purchased mine. I don't feel like dishing out somewhere around $500.00 for the upgrade. I am thinking of installing a web based security camera that will focus on the digital display which not only shows the water temp but every 6 seconds it will show the reaction chamber temp. I should be able to access it on my computer in my living room and at work. But at the moment my priorities are paying off some rather large bills. Roger
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When my fire goes out (rarely). And usually because of a brain fart.... I have had very little trouble relighting. Even with a few embers, a couple pieces of paper and/or some dry kindling and she's up and running pretty quickly. That said, it does take a bit of time to get a good bed established..... But I'm not always using the best coaling wood. I should have gotten the propane option and probably would have but my local dealer was a douche.
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I've since discovered that the "vent" mode where the primary air is off and only charge tube is running only comes on if the reaction chamber was above 550 at the end of a cycle. If it was lower than this when it hits the set point it doesn't run a vent cycle. So that still doesn't explain to me why it does it, but it makes me feel better about it wasting heat. It doesn't bother if there is much heat to begin with. I got the propane option because it was new construction and I was already running so many underground conduit, propane, etc. If it was an existing home the options would have felt much more expensive.
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The short answer is maybe. I have caught it right at fire out and there were plenty of coals on the sides....just none in the reaction chamber..... Add wood and walk away. I have arrived way late after it called fire out and had to add some paper and kindling to coax it back. Ultimately it depends on how soon you catch it.... And the dryness of the woof.
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I added the Central Boiler Firestar Module into Samsung SmartThings. Now I can see the temperatures next to all the door and thermostat sensors. Its a prototype at this point but it works. I'll add more to it later. Here is the source code:
https://github.com/bowood/CentralBoiler
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A couple interesting things of note. It appears that your reaction chamber temps are only getting up to around 800 degrees. I wonder why that is? I wonder what mine are. Second thing is it looks like you are running 170 on 190 off. I wish I could run those temps. Heatmaster has mine locked down at 160-180. I could squeeze some more btus into the water to air hx if I was up a little higher like that. Last year when I was running 175-185 and running the water directly through my water to air hx I could get 130-145 temps out of my heat registers. Now that I am running 160-180 and running the water through a FPHE and then to the water to air hx I get 120-135 temps. I think that the house feels more even with heat and doesn't get that 'hot/cold' that I used to get with the air but I am waiting to see when we get real cold how things are.
Long as the air coming out the vents doesn’t feel cold, the lower the temp and the longer the fan on the furnace runs, the more even the temperatures will be from room to room and even in each room. I’ve read in numerous places that some HVAC guys even recommend leaving the fan on manual, course in our cases we’d all have to have primary/secondary loops or fan coil valves on our HX’ers. With my old setup the whole house humidifier would kick on and just run the fan on the furnace, without water flowing thru the HX the air would feel cold, especially if you just stepped out of the shower when it kicked on.
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Yes and no all depends how long it's been out type of wood coal bed that's established,but if you catch it early maybe it will,if it's from a bridge event or so lots of variables.