Thanks again!

It's thursday morning now. On tuesday night, I drilled and tapped the firebox for 3/4 street ell w/straight nipple, hose, and then another street ell in between the burner auger "Y" and the bin auger "T". I used that clear reinforced vinyl hose. It's too stiff in the cold and influences the alignment of the Tee and Y. If I can find aome heater duct hose that size, I will probably install it.

My bin auger is short. I have the bin as close as I can get it. I improved the alignment of the bin auger. I had alignment problems that forced the "bin end" of the auger up into the bin Tee. It got jammed agains the tee, so I made sure the alignment was good, and all the fittings ran straight.

I let it run for a bit, the burner auger jammed, and then of coarse the bin auger.

I said pixx on it!! and went to bed. The house got into the 50's. Got outisde before 5:00a Took the augers out, cleaned the tees with soapy water. Did the best I could. Reinstalled everything. Cleaned the burn pot. let the augers feed and then loaded the pellets. Started the fire. Summary, I got to run in auto, slowly increasing the set point. I have a day job, so I ran home and the timers had taken over in "START" mode. Anyway. I just want hot water with unjammed augers. Did some tending after work, Got the ice out of the plow pump (different project) so I could plow snow from (2) days ago. (This boiler has been using my free time).

Before I went to bed, I adjusted the high fire timer to increase the on time, and hopefull increase the water temp. I couldn't get out of the 140's with it being 20° outside. BAD IDEA!!!! Woke up to a cool house. 65ish.
The burner auger was jammed and the flame was out.

I don't know if it burned down enough and the fines/ash packed in around the auger?? and then it couldn't restart? I don't know. I installed my NEW HEXNUT shaft collar. Used a wrench to turn the auger, pulled the auger, removed some ash from the pot. I was removing complete, charred pellets. I started the boiler w/o the bin auger, so it could clear a path. And then I connected the bin auger.

I'm still on a quest for a higher torque auger motor. Central Boiler looks they use a good burner auger. I did receive my 1rpm motor from multiproducts yesterday. Surplus Center has 1.8 rpm motors for $19.

Do you think burning pellets is a problem for this boiler? You've said you burn everything.

So many details, too many to type.

Another question. This boiler does not have the (3) cleanout rods in the back. I attached a piece of auger to a shaft, and use that for cleanout, but do they act as a restriction? to help improve heat transfer in the exchanger?

Thanks again. I'll be running home at lunch to see where my water temp is.

Tim

Tim,
I'm into my third year burning my Universal 1020. I burn all corn and had 1 jam last year and 0 so far this season.

One of my lessons learned from last march is, don't let the fire burn back into the fire pot auger. I let mine starve for fuel when we had a early warm up in Michigan. Fire burned back into burn pot auger, melted the seal in the auger bearing, and locked my burn pot auger.

I enlarged my air box hole with a hole saw. I used a piece of 3/4" thick wood the size of the fan flange and drilled through it with a 2 1/4" ?? hole saw. I then bolted the board to the air box, to hold the hole saw centered over the existing (2" ??) hole.

Thanks for the info. I started w/pellets in the hopes of fuel consistency/ease, and then I would switch to corn. Maybe that's a good deal of my problems! Again, this was a used machine, and dealing with the augers I have discovered that both of the inboard auger bearings are shot. The burn pot auger has some runout that increases the load. I need to get some 6202 bearings. I haven't had my head abouve water long enough to say I have time to be proactive, but not fixing may be the source of my problems. I'm trying to get to a "consisent limp" to create a cushion.

In regards to the blower hole? that you mentioned. The hole in my air box was a very irregular shaped ?square? hole. It looked like someone took a torch, started the hole, turned their head in the other direction, and freehanded-it. Farmer1 recommended cleaning up the opening, so I use a grinder cut-off wheel and squared the hole out to the threaded inserts.

I went home at lunch time. Things were burning great. Water temp was around the 150° set point. I was still in "start" mode from the morning - I had to go to work!!! I would assume the purpose of start mode is to override the timers, or is it to override the low temp switch? When my system is in start mode, near the set point (150), the timers will start/stop the timers.???

