Stuff you have fixed today

[JOEPRO]

Today our heating packed in. I thought it was a bit too cold in the house and when I checked on the thermostat it was 9 degrees in our house.

The boiler, a Glow Worm 24hxi did not fire up and the fan was fluctuating.

I thought it could be the pump because that was not running either.
I tried the obligatory normal fix of hitting it softly with a hammer in case it got 'frozen' with limescale, sediment or whatever else that normally lurks in central heating pipes.

View attachment 432886

First 'fix' was unsuccessful.

My second attempted fix involved checking if there was a voltage output to the pump when I had the heating demand on.

View attachment 432887

No voltage output to the pump. I didn't want to mess around in there too much, if wires pulled out of their connection points I would have had no clue where they were supposed to go.

Because there was no voltage going to the pump I assumed that the pump was likely good and the problem was either with the control or the boiler itself.

I powered cycled the boiler a couple of times and the boiler then threw a F12 error and a red LED light.

An F12 error on Glow Worm boiler = Connection fault between main printed circuit board (PCB) and display PCB.

Off with the boiler's cover!

View attachment 432888

I unplugged the connections and replugged them to see if it would cure the problem.

No luck.

A few years ago, after we had our smart electricity meter installed, the boiler did not want to come back on after the power was turned back on.
The display was dead and I heard a ticking noise.
I came across a very helpful post on a forum that said:

"Dead. No display and fuse is in tact. A faint ticking noise can be heard and may eventually power up after a while:
The switch mode power supply (adjacent to the fuse) is not starting up. This is caused by a faulty electrolytic capacitor C805 situated at the bottom of the PCB near to the fuse. This is a 47uF @ 50v.
It may also be worth replacing C813 (100uf @ 25v) on the power supply secondary at the same time. This is situated at the bottom of the PCB to the left of the small transformer.
You may experience the above fault after recycling the power for service or after a power cut."

As it was not winter at that time we didn't need heating and the hot water could be heated via electricity I thought I would try the suggested fix.
I ordered all the required capacitors (a selection box on Amazon Prime) and some 470UF from RS components. The Amazon capacitors arrived the next day (on a weekend) but the RS component capacitors only arrived the following week.

View attachment 432910

I replaced all the capacitors which had the correct values out of the selection box and the board fired up!

Today I remembered that I did not change all the capacitors the last time (because the RS component ones arrived the following week after I had the board working again) and thought it would be worth pulling the board again.
On closer inspection, I identified a capacitor that looked a little suspect.

View attachment 432900

The left capacitor looked a little 'bulged'. Worth a try to replace them. Especially as a new board is £226.99 from Screwfix
Refurbished boards can be purchased for much less though.

I have a Chinese multimeter that can measure capacitance (probably not too accurately).
I measured a new 470UF capacitor and got a reading of 530UF. A little bit more than the expected 10% tolerance.

View attachment 432901

I removed the two old capacitors and then measured their values.

View attachment 432906

Capacitor 1 = 90UF
Capacitor 2 = 2.4UF

Way off the 470UF value they were supposed to be.

I replaced them with new ones and tried the board in the boiler.

View attachment 432912

Success!!! Green light and the boiler fired right up!

The Glow Worm is glowing once more!!

I am super chuffed with myself that I dodged the call-out, diagnoses and part costs by not having to get a heating engineer to fix our heating.

Very good diag and repair!

A heating engineer would not have checked all of that and instead throw new parts at it!

 

[Seadog]

Very good diag and repair!

A heating engineer would not have checked all of that and instead throw new parts at it!

Or just said "You need a new boiler."

 

[m_c]

Last pair of gas heating "engineers" I witnessed couldn't even manage to wire up the mechanical timer on a brand new boiler, as they were struggling to understand the wiring diagram.

 

[6ply]

@Smouser congratulations on the fix. Did you remember to discharge the capacitors before testing?

 

[Smouser]

@Smouser congratulations on the fix. Did you remember to discharge the capacitors before testing?

Thank you.

I touched the two legs together with one of the test probes from the multimeter, not sure if that counts as discharging?
If not, then no.

