Eric Johnson (00:00)
Welcome back to Boiler Wild. My name is Eric Johnson. On this podcast, I talk about boiler industry topics as well as personal development. Wild is part of the name of the podcast. Boiler Wild. Wild actually stands for something. Wild stands for work hard, invest in yourself, lead others and develop yourself into a person of excellence. We should always strive to be better. And I know the listeners of Boiler Wild are the people in the boiler industry striving to get better, wanting to learn.
Eric Johnson (00:28)
And wanting to help others and develop their careers and futures. Why? Not because that you can, you know, climb the corporate ladder, but you can develop yourself and your career so that you become more valuable, your skills become more valuable, you can get paid more, you can take your wife on better vacations, you can take your kids to Disney World, you can buy your dream car and you can do whatever you want, whatever your dreams are. But
Eric Johnson (00:54)
you have to put in the work. And I am putting in the work, just like you. I am far from making it. I am way far from making it. I can't even tell you how far I am from making it. But I am I'm in the trenches with you all as well. And today we're gonna be sharing about a topic that is a little bit more complicated, a little bit more on the theoretical part.
Eric Johnson (01:22)
and practical part of boiler operation, but it is still applicable, especially if you're a service technician and if you are an operator and have Fireye burner controls on your boilers because you will see or hear what I'm talking about with your Fireye burner controls and you'll be able to know kind of what it looks like. But
Eric Johnson (01:49)
With anything, I would always recommend don't listen to the crazy guy on the microphone, me. You should look at your manual. Because I'm gonna talk in a little bit of general generalities with this Fireye, although it does come across on a lot of their flame safeguards, how they set this up. This isn't always the case.
Eric Johnson (02:14)
And it's not the case in all situations. A lot of boilers are different, a lot of boilers are the same. It all depends on how the burner and or boiler manufacturer has wired or set up the bo boiler. It all depends on if it is a very simple boiler or if the boiler is really complicated, has parallel positioning, and has every single option checked off that will be wired slightly different. But a very general power burner.
Eric Johnson (02:44)
on a boiler with a Fireye. And I'm gonna define Fireye. Once again, Fireye, there are a lot of general terms in the boiler industry. There are a lot of terms that people misuse. A lot of people and I don't know who was first Fireye or Honeywell. I believe Honeywell was I think Honeywell is older than Fireye. But Fireye is
Eric Johnson (03:11)
Or can be used as a name for the flame sensor, aka the Fireye, the eye that views the fire, the f the flame sensor that sees the fire. So if somebody says, our Fireye is bad, they will typically be talking about our flame sensors bad. But I am always into using correct definitions, correct terminology so that we're all
Eric Johnson (03:39)
On the same page here, I would not refer to the flame sensor as the Fireye. I would refer to it as the flame sensor or the flame rod if it's a flame rod or the UV sensor, but they're all flame sensors. It's a way to sense flame. It's a way for the burner safeguard to sense flame. And going back is Fireye Fireye is a company based in New Hampshire. They were owned by Carrier. I don't know who owns them now.
Eric Johnson (04:09)
but Fireye, big combustion controls company. I know they make a ton of fancy flame safeguards and tons of fancy
Eric Johnson (04:20)
flame scanners or flame sensors and some other stuff, but that's what they're known for. they're typically all their components are red. So if you see a red burner control, that will probably be a Fireye burner control. And by burner control I mean flame safeguard or parallel position control. They are typically all red, red actuators, red actuator covers.
Eric Johnson (04:50)
But that's not always the case. Sometimes they can be black. But Fireye Red. And if you're new to the boiler industry, Honeywell flame safeguards. The most famous flame safeguard there is the RM seventy eight hundred is blue. So if you have a light blue flame safeguard, that is a honeywell flame safeguard. And they essentially do the same thing as the Fireye flame safeguards. There is real no
Eric Johnson (05:18)
Difference difference between Ford and Chevy is basically opinion. The difference between Fireye and Honeywell, Flame Safeguards is basically opinion. Yes, one may be better in an application than the other, but that is application specific. And also, I'm not sure on cost. I really see cost on things because I'm not buying a lot of stuff, but one may be priced better than the other, especially in your location. Sometimes Honeywell parts can be a little bit.
