Hi all,

Quite new to this 40kw Orligno 200 that i've got and have been playing with the settings on the controller which is an Ekoster 2. The manual, such as it is, suggests putting the laddomat pump on at 65 degrees which i find never lets the boiler get above 75 although it holds pretty steady at that temp with the pump running continuously. If i want to get the store up to 85 i have to set the 'pump on' parameter to 85 or above but then it (the boiler) tends to cycle between 90 (or even 91) and 79 degrees.
What happens is the pump switches on at 85 but the boiler continues to heat up for a few minutes. Then as the heat is drawn away it cools down but the pump keeps runnnng down to 80 and when it switches off the temp decrease continues for another minute or two before it finally climbs back up to repeat the whole cycle.

The pump hysteresis is 5 degrees which seems too much. Does anyone know if i can change this or is it normal behaviour for a log gasifier?

Thanks in advance for any advice you may have.

We had our Orligno 200 40KW installed Aug 2014. You'll find that the Pump On (PO) setting is only applicable at startup and when the boiler is running out of fuel. Unless you increase the PO significantly it will not affect the ultimate temperature of the store. The store temp is only affected by the target temperature you set via the Ekoster control panel; the amount and quality of fuel; fan inlet setting and whether you clean the boiler or not.

Depending upon your fuel and other settings the boiler will hold at 75c for several hours. It is only much later that the boiler temperature displayed will increase as the return from the store increases. Eventually the boiler will hit its target temperature and turn off the combustion fan. The boiler temp will then naturally drop (as the Laddomat pump is still running). When it cools to below its target temp minus the HI figure (e.g. target of 92c-5c=87c) the fan will come back on and raise it back to the target temp assuming there is still any fuel.

Imagine a band of hot water slowly descending down the store so that most of the time the store return is cool balancing the boiler at around 75c. When that hotter band appoaches the bottom of the store the displayed temperature on the boiler will shoot up. This could be about 6 hours after lighting!

I batch burn with a target setting of 92c on the Ekoster. This will get my store (3,000l) up to 82c fully charged. I've found getting the store higher than this is difficult and will increase losses from the store anyhow. I would like to think that the store would get to 92c but no. Why, I have no idea unless my temp gauges on the store or Ekoster are wrong!

The only time that you'll want to increase the PO temperature setting is about an hour after startup. This will help ensure that when the boiler runs out of fuel, several hours later, the boiler isn't pulling heat from the store keeping it warm by virtue of the Laddomat pump still running (reverse heat transfer).

If the PO is left at 65c and the boiler has got the store up to, say, 82c and has run out of fuel the Laddomat pump will still be running until the boiler drops to 60c (PO 65c minus the Hysterisis of 5c). In this instance heat will go from the store back to the boiler. That is why I increase the PO to the higher figure to ensure it turns off at a higher temperature when at its end. It's not perfect but it helps.

I start a batch burn at night at around 7pm and will finish in the early hours. The alternative is to leave the PO at 65c and be ready to turn off the boiler manually at the right time. Be warned though, if you do this you risk any remaining embers heating the boiler up to over 99c and triggering the emergency mains water quench. This can happen because as the boiler is off therefore so is the pump and therefore the boiler is not being cooled.

I've done this a few times until I found the PO setting helped. I did fit a flue stat but found that the relatively low flue temperatures were too low to distinguish between "no fuel" and "just some hot embers".

You change the PO setting via the Service Settings by turning off the boiler, press and hold the stop button AND turn back on still holding the red stop button. You'll see a boot up number for the version at which point release the Stop button. You'll be presented with the first option of HI and flashing a number. Press the Stop button once again to get to the next setting until you cycle through to the normal display of the target temperature. Use the up\down arrows to change figures. So to change the PO after an hour will mean turning off and on again (bit of a faff!).

