Clever tester design, I like the auto switching and the combination of different power levels. Not sure what your mains voltage is, but the way you handle the alligator clips is frightening. Is there a difference in getting electrocuted with and without power limiting?
wow did you ever here this I was at a cabin and their was no more seats thieir was a drunk girl and with out thinking she sat on the blazing hot wood stove and she got up in a hurry
Would there be an advantage to having the 40 automatically trigger on the 60 and the 60 automatically trigger the 100 with a current sensors or some other switch so that it self adjusts to the current that is being pulled thru it? I'm new to these and it seems you have to know in advance that the device would pull a certain current amount in order to select the right combo for the most protection... However, if you make it so that the weakest of the bulbs had a trigger of some sort, if it were consuming too much current, it would instantly trigger another bulb. Maybe a trigger that measures current and only acts IF the bulb is on. That would make it fully automatic so you don't have to know which combo is best. Also, what gain do you get by using the 40 sometimes vs the 100, is it better protection? Then maybe having an auto trigger setup, you could have 10 20w bulbs in a row, each on triggering the next ONLY if needed.
@@jmanatee So what is the advantage of using one wattage over another wattage? Would using 100W all the time be better than sometimes using 40W and what happens if it draws a lot more than the 40W bulb will consume, doesn't the device still run the risk of damage? That was my whole point. If you don't know what the current will be in a short, you select too low of a wattage bulb, then you still have damage. If you select too high of a wattage, you don't get much light.
Great video. The only thing I was hoping to see what the exhaust/smoke outside right after you pack a fresh fire. I would like to add an indoor wood boiler but don’t want to smoke my neighbors out.. or does the the smoke just exhaust out of your chimney?
You should have piped it primary/secondary and used a no/nc aquastat for automatic switch over, this would negate heat loss through the unused boiler when sitting idle. You left no way to isolate the expansion tank to check air pressure and ideally you should have someway to maintain a low limit in the wood boiler, a thermostatic 3 way valve would work fine. You are correct about the outdoor boiler, they have tremendous heat loss through the sidewalls and tubing. Also the indoor boiler is pressurized which negates the need for a plate exchanger. Nice job.
The oil boiler doesn't generally sit idle, It usually runs every AM or if I am away to long during the day. The Water in the oil boiler is like a heat mass so when all zones shut off it allows the water to "dump" to the oil boiler kind of a heat battery. Never seen a isolation valve installed on an expansion tank but I can see they could be useful. "you should have someway to maintain a low limit in the wood boiler" do you mean low temp or low pressure? it never goes low temp because the oil boiler kicks in, it should never gets low pressure because the pressure regulator should kick in. (although I run it with the feed closed now because it has glycol in it) It is a closed loop so unless there is a leak... After I fixed a small leak, I have never seen the pressure drop.
@@jmanatee they make a nice expansion tank valve that lets you isolate the tank from the boiler then remove the residual water pressure from the tank so you can get an actual air pressure reading. So many people just take a reading at the Schrader valve and don't realize they are just reading the water pressure. Expansion tanks will usually lose 1 to 2 lbs of pressure a year through the bladder
Hi, nice video. I was wondering what is your setup. Does your boiler require a hot water storage tank to be recirculated or is the hot water from the boiler run directly through your radiators?
Is there a reason to actually need 3 bulbs? I have a dim-bulb tester with only 1x 100W lamp, and it indicates any piece of equipment with a short circuit (or very low resistance) in its circuitry. So, i'm trying to reason WHY i would ever need lesser resistance filaments in the 40W & 60W bulbs for equipment testing? Obviously the resistance of the 100W bulb allows enough current for fussy switchmode power supplies to startup which also gives me reason to NOT need the 40W & 60W bulbs. Maybe there's a scenario i haven't experienced yet?, but my dim bulb tested has been fine for all the valve radios, guitar amps, vintage hi-fi and computer power supplies over the decades of restoring & repairs that i've experienced. with thanks.
No this is a luxury, I used a single bulb current limiter for a long time. I just wanted to improve it. I always start with 40watt bulb to get an idea of how the repair is going.
this reminds me of a contraption i made, the "ballast board", in other words i screwed a bunch of different size fluo ballasts on a fiberboard and select em with hairdrier switches, you can configure up to like 200W and limit the current on a load, it has only two wires coming out, it seems silly but it's fairly useful, instead of finding the correct ballast or for adjusting the power finely
@@jmanatee the resistors that were left off your diagram ;-) - Hopefully nobody has built from the diagram verbatim and then blown LEDs into the sky without the necessary dropping resistors. ;-)
Well - Thanks for the Schematic - Finished building this design today - Looks almost identical as I used the same project box. I decided I really didn't want the Banana jacks so I left those out, and rather than the duplex receptacle I used a range type snap in receptacle (Qualtek# 738W-X2/03). I don't have a 3D printer so to mount the 3 light bulbs I simply used 3 Leviton# 8101 Porcelain 2 part Lampholders - they fit perfectly across the top.