Eric Johnson (05:47)
Expensive or Fireye parts can be expensive. And it's also what can you get? Do you have a stocking distributor close to you for Honeywell or do you have a stocking distributor for Fireye? Is your boiler service company are they a Fireye representative or a Honeywell you know authorized distributor? Cause it really comes down to match the part to the application and
Eric Johnson (06:15)
How fast can get the part? Because it doesn't matter if the part is amazing, if you have to wait a month for every single part and ship it in from three states over. You should always want to have somebody with availability and also you want to have people that are local to you, aka your service company, if you are in a service company or if you are an in-house building engineer, operator, stationary engineer, you want your service companies
Eric Johnson (06:44)
familiar with the parts that you are installing. So if you're installing this wild system with wild components that nobody in your area typically works on, you're probably not gonna have a great experience unless you are flying somebody in. And that always gets super expensive. But anyways, going back to today's topic for episode eighty four of the Boiler Wild Podcasts. and one thing, if you guys could do me a solid costs you zero dollars and zero cents.
Eric Johnson (07:13)
But just 30 seconds of your time. If you could rate the podcast five stars, that would be appreciative. I have 10 five star ratings on Apple Podcast and I believe 29 on Spotify. So hoping that those could go up by a couple ratings. It helps me and it helps other people find this podcast easier because I am just trying to spread knowledge and the stories of the boiler industry. And I want other people to hear them.
Eric Johnson (07:43)
So Fireye. I want to talk about just typically how a Fireye flame safeguard works and some terminology around it and some alarms or messages that you're going to be seeing. So Fireye on most of their flame safeguards, and you'll have typically you will be seeing three to four flame safeguards if you're working on a boiler. The newest one is the Burner Logics flame safeguard.
Eric Johnson (08:13)
That is the one that you'll probably see if you have a parallel positioning system, like a Nexus four thousand or like a PPC six thousand. You can also have the micro That is a real common one. That's an a little bit older one that a lot of people use is very cost effective. It is
Eric Johnson (08:40)
basically a cube so that one's very cube like whereas the burner logics is more of a rectangle
Eric Johnson (08:48)
And then if you want to get really old, you have the E110. And that one has cards. It is a larger rectangle. The E110 is larger than the Burner Logics. It is also older than I believe both of them. But the micro is also up there with age with the E110. Not sure on the specifics of that. But the E110 has cards that pop out. So you take off the
Eric Johnson (09:17)
plastic cover and then there are if I'm remembering correctly three cards that you will take out and then it has a display that you can snap in on the front and the display is a two line green display with very basic characters. I personally am not a fan of I've talked to Fireye and they say they still sell because of legacy customers who are still buying or people who haven't converted.
Eric Johnson (09:47)
But it is definitely not the best flame safeguard that I would choose if I was making a boiler in twenty twenty six. It is just the the error history isn't great, the scrolling isn't great, the cards are not great, hard to troubleshoot, and there's better options. Burner logics is is pretty good from my experience. And I would always choose that. But, you know, a lot of people are
Eric Johnson (10:16)
not doing like for like replacements and it's easy to do like for like. I'm not sure on the conversion between E110 versus a burner logic. It should be similar, but it's probably not a direct drop in. So but those are the three main flame safe cards that Fireye will have or that you'll see. There is also another mini one. I forget it's a newer mini one.