Hysteresis (HI) = 5 (keep this factory setting for time being)
Pump On (PO) = 65
Temperature difference (DT) = 20 (keep this factory setting for time being)
Fan Speed (strange symbol looks like reversed 7 and normal 7) = 7 (for 70%) (change this from factory 10)

Always make sure you use good fuel and religiously move that turbulator handle or you'll find the turbulators gum up. When this happens the heat exchanger tube get clogged up resulting in no gasification flame and a whole lot of head aches in freeing the thing up. See my recent post on the Navitron forum ( http://www.navitron.org.uk/forum/index.php/topic,25990.0.html ). Having said that you'll see others have totally different experiences!

Since my recent experience I now have my air inlet open full as that is what other people do apparently.

I hope this helps.

Good luck
Stuart

The manual suggests that 85 to 90 degrees is gasification temperature so i have been trying to work out an arrangement that keeps the boiler there, once it has got up to temp. I will give your settings a try though as it seems to me that the more i play with settings, the further i get away from my ideal.

can you tell me whether you load the boiler just once after getting an initial fire going or more often?

Johnnyh, the number of loads will depend upon the initial temperature of the store but normally for me with a batch burn it will use one load (heaped wheel barrow) but I sometimes just top up out of habit and can't leave things alone!

For example, I am batch burning every night. Yesterday morning the store was at 82c\82c top\bottom after the previous night batch burn at 92c (more of that later). We had the heating on all day at 19c (rads). At about 7:00pm the store was down to 56c\48c. If left it would get to 50c\50c and the house will be getting harder to heat. I started the boiler at 7:00pm with kindling and maybe 25-30% load of wood and set target temp at 84c (as per manual). At about 7:30pm the boiler is at a steady 78c with about 15-20% fuel left. I loaded the boiler to 100% and set the target temp to 92c (any higher doesn't get the store any hotter). I also set the PO to 75c in case I don't get back to it in the morning. However, I checked it at 10:15pm and the boiler was at a steady 84c with about 90% fuel. I topped up the fuel to 100% even though it probably doesn't need it. I also then set the PO to 78c. The store was about 60c\48c.

By 6:30am this morning the boiler was at 91c with the fan off meaning that it hit its 92c target and was now slumbering. There was about 25% fuel left. The store is steady at 82c\82c. The boiler fan will stay off until its temperature drops below 87c (92c-Hyseresis 5c). So when the temp hits 86c the fan comes on an the boiler will try to get to 92c again if there if enough fuel. I then set the PO to 85c knowing that in all likelyhood that fuel will run out by about 10:00am and it will start cooling down.

Now, this is where all that faffing about with the PO setting helps. Had I left the PO at the initial 65c the Laddomat pump will carry on pumping until the boiler temp drops to below 60c (65c-Hyseresis 5c). There will be no or little fuel so the boiler is being kept warm by the Laddomat pumping hotter water from the store to the boiler hence loosing heat from the store. On the other hand there will probably be a few embers left over but enough to boil the water in the boiler IF I chose to turn off the boiler (hence pump off as well). This is why I change the PO settings.

With batch burning I estimate I use about 0.1 cubic metre each firing on average. If, when I started the boiler with the the store much lower at say 20c\20c then I would reload the boiler with another batch just because it would need more fuel to go from 20c\20c to 82c\82c.

With slumber burning, aka 24/7 continuous burning, it is a bit more difficult to keep track as to how much wood is used as I only load the chamber to 50% max and will top up with a small amount but more often. I'll do this in the morning, lunch and evening and may be more if colder. I reckon then amount of wood used is about the same as batch burning if not a little more.

Having said all that though I have a suspicion that my boiler is not accurate in its temperature as even though my batch burn target is 92c the store only gets to 82c\82c despite the boiler reaching "92c". The Laddomat shows about 82c as well on the top gauge and bottom right gauge (return). If this is true I might be using more wood than I should be burning.

By the way, a change that I made recently after one year of operating is setting the Laddomat pump to speed three. I decided to read the manual one year late! It says that if your boiler is 25KW or lower set to speed two; speed three if higher but never speed one. I've been running speed one for a year on a 40KW boiler! I assumed the lowest speed will give better stratification in the store.

Johnnyh,

How close is the laddomat sensor to the boiler?

Is all the pipe work well insulated and short between the laddomat, tank and boiler?

Check that you don't have a service value partly closed somewhere!