 

[Sergei Slovenija]

Or just said "You need a new boiler."

Need a new capacitor. Always. always change all capacitors and only then call your expensive doctor

 

[brightspark]

Today our heating packed in. I thought it was a bit too cold in the house and when I checked on the thermostat it was 9 degrees in our house.

The boiler, a Glow Worm 24hxi did not fire up and the fan was fluctuating.

I thought it could be the pump because that was not running either.
I tried the obligatory normal fix of hitting it softly with a hammer in case it got 'frozen' with limescale, sediment or whatever else that normally lurks in central heating pipes.

View attachment 432886

First 'fix' was unsuccessful.

My second attempted fix involved checking if there was a voltage output to the pump when I had the heating demand on.

View attachment 432887

No voltage output to the pump. I didn't want to mess around in there too much, if wires pulled out of their connection points I would have had no clue where they were supposed to go.

Because there was no voltage going to the pump I assumed that the pump was likely good and the problem was either with the control or the boiler itself.

I powered cycled the boiler a couple of times and the boiler then threw a F12 error and a red LED light.

An F12 error on Glow Worm boiler = Connection fault between main printed circuit board (PCB) and display PCB.

Off with the boiler's cover!

View attachment 432888

I unplugged the connections and replugged them to see if it would cure the problem.

No luck.

A few years ago, after we had our smart electricity meter installed, the boiler did not want to come back on after the power was turned back on.
The display was dead and I heard a ticking noise.
I came across a very helpful post on a forum that said:

"Dead. No display and fuse is in tact. A faint ticking noise can be heard and may eventually power up after a while:
The switch mode power supply (adjacent to the fuse) is not starting up. This is caused by a faulty electrolytic capacitor C805 situated at the bottom of the PCB near to the fuse. This is a 47uF @ 50v.
It may also be worth replacing C813 (100uf @ 25v) on the power supply secondary at the same time. This is situated at the bottom of the PCB to the left of the small transformer.
You may experience the above fault after recycling the power for service or after a power cut."

As it was not winter at that time we didn't need heating and the hot water could be heated via electricity I thought I would try the suggested fix.
I ordered all the required capacitors (a selection box on Amazon Prime) and some 470UF from RS components. The Amazon capacitors arrived the next day (on a weekend) but the RS component capacitors only arrived the following week.

View attachment 432910

I replaced all the capacitors which had the correct values out of the selection box and the board fired up!

Today I remembered that I did not change all the capacitors the last time (because the RS component ones arrived the following week after I had the board working again) and thought it would be worth pulling the board again.
On closer inspection, I identified a capacitor that looked a little suspect.

View attachment 432900

The left capacitor looked a little 'bulged'. Worth a try to replace them. Especially as a new board is £226.99 from Screwfix
Refurbished boards can be purchased for much less though.

I have a Chinese multimeter that can measure capacitance (probably not too accurately).
I measured a new 470UF capacitor and got a reading of 530UF. A little bit more than the expected 10% tolerance.

View attachment 432901

I removed the two old capacitors and then measured their values.

View attachment 432906

Capacitor 1 = 90UF
Capacitor 2 = 2.4UF

Way off the 470UF value they were supposed to be.

I replaced them with new ones and tried the board in the boiler.

View attachment 432912

Success!!! Green light and the boiler fired right up!

The Glow Worm is glowing once more!!

I am super chuffed with myself that I dodged the call-out, diagnoses and part costs by not having to get a heating engineer to fix our heating.

god who wired that 10 way wiring center up wot a mess

 

[Smouser]

god who wired that 10 way wiring center up wot a mess

A 'new build' property in 2008 (we bought it in 2015).
Persimmon Homes was the original builder....

See why I said I did not want any cables to pull out of the places they are connected to.
No way will I be able to figure out where all the wires are supposed to go. There are some stripped unused cables too to add to the confusion.

We have two heating zones and two thermostats/controllers which probably adds to all the cables in there.

I guess the builders/contractors thought it looked ok with the cover on. Out of sight, out of mind. Another successful bodge job.