Eric Johnson (10:45)
I forget what it's called, but anyways, they all kind of work the same. They all generally do work the same, but I know the micro is not labeled with the labels that I'm gonna be talking about on the terminals. So when when we're talking Fireye, you will typically see or hear about three P interlock or to D or to eight and those are alarms or
Eric Johnson (11:15)
interlock messages that display when the Fireye is looking for at a circuit to close and those are specific to the Fireye burner control. So if somebody says hey we're getting a 3P alarm that means that they have a Fireye burner control and that the three to P interlock is open. So three is a terminal on the Fireye
Eric Johnson (11:41)
Flame Safeguard and P is a terminal on the Fireye Flame Safeguard. I did a little research. I'm not 100% on this, but it this does kind of make sense. So Fireye has some numbered terminals on their flame safeguards, and then they have some lettered terminals on their flame safeguards. The letter terminals, P is it either stands for purge or permissive circuit. Typically, I think it's gonna be purge.
Eric Johnson (12:10)
As it has to do typically with the air switch and right after when the fan has turned on. Then you also have which is gonna be the blower motor start terminal that is going to energize the blower motor, but not directly. It's gonna probably pull in a motor starter or it's going to send a signal to the start contact of a VFD. And then you have D.
Eric Johnson (12:40)
Which is the damper position, which is typically for a high fire switch. So when you have a boiler that just say like a traditional boiler with linkage, you're gonna notice that with a with a power burner, traditional boiler with linkage with power burner, when you hit start or the burner switch on and it starts, the fan will come on and then the air actuator or the actual mod motor.
Eric Johnson (13:09)
will drive the air damper to the open position and it will close the high fire switch, which basically proves that the air damper is in a certain position. And then the A terminal is the alarm output. So if there is an alarm, a terminal gets power and either energizes an alarm horn or a light or both or neither, whatever you want.
Eric Johnson (13:38)
But that is the alarm terminal. And then it has some other number terminals. You know, the L one, L two is the common power in.
Eric Johnson (13:48)
You have three, which is typically gonna be your recycling interlocks. And then you have some other ones that are not super important. Eight is also probably the last one I'll mention, and that is typically something to do with purge airflow.
Eric Johnson (14:10)
But it all depends on the flame safeguard that you have. So what is a recycling versus a non-recycling interlock? So non-recycling running interlock is a safety device wired into the power burner's flame safeguard circuit, which would be like the 3P on the Fireye, and it must stay closed while the burner is firing. And then if anything in that circuit is gonna open.
Eric Johnson (14:38)
While the burner is firing or going into the firing stage, so in pre-purge after it has closed, then the burner will immediately shut down and alarm and require a hard reset. So manual operator reset. The operator has come and reset it. Versus a recycling interlock is going to be like a operating steam pressure control that is going to open.
Eric Johnson (15:04)
because the f steam pressure inside your boiler has gotten to a certain point and the boiler says, Hey, we don't need any more steam, we're gonna shut down. But that's not gonna cause an alarm because er every time the boiler shuts down, then that would cause an alarm, which would be super annoying for the operator. Just as your thermostat in your house sh shuts down your furnace, it's not gonna cause an alarm every time it shuts down your furnace. That is part of normal operation. So recycling interlock will
Eric Johnson (15:32)
open and close by itself and not require a hard lockout or cause a hard lockout and require reset where a non-recycling running interlock will require a hard reset if it does open when it should be closed. So let's talk about the non-recycling running interlock, the 3P. So 3P if you are looking at your burner and it's saying like 3P open.
Eric Johnson (16:02)
That is typically gonna have to do with the air switch or a contact on your VFD that is going to be your run proven contact or a normally open contact on a blower motor starter that is going to prove that the starter has pulled in. Or if you're like running oil, it could be a low oil pressure switch. And depending on
Eric Johnson (16:30)
How the boiler is wired, you could also have gas pressure switches in there. But it all depends on how the boiler and burner is wired. But for sure, typically it's gonna be airflow. So if the boiler is starting, so once again, going over the stages of a boiler, you're gonna have standby and then you'll have pre-purge. Pre-purge will be the blower motor comes on and then
Eric Johnson (16:57)
this is gonna be a power burner, let's just say natural gas, and it's gonna be pilot and main. So you're gonna have pre-purge, and then you're gonna have pilot trial for ignition, main trial for ignition, run, post purge, and then back to standby. So when you see three P open, the blower motor will be running, and either the air switch hasn't closed or the VFD hasn't proven.
