Potterton pro max fsb he, any ideas?

[Nostrum]

Had a call from a customer this morning for the above boiler. Locking out when first firing , after a couple of resets it's fine. I popped in to have a look on the way home and it was working perfectly annoyingly. She said it only seems to happen first thing in the morning or sometimes first fire in the afternoon.

Needless to say it might be quite tricky to see the fault in action. She said the green light on the left is on all the time, the burner light comes on for a second or 2 then goes out and the lockout light stays on solid, which is indicating in the book an ignition fault, which adds up. My guess is gas valve related, either not enough gas or soliniod not acting quick enough the first time, but wondered if any of you baxi potterton fans had come across this before I go to silly lengths to try and stalk the problem down.

Any thoughts ?

Cheers in advance, Sam

 

[andyg0507]

its not the dreaded e168 fault code is it?

 

[Nostrum]

No error codes on this one, just a baxi solo in a big box as far as I can make out. 3 LEDs is all you get!

 

[andyg0507]

is it the combi or system version?

 

[Nostrum]

It's a floor standing heat only, open vent. I've had a dig around the interweb and it seems to be a fairly common fault. Might give baxi technical a ring tomorrow and see if they are aware of it.

Its fine once it's been reset one or sometimes two times. Silly me didn't take my analyser to work today as I was on an install so left it home to charge.

 

[andyg0507]

its me reading the title samboc, read it wrong

 

[Nostrum]

No worries, must admit I'm not familiar with the potterton/baxi range.

 

[Billy Bob Bob]

the promax fsb(floor standing boiler) is a solo in disguise and the pig in the pork of the Baxi range personally i would hit it with a large hammer and be done with it failing that the electrodes,burner,or case seals could be knackered

 

[Nostrum]

It's only 2 years old as well! Don't think I'd be to popular hitting it with a hammer!

Thanks gas man, I was hoping you would see this thread actually.

Would you think the electrodes and burner could be knackered even though it fires fine all day after the initial hick up?

 

[Billy Bob Bob]

burners a known weak spot as are electrodes,i fitted a solo 30 HE 2 years back had Baxi out 8 times in warranty burner changed electrodes changed 3 times finally main hex replaced due to noise it was a bad casting,i would try starting with electrodes baxi trade only helpline 08443358428

 

[Nostrum]

Cheers gasman will give technical a bell tomorrow and the electrode seems a reasonable starting point, and tell them they have a life of misery from this point onwards

 

[Billy Bob Bob]

Cheers gasman will give technical a bell tomorrow and the electrode seems a reasonable starting point, and tell them they have a life of misery from this point onwards

let us know how you get on sam,if it was not for the fact that it eats pcb,s i would say the ideal icos is a better boiler than the solo he or (potterton fsb)and i am well known to using a axe on a icos LOL,gold combis and duotec mk1 are cracking boilers IMHO but the heat only s are nightmares they should have killed this boiler when it was the Baxi Barcelona

 

[Nostrum]

Spoke to some russian sounding dude at technical today. He reckoned it could be stray voltage from a programmer or zone valve causing the board to lock out, resetting discharges the capacitors etc on the board which is why it fires on the second attempt...

SO.. after thinking about it I asked the customer to turn the boiler off at the wall 10 mins before it was due to fire this afternoon, and then flick it on just before. They phoned back this evening to say it had fired no problem, we are going to do this for a few days and see how it goes.

Bit of a wierd one, certainly wouldn't have thought of this myself, and still not convinced myself as the boiler (so I was told) was attempting and failing to fire before lock out, which wouldn't add up with what the russian dude said.

So i'm trying to diagnose a fault without seeing it based on information the customer has told me, and information given to me over the phone by some russian guy... tricky one

Will update as I go along..