Got to get home. Hoping for continued 150 water. Wind is blowing and the temp is in the single digits so I need a warm house!!

thanks,

Tim

Well, got home after work and things were still burning well. Decided to leave well enough alone!!! Wait for the house to warm up! I checked the water temp (indoor control for my propane boiler) at I was at 160. Cool!!!, Checked again at 11:30. Still doing well. 2ish. 94° Oh shxt, MF, got to get outside. Boy it's cold. LAter found that it was
-14°. Timer was in off mode, fire burning low????? It was still in start mode, the way I left it mode, because I didn't want to mess with anything, and it seems like the timers control after the min. temp is reached. Anyway, bin auger started up, I saw the fan rotate on the burner auger. I decided to wait until I saw the pot fill. Waited, and didn't seem like pellets were being auger in. Got closer to the burner auger. Motor is running but shaft is not turning!!! Time for a new gearmotor. Changed the motor and started augering. Oiled the bin auger motor (received a new Multiproducts motor the other day) since it was a bit noisy. Went back to bed. 5:00am Water temp. was below 100° again. Outside again. Bin auger wasn't turning. Installed the new gearmotor. Started augering. Threw a few scoops in the pot to give it a jumpstart. 160° water before I left for work at 7:00. Still in start mode! I'll check it at lunch time. Our house was around -15°. Saw -23° on the way (in a valley) and -20° at work. So, it's cold.

I have all baseboards or floor heat so it takes a while satisfy a thermostat.

Plan for the weekend:
straighten the burn auger

install a replacement heat exchanger in the propane boiler. I'm getting tired of a cold house and need the propane back-up until I get to burning corn!!

I lost an auger motor due to gearbox in year 1.

I was re-reading an earlier post, and I would definitely work towards a solution for the three missing heat exchanger scraper rods. (maybe three big washers cut in half and welded to some steel rod) I think your hot gasses may be short cycling out the stack, rather than swirling around the primary heat exchange tubes higher up in the burn chamber. Also, I ran mine in start mode for the first 35-40 DAYS.

I have been considering replacing mine with short pieces of appropriate auger flighting, for more of a turbolator effect, and them tying them together with chain and sprockets to scrape with a turn of a crank. (It's not broke, but I still want to fix it)

Hang in there! Even with high corn prices I still prefer my 1020 to LP.

My last reply got lost. Thanks for the input. I'll continue my saga on Monday. Hopefully it's toasty in the house this weekend.

Tim

good luck!Stay Warm.Talking negative temps here for weekend 10-20 below Monday Am might have both running if this wind keeps up.

Good Morning Guys,

Yes, we're warm. Watched the Packer/Bears game while lying on the heated floor, and room temp was 73. "Livin' like a millionaire!". I did it to myself last Friday. The set screw on my new burner auger shaft collar (15/16" hex) was too short. Motor slipped out between 1pm and 4pm. Burned/melted the "Y" until the "safety" tripped. Ran to town, bought (2) "y's" installed (1) and started making hot water.

My wife and I, and our (2) little boys slept in the same bedroom downstairs. We were using a space heater. At about 2:00am had the room up to 70, and turned off the space heater. Boiler was still making plenty of hotwater. (I'm able to monitor water temp. through my propane boiler temp sensor) w/o going outside. Running well in the morning. It takes a lot of fuel to bring a house back up to temp!! On saturday I tried some different settings. At this stage, the boiler is very sensitive. Temp can drop like a rock with too much off-time. Made sure the water was to max level. I found my old "Springfield Instruments" weather station w/remote wireless transmitter. It monitors room temp, humidity, and time. It accepts (3) remote wireless channels. I have 1 channel. Max temp reading is 159°. I have the sensor on the return line from the house. At this stage, it's very convenient to watch the trends for return water temp. w/o going downstairs or outside. I can have the base unit by the bed, and check that the return temp is somewhere in the 140's w/setpoint at 150±4. This unit also has an alarm for high/low temp. I have the low alarm set for 130°. High alarm is the max (159) so it is marginally useful.

Summary, I'm on track! Last week was a comedy of error's but I wasn't laughing a whole lot!!! I'm going to get 20-50 bu from my buddy, (corn & beef) farmer. Also, we have a local pellet mill that's making maple right now, so I'm going to try some of those pellets.

Thanks again,

Tim

Glad to hear this are going good now we where around -15 this am we had trouble starting some of our buses but got enough running to get kids to school.Luckily no wind otherwise it won't be to bearable.