Eric Johnson (17:26)
on the start contact, maybe somebody didn't program the start contact on the VFD or correctly or wire it correctly or they didn't wire the starter for the contactor for the blower motor correctly. That those are all possibilities. If the boiler is wired correctly and has just been installed for a while, you can hear typically
Eric Johnson (17:55)
Like after a power outage, you'll have some fuses blow and the blower motor, the four eighty won't begin to the blower motor. So when you hit start or turn on the
Eric Johnson (18:10)
Burner switch for the boiler, you'll hear a click, which will be the blower motor starter, the contactor pulling in on the coil, and it'll pull in and it'll close the contact, but the 480 or you know 240, whatever the voltage is going to the blower motor, it's the fuses are popped, so the the voltage isn't going to the blower motor, so the blower motor isn't starting.
Eric Johnson (18:41)
And now since the blower motor isn't starting, our fan is not going to be turning and making air pressure, and our air switch will not be closing. So if you don't know, the air switch on a power burner is going to prove that the fan is actually making air pressure. It does not prove that the fan is running. If it were to prove that the fan, or I should not say the fan is running, that the blower motor is running. Sometimes
Eric Johnson (19:08)
People think it is the blower motor is running. That is in most cases true, but the blower motor can be running and the fan that is connected to the shaft of the blower motor, all the veins could have been popped off, or I've seen the blower motor shaft cut in half and the fan is laying in the housing. I have seen fans not get reinstalled on blower motors. So it
Eric Johnson (19:37)
You don't wanna rely on the blower motor's starting, we must be in air, something must be wrong with the air switch. You always wanna make sure that the blower motor is actually making air pressure, which is what the air air switch is for. We wanna make sure that the air switch is opening when the burner is in the standby and then closing in the appropriate way when the after the blower motor starts.
Eric Johnson (20:03)
And with the Fireye, there is a setting, I believe, on all of the flame safeguards where you can prove both positions. What people will typically do if you are very nefarious is you can jump out the air switch or improperly set the air switch so that it is so light of a setting on the set point, so like inches of water column. If you were to set it to like point zero one, if you have an air switch that is super sensitive, just the
Eric Johnson (20:30)
natural draft of the boiler that is hot could be closing the air switch and the air switch could always be closed or it could just always be closed from wear and tear or somebody could have incorrectly wired it. So if the boiler is not making sure that the air switch circuit is opening and closing, then it kind of defeats the point of the air switch. So what the Fireye you can do is
Eric Johnson (20:55)
In the standby position, the air switch should be open and it makes sure that the three P circuit is open and then once the fan starts it looks for that circuit to close. And if that doesn't happen, then it's gonna lock out. But the three P circuit once again is gonna be the air switch and a contact either on the VFD for the start contact or a normally open contact on the blower motor starter.
Eric Johnson (21:22)
That is gonna prove that the starter has closed. Those are typically wired in series, with the with the air switch and that is gonna be three P. So if you see three P
Eric Johnson (21:35)
Think air switch. That's mostly what it is. Sometimes you can have gas pressure switches in it, sometimes not. It all depends on how the boiler is wired. If you have a more complicated boiler with parallel positioning, the sometimes you can get into where the switches are wired into the parallel position controller and not the flame safeguard, which would be, you know, the Fireye in this case.