 

[RichardM]

@Smouser Result. I replaced the water pump yesterday as the old one was getting a bit noisy and taking a time to get hot water to the lounge rad.

Your wiring centre looks loads worse than ours and ours is going to be "sorted" out in summer when I can rewire it at leisure.

 

[brightspark]

A 'new build' property in 2008 (we bought it in 2015).
Persimmon Homes was the original builder....

See why I said I did not want any cables to pull out of the places they are connected to.
No way will I be able to figure out where all the wires are supposed to go. There are some stripped unused cables too to add to the confusion.

We have two heating zones and two thermostats/controllers which probably adds to all the cables in there.

I guess the builders/contractors thought it looked ok with the cover on. Out of sight, out of mind. Another successful bodge job.

View attachment 432930

yep a nightmare to trace wiring if theres ever a fault .i had one similar last week to pull to bits was a neutral to earth fault on the motor in the heating diverted valve 20 quid for a new one from screwfix

 

[Seadog]

Need a new capacitor. Always. always change all capacitors and only then call your expensive doctor

I  never call anyone for problems like that. I've brought a lot of dead boilers back to life, my own being the most recent.

 

[brewdexta]

I repaired our boiler today, albeit temporarily. Vailant fault code "F75 Pump/water shortage"

It's happened a couple of times, a power cycle usually fixes it. But today when I was 60 miles away at a funeral, it didn't when my wife power cycled it.

I managed to get hold of our heating engineer when driving back from the funeral and he said that there's a pressure switch that gets gummed up and increasing the water pressure can help. There's sufficient pressure in the system to meet normal operation.

So topped the system up and it works, it's due a service so will get it sorted then. This is the back-up boiler, the primary boiler is a pellet boiler and the controller runs Linux and doesn't get past POST, so that's a job for later this week. I'll probably video the boot sequence as it's pretty quick and send it to the manufacturer in Austria.

 

[qwakers]

bit spooky in the workshop tonight.



doing a spot of accident damage repair whilst i wait for a new cv joint that is a bit damaged on the threads...

 

[MattF]

bit spooky in the workshop tonight.

I find red, & green, light quite relaxing, personally.

 

[addjunkie]

I find red, & green, light quite relaxing, personally.

Not if its dark and your in a little boat in the middle of the sea!

 

[brightspark]

Not if its dark and your in a little boat in the middle of the sea!

no probs the rnli - taxi will pick you up

 

[Robotstar5]

@Smouser Result. I replaced the water pump yesterday as the old one was getting a bit noisy and taking a time to get hot water to the lounge rad.

Your wiring centre looks loads worse than ours and ours is going to be "sorted" out in summer when I can rewire it at leisure.

The Wago mBox is a neat way of doing it.

I used one to tidy up the wiring on my bathroom lights, fan etc.

 

[addjunkie]

no probs the rnli - taxi will pick you up

Was a tad far out for the charity taxi in the Norwegian sector!

 

[Smouser]

The Wago mBox is a neat way of doing it.

I used one to tidy up the wiring on my bathroom lights, fan etc.

View attachment 432979

I have not seen those boxes before.
I have got Wago connectors (I think) and probably a few other brand name ones too but I like that box.

 

[Red'n'Black]

I repaired our boiler today, albeit temporarily. Vailant fault code "F75 Pump/water shortage"

It's happened a couple of times, a power cycle usually fixes it. But today when I was 60 miles away at a funeral, it didn't when my wife power cycled it.

I managed to get hold of our heating engineer when driving back from the funeral and he said that there's a pressure switch that gets gummed up and increasing the water pressure can help. There's sufficient pressure in the system to meet normal operation.

So topped the system up and it works, it's due a service so will get it sorted then. This is the back-up boiler, the primary boiler is a pellet boiler and the controller runs Linux and doesn't get past POST, so that's a job for later this week. I'll probably video the boot sequence as it's pretty quick and send it to the manufacturer in Austria.

That's a new one on me - my Dad had a pellet stove installed in his last place, but the controller looked like some dead simple 1980s design. Is this so it can be controlled over the network?