It a shame that the boiler fun seems to be controlled on a “on/off” bases, not slowed down as the boiler gets up to its set temp. It is also a shame that the loading pump is not part of the boiler, controlled by the boiler. You may be getting time delays between the two control systems and/or one of them not reading the correct temp value.

What happens if you set PO to 85c at the start of the burn and leave it there with the max fan speed of the boiler set a lot lower then you have it. Also set your loading pump to run as fast as it can. (Take heat out of the boiler fast, generate heat slowly, only start to take heat out when the boiler is very hot.)

What happens if you set PO to 65c and set the max fan speed high with the loading pump set to a lower speed setting? (Take heat out of the boiler slower, generate heat fast, and start to take heat out as soon as possible.)

The control systems seem so primitive, I would like to take into account the temp at the bottom of the tank as well as the top, as well as what the boiler is doing, so as to control the boiler freed mixing value setting and/or pump speed.

To get to the bottom of what is going on, I think you need a data logger with temp sensors on all the pipes where they enter and exit the boiler, laddomat, and tank.

<blockquote><cite>Posted By: MonsterMonster</cite>he whole point of the Laddomat is to produce a better stratification automatically by way of retricting the charging flow via valves.</blockquote>

The function of the Laddomat is to keep the temperature of the boiler up at a point where the water will not over cool the firebox. It does this by recirculating the water around the boiler until a preset temp. is reached. once this temp. is reached the valve opens a bit and allows some of the water from the TS into the boiler to mix with the recirculated water. Because some of the return water is allowed into the boiler this allows some hot water to flow to the TS. The amount of recirculation reduces as the TS heats up. Once the bottom of the TS is at the temp. of the thermostat in the Laddomat then the valve will be fully open and no recirculation will take place.

So if there is a 72deg. thermostat in the Laddomat the boiler will be fed water at 72deg. at the return and until there is 72deg. coming from the TS some recirculation will take place. When the return is at 72deg. or above then the Laddomat is pumping its full amount be it on 1 or 3 through the TS. Whilst the TS is getting up to temp. of the Laddomat thermostat the boiler will be at a higher temp. than the TS once the TS is at the thermostat temp. then the boiler and TS should both rise in temp. together.

In the early stages of the burn having the Laddomat pump on 3 will just send the recirculating water around faster, its only when the TS reaches the set temp. that higher circulation through the TS will occur. Given that the power used by the pump increases as it speed goes up and also it is on during the whole burn then someone can work out the additional annual cost in electricity between running on 1 or 3

If nothing is being taken from the TS then I have a small difference to the stratification between the 1 and 3 settings however if the heating is running I have found the stratification with the return heating water disturbed when the Laddomat pump is set to high.

Sorry to hear that Ringi! I think they are a good idea for someone who has the space and can source the wood. It shoild be the cheapest way to heat and with the store you don't have to wake up to a cold house as you do with wood heating without the store.

The 'sophisticated' boilers are not quite sophisticated enough in terms of their control systems to work perfectly. But this is really a very simple bit of electronics and i think it woild n't be difficult to create a control which, for starters, could switch laddomat pump on and off in a much tighter range and therefore keep the boiler temp steadier and always in the gasification zone.

I'm starting to think that it is actually the time lag of laddomat cartridge opening and closing which causes the problem i have but this would definitely be helped by a more controllable pump switching hysteresis, i think.

<blockquote><cite>Posted By: johnnyh</cite>Monstermonster, do you have the ekoster extension unit, the little version of the controller that goes in the house and if so, do you know if you can you change the pump on times from there? I can't keep going out to boiler shed as my partner already thinks i'm obsessed!</blockquote>

I don't have a remote control. I did enquire over a year ago either via the installer or Eco Angus and I seem to remember that the remote control is purely a display with the main temperature of increase\decrease. Basicaly not very remote when it comes to accessing the system settings.

Our boiler is in the shed and my wife is of the same opinion of obsession. I see more of the boiler than I do of the wife and kids! If it isn't the boiler then it's the wood store.

It would help if the boiler contained more water and therefore was more stable, but then the boiler would take longer to heat up and would need a shunt pump within it.