Eric Johnson (22:04)
the Fireye flame safeguard and now you'll have less switches wired there and things will be moved but it'll still work the same way but Fireye will still keep the three p interlock then you can have like a to eight issue as well once again that'll be the Fireye is looking from after the blow remoter has started it'll be
Eric Johnson (22:31)
Terminal and then Terminal 8. This can also be the purge airflow switch on the burner logics, depending on what burner logics you have. You can also have a N to D issue, which would be a low-fire switch. And that you know that'll also depend on what
Eric Johnson (22:56)
Flame safe flame safe card you have, but on the burner logics to D is gonna be low fire switch. So what is your low fire switch? That is going to be if you just have a typical power burner with a mod motor. And by mod motor I mean like a Honeywell Modutrol four motor or Siemens
Eric Johnson (23:19)
But the Siemens ones are becoming pretty popular. But that is going to move the linkage of the burner up and down. And the linkage is going to be connected to the air damper. And it's also going to be connected to the gas butterfly valve or the oil valve if you have run an oil. And the low fire switch is going to prove that the motor is in the low fire position. And typically it's going to be wired inside the motor. So for the
Eric Johnson (23:47)
Honeywell Modutrol 4 motor, it is going to be a little cam inside the motor, and then there's a switch on that cam. And then when the motor reaches the low fire position, the it says to the flame safeguard, hey, I'm in the low fire position. You're okay to light off, and that low fire switch is the permission to start the pilot trial for ignition, which is which is going to be the next phase. If the
Eric Johnson (24:16)
blower motor is running and that cam is not correctly set you can have the to D issue or if the motor is burned out you can have the to D or if the motor is locking up on the linkage and it's not reaching that position then it will just sit there for 30 seconds to a minute waiting for that switch to close and then if that switch doesn't close it will lock out. So
Eric Johnson (24:44)
Fireye is pretty good with those alarms and telling you what is actually wrong. But that is what like the three P or to eight, to D issues are on the Fireye. Once again, this is only applicable to Fireye. Every single flame safeguard typically runs the same, but how they enunciate their alarms and how they are wired are all different in the way that the terminals are different.
Eric Johnson (25:14)
And they're in different locations. However, they all work the same. A power burner on a boiler with a pilot in main is all gonna follow the standby, the pre-purge, pilot trial for ignition, which is PTFI, main trial for ignition, MTFI. Then you're gonna have the run, which is just gonna be modulating your fuel input in order to match the steam demand or the steam load.
Eric Johnson (25:43)
As steam demand goes up or steam load goes up, you're gonna increase the fuel demand in order to achieve the set point or the modulating set point of the steam boiler. And then if the boiler reaches low fire and the steam demand is below the turn down of the boiler, the steam set point will continue to increase.
Eric Johnson (26:08)
And it will open the operating steam pressure control and then the boiler will shut down and it'll go to post purge where it is keeping the fan motor on but the gas valves are off and it is blowing all the combustion gases out of the combustion chamber and then it will return to
Eric Johnson (26:27)
the standby phase and wait for the operating steam pressure control switch to close again and that is going to be the recycling interlock of the boiler.
Eric Johnson (26:38)
Another thing I'll note if you are setting up a new flame safeguard is there is typically a burn in phase where there are some settings that you have to set up for the flame safeguard when it is new and then after eight hours of powered operation, those settings will become permanent. So you will want to look in the manual.
Eric Johnson (27:01)
Once again, I highly recommend reading the manual. You can download all the manuals for basically everything today in 2026. From the manufacturer's website, Fireye has it all on the website. They're pretty good with manuals. Almost too good. It's a little confusing. If anybody from Fireye is listening to this, the manuals, how they're named is very confusing. And how many manuals there are for each of the products is kind of confusing. but you'll you'll figure it out.
Eric Johnson (27:30)
Just open them all up, save them to your cloud system so that you can find them so you're not downloading them all the time. But find the main manual for the flame safeguard and find out what settings you have to set up for the burn-in period. you don't want to just assume that everything works and everything is correct, as on like the E110, there's dip switch settings that you have to set, or on the burner logics, there are internal settings.
Eric Johnson (27:59)
They're going to be inside the flame safeguard that you will set and then they will burn in after the eight hours and you have to set those settings up for the boiler. So hopefully you are a knowledgeable and competent burner or boiler technician that is working on the flame safeguard and
Eric Johnson (28:21)
If you do have questions about how the Fireye runs, or I would say how the Flame Safeguard operates, what it cares about, they do have charts. right now I'm looking at some charts in the operating sequence section charts of the burner logics and essentially
Eric Johnson (28:45)
It says what is powered, what is not powered during the different phases. It gives a good visual visualization to how the flame safeguard works, but coming from somebody who used to be confused about flame safeguards, like I would look at the the Fireye Flame Safeguards or the Honeywell 78 100 Flame Safeguard.
