Digital Zeus™ HVAC Tool & Instruments Journal

Gas furnace inspection procedures and documentation sheet. Includes data entry for two-stage equipment. Developed by Jim Bergmann and written in Microsoft Word to faciliatate field modification to suit your specific applications.

Download Documentation Sheet here:  http://www.mediafire.com/?wjg330hmi91

The Need To Test With Digital Instruments

Today, most oil fired equipment is still being serviced and adjusted with traditional manual combustion efficiency test equipment [wet kits] for field service and seldom is testing done on gas, coal, or wood burning equipment. These kits generally consist of a stack thermometer, draft gauge, wet chemical CO2 gas tester, slide rule and smoke pump. Although this equipment has served the industry well over the years, faster, more accurate, real time flue gas analysis is necessary.

Many service technicians are reluctant to utilize digital instruments; there is a certain comfort in using what we are used to, and in some cases we figure if we don’t know, we cannot be held responsible. Nothing could be further from the truth. Failure to test does not absolve you of liability. Information is power whether it used for you or against you.

With digital equipment many errors with the measurement process are eliminated. Analog measurement errors can be the result of interpolation errors, calibration errors, poor repeatability of the measurement and most importantly not having a procedure in place to consistently repeat the measurement process.

Tuning a system should happen in real time, not “after the fact” with a very highly “averaged” sample. [Each squeeze of a wet kit bulb represents a different snapshot of the flue gas. A traditional test blends all those snapshots together into one reading.]

Only digital analyzers allow you to take real time tests. You cannot do a real time test with a a wet kit; it is physically impossible to take the sample fast enough and do the slide rule calculation.

Today testing is not an option, but rather a necessity on every gas, oil, wood or coal equipment that you might service. The truth is digital instruments are faster, more accurate, more reliable and have a higher repeatability than most analog tools. Digital instruments stay in calibration, allow trending, allow more complex functions and save time. Digital instruments allow data to be recorded and reported without human error, and provide accurate results for you and your customers. Data can be recorded much faster than any technician could ever do the calculations and data can also be recorded whether or not the technician is there to see it [eg. using features like online mode on a Testo® 330]. In most cases, the data is an un-editable record, so what you see is what was measured at the jobsite. Permanent records allow the user to track system changes and determine if the system is operating within the design parameters or if changes have taken place.

The Article above is an excerpt from the Testo® Combustion Applications Guide: For Residential and Light Commercial Appliances [A Measurements Reference for the Advanced Technician]. Authored by Jim Bergmann. Learn more about combustion analysis, combustion analyzers or talk to Jim Bergmann at The Technicians Forum: HVAC PROTech.com® http://www.hvacprotech.com

We are interested in talking to technicans that have experience with this instrument in a field setting. As the name of our Journal indicates, we are pro-digital, actually not even necessarily pro-digial - we like to talk about the instruments that are available to the technician to make him a better, more effective - efficient technician. Unfortunately most often the only resource for information on instruments come from their respective OEM’s. At least that has been true up until HVAC PROTech.com® introduced the Exclusive FieldTest Evaluation Boards.

We have industry recognized authorities with published documents and Articles relevant to the subject of the troubleshooting procedures and techinques that are unique and specific to the Honeywell® SmartValve™ we are currently in the process of scanning and uploading such a publication from Timmie McElwain - we will make it available exclusively to our members. The oustanding issue however, remains -  is the SmarTester™ a legitimate instrument? Will it tell you anything that the valve itself will not tell you.

We have a SmarTester™ currently in use on the boards but it has yet to achieve the status of a FieldTest. A single use proved the instrument capable of troubleshooting an ignition circuit quicker than conventional techniques - but - single use is not adequate to prove the instrument worthy of inclusion in our, “Gotta Get-It” category. So we would like additional input from the readers of the Zeus Journal. You have one - you use it - useful or useless, please let me know at digital.zeus@yahoo.com   

Smart Valve Gas Ignition System Overview

• All Smart Valves eliminate the need for a separate device, remotely mounted, that contains the electronics necessary to control the sequencing of the pilot, the main gas burner and flame sensing circuit. All of these functions take place in the valve’s operating head.

• Each of the many varieties of this Smart Valve system use flame rectification for flame proving .

• All of the system’s electrical wiring occurs on the valve’s top using Amp-type electrical connectors to plug in to receptacles on the valve (except on Generation I systems, which have the 4-pin power receptacle located on the valve’s gas outlet face).

• All of the different low voltage systems use Norton’s 24 VAC type silicon nitride igniter. This igniter has a low starting resistance to current flow and it heats to the temperatures needed in +/- 2 seconds. As its temperature rises its resistance increases.

Learn More About the SmartValve™ at HVAC PROTech.com®