Summer Stoker Tooth/Air/Timer Settings?

Does anyone know if there is a timer that provide more than 2 on times per hour to allow the DF-520 to run during the summer?

Thanks,

Dave

I posted a thread that had a timer that could be set to run as many or as few cycles as you wanted per hour. I think it was titled " nice timer". Doesn't seem that you would need it though. This is all proven technology. Is there something else to consider? How tall is your chimney. What kind of coal are you burning? Are you going off on high temp or not enough fuel. or the cycle isn't long enough to restart the coal bed. Have you looked at the fire on the cycle just before you go to bed and is the fire burning full or does it just come up to dancing blue ladies. Try one cycle per hour at 4 minutes. Ya never know! Scott

You should easily be able to get by on a twice every two hour cycle, ours is only set at once every hour.

I asked another homeowner today and he is using 4feed and 4 air and hasn't had an outfire. He wasn't sure what the timer was set at because he got the unit from his father and the original settings were never changed in its 30 year lifespan.

He checked his timer and it's set for 3 minutes per hour.

I just had my EFM 520 installed on July 16. I had the feed at 4 teeth and the air at 5 1/2 (not sure why???). The timer runs 2x per hour for about 1 1/2 minutes. Low temp at 140 and high at 205 (diff is set at 15). I have since reset the air to 4. I didn't have any outfires since I started with either air setting. I really never see the high temp get above 180, but it may becasue I have two kids and we are using hot water for dishes, wash, etc.
Hope this helps.

Thanks for the feedback. Unfortunately, I am unable to keep the fire burning overnight for some unknown reason. I've tried various feed rates, air settings, timer settings and aquastat settings without any luck. The boiler temp never seems to get above 180 so I don't believe its hitting the high setting. Maybe its a draft issue, but the chimney is 24 feet high so expect reasonable draft and measured -0.02 while running oil. The best setting I have tried so far is 4/4 with 3 minute timer 150 low and 200 high setting. I'll try setting the timer to the max setting tonight with 4/4 feed rate to see if this helps. I am burning Kimmel's coal. There is very little demand for hot water during the day, and the boiler is well insulated. However, I have never seen it get above 180 so don't believe its hitting the high limit, and the timer does run twice and hour while I have been monitoring it. I figured 3 times per hour with less run time and lower feed rate would work if there was such a timer...

Dave:

What is your current differential with those most recent settings?

Manny

Running a diff setting of 10 degrees.

How about a fan on a timer blowing on the stoker blower opening? Will this help more air flow through the DF-520 to keep the coals burning?

Thanks,

Dave

Let's start from the beginning. Did you manually turn the fan and count off 4 teeth of feed? If not, turn off ALL power to the house and check. Turn the power back on before the ice cream melts. Now run the hot water until the stoker starts running. What is the temperature? By the way, 140 boiler water is plenty hot for domestic needs in the summer.

At what temperature does the stoker shut off? Come back in 15 minutes and see how much the temperature has risen.

When the timer comes on again, what is the temperature then? How hot does it get from the timer? And 15 minutes later, what is the temp? Somewhere it could be going off on high limit. Or, there isn't enough coal feed and the pot fire keeps shrinking over time. How wide is the ash ring?

That's enough work for one night.

Maybe the coal is bad. Try filling the hopper with a few hundred pounds of Blaschak or any known different coal and see what happens. Do what Stoker-man says first, but the fire shouldn't go out. The next step might be raising the high limit A LITTLE.

Success. I was able to keep the DF-520 running since 6pm last night with the following settings:

3 teeth
3.25 air
4 minute twice/hour timer
150 low
200 high
10 diff

It was hitting the 200F high limit with 4 teeth/4 air and max timer so I set it back to 3 teeth and 3 1/4 air and reduced the timer a bit to approximately 4 minutes, and its running around 160-170 F. I also left the door open from the first floor to basement last night so not sure if this helped. The basement is well insulated. I'll have to get a stop watch to better check the time on the timer since I am only measuring this based on mobile phone clock minute changes. The timer is a hard to set since it only has a screw (no pointer), and I am assuming the center of the screw corresponds to the time lines on the metal adjustment band.

I'll pick up some Blaschak and try this in the near future, but a ton is selling for $345 up here so prefer to stay with Kimmel's if possible since its $281 per ton. I can buy generic for $270/ton that is bagged locally so not sure where its coming from.

I'll have to check the coal feed, and ash ring tonight. Thanks for the pointer about spinning the fan with the unit off to count the teeth. I'll try this tonight to check it. I looked at the fire this morning while the showers were running, and it looked good. I am not sure I saw a black center, but did remember seening the ash ring. I believe the ash ring was 3" from the side.

Thanks for your help!

Dave

You're running 4 minutes per half hour? Seems high, but if it works.......

Just keep an eye on the pot and the pipe.

Got the timer setting down to 3 minutes and 20 sec. Too many out fires with 3 minutes.