Eric Johnson (29:07)
And they would confuse me. I'd see all those terminals. I'd see all the wires. I'm like, what the heck? Like, what is going on here? How am I supposed to know how everything is? Especially the Honeywell one where, you know, I know Honeywell is well meeting, but you're supposed to somehow be able to stick your o electric probes or your multimeter probes into the side of the sub base and be able to measure the
Eric Johnson (29:35)
output when the seventy eight hundred is on the sub base. Well they always stick the seventy eight hundred super deep in a panel and stick it like in a corner and you're never able to get your multimeter probes on it. But you can always take off the base and I used to work with a guy who would manually test out and Honeywell actually has this in their manual that you manually jump out between the terminals and test out the
Eric Johnson (30:04)
operation of each circuit and you can know what terminal is each what you and you can know what terminal is which because you can look at the Honeywell wiring diagram or you can look at the Fireye diagram and see which terminal goes where and if you put power to the terminal what's gonna happen. If it is just a permissive terminal or like an interlock terminal nothing's gonna happen. It'll just power
Eric Johnson (30:33)
some switches that may be closed or maybe open, but if there's some loads on a circuit, you'll open the loads or power the loads. So if you're opening if you want to open the gas valves, you just you know jump L1 to Terminal 7 on the burner logics and it would open the gas valves.
Eric Johnson (30:52)
I see have the main gas valve manual valves closed when you're doing all that, but you can check out the operation of everything and make sure everything is wired correctly without plugging on the flame safeguard, which will save you with a burned out flame safeguard if you are not sure about your wiring. You don't want to wire.
Eric Johnson (31:13)
power where it shouldn't be or to have your gas valves open when they shouldn't be opening but if you are semi-decent with wiring that shouldn't be too much of an issue but I've had some issues after doing some conversions where I didn't have a conversion diagram and after I converted it I wasn't sure on some things and I had to jump out some terminals just due to the conversion or change some terminals around or wire
Eric Johnson (31:42)
switch differently from where it was just due to going from one type of flame safeguard to the other flame safeguard. But that is something you gotta figure out real time.
Eric Johnson (31:52)
But going back to being confused about flame safeguards, if you are confused about flame safeguards, think about a flame safeguard as the quarterback on football field. They are telling everybody where to go.
Eric Johnson (32:07)
and they know what should be happening, hopefully. But they know what should be happening and they're gonna be passing the ball to people and they're gonna be trying to run a route and everything and they're commanding people to go here, they're commanding people to go there. And they expect things to happen. And
Eric Johnson (32:24)
If things do not happen the way that they should happen, you know, either the play gets shut down or they stop or they change the play. But they are in command. Same thing with the flame safeguard. It has all these terminals, and some of the terminals are switches and some of the terminals are loads. The switches would be your low gas pressure switch, high gas pressure switch, your operating steam pressure switch, your manual reset, steam pressure switch, your modulating steam pressure switch.
Eric Johnson (32:54)
well actually that will be on that that's not a switch. That is resistance in that's in the in this case.
Eric Johnson (33:03)
or your air switch or the airs or the the normally open contacts for like a VFD on the start contacts and then the loads will be your your pilot valve, your main gas valve, the blower, you have alarm,
Eric Johnson (33:22)
And I think that's it for all the normal loads. And the flame safeguard, it ha it's programmed to operate in a way where it's gonna send power in into terminals in a certain sequence. So it's never gonna energize the main gas valves before the pilot gas valves because the pilot trial for ignition always happens before the main trial for ignition. However, when the boiler goes to start
Eric Johnson (33:51)
the flame safeguard, think of it, you know, it's just sitting there and then all of a sudden power shows up on a terminal and that terminal says, Hey, all right, okay, boss, we're ready to start. All right, we're ready to start the play. So then the flame sa safeguard snaps the ball and it's like, all right, let's go. So then the blower motor starts and everything should be on folding how it goes. However, you know, the receivers need to get into position, the linemen need to get in position, make their blocks. And if that doesn't happen, quarterback may spike the ball or whatever.
Eric Johnson (34:20)
But the flame safeguard says, hey, this stuff needs to happen before we're gonna proceed. And and if this stuff doesn't happen, we're gonna go into lockout. So the air switch needs to close, the anything in the three P circuit in this case needs to close, the non-recycling running interlocks.
Eric Johnson (34:40)
they all need they all need to cr close and stay closed and it's like all right we have power on the p terminal we are good to go and then the next thing would be in a just normal linkage burner we would be looking for the high fire switch aka the purge airflow switch and that is going to be the to eight interlock or terminals and
Eric Johnson (35:06)
If those terminals don't close, if we don't get power on eight, that means our there's an issue with our motor that is gonna be opening our damper. Our damper is not reaching the high fire position. So we cannot proceed. And then after that, it is gonna be to D, which is gonna be our low fire switch.
Eric Johnson (35:26)
And if we don't get power on D, the quarterback is not going to proceed. The flame safeguard's not going proceed. But if we get power on D, then the flame safeguard goes, Yep, all right. Power on D. D is powered. We are good. We can pass the ball. And now we pass the ball so then it goes into pilot trial for ignition. And then if that is successful and it's seeing a flame, and it goes, all right.
Eric Johnson (35:50)
Now we can open the main gas valves and it powers the main gas valve circuit and it'll go to main trial for ignition. And if it still sees the flame, it goes, all right, pilot valves, you're done. All right, main child for ignition, you keep going. And now we're gonna mo modulate the
Eric Johnson (36:08)
The MON motor or the the damp motor, the fuel motor, and we're gonna move those in order to match the heat input to the the steam. And then if anything happens during that time, if the power gets pulled off of the P terminal or it gets pulled off the three terminal, if the recycling interlock or non-recycling interlocks open, the flame safeguard goes, Nope, we're done, and shuts everything down. And the main
Eric Johnson (36:38)
fuel valve will close and then it automatically knows hey if we're gonna shut down we're gonna go into post purge and then it's gonna go back to standby and depending and depending on what opened it'll either be a reset condition or a non reset condition but the flame safeguard is basically just the quarterback and it's telling what to do on the boiler but it needs to receive commands it sends out messages on circuits and then it
Eric Johnson (37:05)
And then those messages need to come back to prove that things are ready. So don't think of a boiler as a bunch of electrical switches and wires that are all just random. Think of it as a messaging system where the flame safeguard is sending out messages and if it inf if those messages don't come back, we can't proceed. If we send out a message and go, Hey, are we making air pressure? the air pressure switch isn't closing. So
Eric Johnson (37:35)
The flame safeguard says, Well, I know I'm powered on the blower, so the the blower is turning, I think, but the air pressure switch, I can't see him, but he's not sending back a command that says that we're making air pressure, so we must not be making air pressure. So let's just stop. We're gonna go into alarm and somebody's gotta figure this out.
Eric Johnson (38:02)
And that's essentially how a boiler works. And if you can not memorize that, but if you can understand the that circuitry, you can start wiring boilers and understanding how boilers work in your head and not looking at a wiring diagram. you know, if you work on Webster burners, it says right in the panel, do not wire this burner from memory. But sometimes you have to wire a burner from memory. I've done it before.
Eric Johnson (38:31)
where the burner is old, there's no wiring diagram, it's long lost, you're doing a flame safeguard conversion and instead of trying to match what is there and figure out what is going on, it is easier just to rip everything off the the sub base and go, all right.
Eric Johnson (38:52)
What is in my non recycling interloc? Where is in my recycling interlocks? Where's my gas valve circuit? Where's my pilot valve circuit? You know, where's my blower motor circuit, alarm circuit, and start dividing everything out and then slabel it, and then you can land it all on your flame safeguard and be done. Versus, well, I don't know what this wire is and nobody said what this wire is. It's not labeled. I don't know, I can't do this.
Eric Johnson (39:18)
If you're trying to memorize and you just see wires and you're like, well, I don't know, it's not labeled and there's no wiring diagram, I can't do this. Yes, you're gonna struggle and you're not gonna be able to do it. But you should be able to get to a point where you understand what that wire is. And if you understand, this wire goes to my pilot valve, all right. Well, this is gonna be my pilot valve circuit, and it doesn't matter what the wire is labeled, my pilot valve circuit will be the same on any single flame safeguard.
Eric Johnson (39:47)
As in the circuits the same, but then you look up your flame safeguard wiring diagram and go, my Fireye says my pilot valve circuit is terminal six. That's where I'm gonna land it. And you go, here are my main valves. My main valve circuit is terminal seven, and then you land it on terminal seven. And then you go, all right, you know, where are my recycling interlocks? All right, and then we l then we land them between L one and three, and that is gonna be the recycling interlocks on the burner logics. And then you
Eric Johnson (40:15)
That's where you start understanding how burners run and how things run. So then when you walk into a boiler room, either as an operator or as a service technician, you hit the reset on a boiler, it starts, the fan comes on for 10 seconds and then fails. And you see 3P, and then you instantly know you can be like, yep, air switch. And you go check the air switch and then you see like the line has fallen off or the line is rubbed through.
Eric Johnson (40:43)
And it's not getting sensing pressure, or the air switch is wired wrong, or they've changed the set point or whatever. And then your customer goes, Well, how'd you know how to do that? And it's like, Well, I understand how boilers are supposed to run and I understand what is supposed to be closing. Because if the blower motor is starting and we're going into pre-purge, I understand that I'm probably not going to be looking at the operating steam pressure control because the operating steam pressure control is already closed.
Eric Johnson (41:12)
Otherwise we wouldn't have already gotten into that position. The operating steam pressure control, if it was just open, then the blower motor would have never come on and we would have sat in the standby phase because the flame safeguard would have never known to say, Hey, well there's a call for heat and we're gonna come on. Another thing that can happen is the blower motor comes on and sometimes depending on how things are wired, there can be an end switch on a damper for combustion air. And if
Eric Johnson (41:40)
the damper doesn't open in time and hit an end switch, the boiler will fail as well. So then you start looking around the room and you see the end switch. So these are all things that you start picking up on. You can start troubleshooting using all of your senses instead of troubleshooting by looking at the boiler and looking at your manual. There are the sense of hearing along with sight and a little bit of smell, but in this case hearing and hearing how a boiler is running
Eric Johnson (42:08)
'Cause if you're really in tune with how a power burner's running and it's not ridiculously loud, you can hear when your igniter turns on, when your pilot valve turns on, you can hear when your gas valves turn on. You can hear the flame actually ignite inside of the boiler on most boilers. So you you start understanding what normal is. You can hear the air damper moving and you know the difference between low fire and high fire. So moving a lot of air or moving
Eric Johnson (42:38)
a small amount of air and once you get in tune with all that the boiler room becomes not a scary place and you start understanding boiler issues very, very quickly. But this can also be a double sided sword because you can now start jumping to conclusions. So that's why you always need a sequence operations or order operations of troubleshooting in your head. And if you stick to the order operations of troubleshooting, I went over that on a previous episode.
Eric Johnson (43:07)
Sure of the number, but you need to stick to not jumping to conclusions and always working through things logically. And if you work through problems logically, then you'll be very successful, either as an operator, building engineer, stationary engineer, service technician. Whatever job you're doing, if you can solve problems in the boiler room, you'll be golden. So that's all I have today for this podcast for episode 84. If you haven't already, please comment on the podcasts.
Eric Johnson (43:37)
How much you like it. If you have any questions, you can email me, Eric dot johnson at Boilearn.com Please rate the podcast five stars. I appreciate you all for listening and stay wild.