I like this very much and want to build one. However, I'm slightly confused. When I look at the diagram vs your list of components. The SPSTs in your list are 2 pin, yet what I assume are the 2 switches on the diagram, those just above the relay, are 3 pin. Could you clarify this, please?
@@jmanatee Thanks for your reply, I see that now 🙂The other contacts on the diagram are those of the relay? I have an Omron LY2NJ 10A DPDT, which I intend to use for this project.
Very nice - Any chance that we can see inside? Would love to see how you have the relay hooked up - I am not quite picturing it from the schematic. The Momentary Push Button Switches and the Contactor got me a little bit guessing. Thanks for sharing...
@@jmanatee No need to be embarrassed - Sure it cannot be worse than my rats nest wiring jobs LOL - Looking forward to seeing that contactor and latching - may get some ideas on how you got the LED& and resistors put together etc to make it a little neat.... I seen some nice pre-made units on Fleabay today all done up with the mounting bezel, LED, resistor, and wire pigtails, all shrink wrapped nice and neat.... always nice to see other's way to approach projects like this... always good ideas to be found...
Thank you for unboxing …😅 I was like how am I going to put this back now 😂”how am I going to get this back in there.” Took the words right out my mouth 😂😂😂 thanks bro!
I picked up one of these recently at a thrift store and drilled holes in the side to poke the battery wires out (protip: top section pulls off, no screws), and connected a larger cell next to the unit (12AH I think). Working so far. I found that it's the older CP1000AVRLCD, but they named a newer 2020 model the same so you have to search a little to find info about this older version from around 2010 it seems.
This is the question I was looking for. I'm building a set up and have the opportunity to utilize one of these. What is your average low during the winter? My most available fuel is going to be spruce. Do you ever run coal?
relays will usually clamp at a lower then rated power, But once activated they will usually stay energized at a much lower voltage. If you are using this with a variac and bringing the voltage up slow you would probably want limit mode anyway
@@jmanatee ok thanks for your reply. Hoping you let that videos come. Really enjoy your videos. You are just like me, you like to fix things in a wide range. Seems that you have a nice workshop and also electronics workshop there as well. Have a great 2024. Greeting from Norway😀
Nice video. I agree. I see loads of vids on outdoor units, but very few on indoor. Mine is an indoor Clayton wood/coal-burning forced- air furnace. I do like some of the outdoor boilers, but I got mine just before the EPA new particulate rules went into effect. The rules gave manufacturers 4 months or so to clear old inventory. I got mine 1/2 price. It's a bit big for my house, but not by enough to matter. I just have to control the fire appropriately for the weather, and toggle between 1 fan or 2. But, yeah, I just go outside for 10 mins every other day or so with a wheelbarrow and get 2 loads of wood and I'm all set. All-night fires are nice!Love it. I do want to get a battery back up power station to run the fans if power goes out, but everything else is non-electrical. The install required some know-how, and a few days effort, but even that wasn't too bad. I think this is the 5th year or so, and I'm already way past the break-even point. I'm burning 4 - 5 cords/yr and saving about $100+/mo.
I really like this design. Best part is that it comes up in limited mode. I would appreciate the relay part number and the current limiting resistor sizes for the LEDs. If you could provide those I would appreciate it.
The relay is Omron LY2-UA-006244 Relay... I can't remember the exact resistor but I think it was either a 5.6k or 10k 5watt in series with a diode. Although the LED is a diode it can have trouble with the reverse current thats why I added the diode.
You haven't seen a wood boiler until you've seen my brother's. His is about 5 times larger than your's maybe even larger. His house is about 40,000 sqft and had pipes running throughout the internal walls and floors of the entire house that are heated by his wood boiler. It's pure insanity. You can't see the pipes but man is it toasty in his house. The pipes are also installed within every ceiling just like radiant floor heating. It was 33 degrees outside and that's exactly where I slept outside because I just wasn't that used to that type of winter heat but my wife slept real good😅
Your brothers system sounds big, My neighbor kept his house at 85 in the winter. You would take your jacket off before you went inside. I don't like it that warm.
@@jmanatee Well be paid off the house years ago but due to his Furnace addiction to wood he is preparing to put it up for sale. He already purchased a Yacht and is getting the family ready for a move to the North Sea. You just can't keep stealing trees for your whole life😂
I have an indoor wood boiler in my old house. I want to use it more this winter but i have trouble controlling it. With the draft fan off it will still get hot enough to open the water pressure relief. Should i install a chimney dampener to try to control the fire better? I think my chimney is pulling a really hard draft all the time causing the fire to burn really hot all the time.
I have a very tall flue like close to 30ft of 6" metalbestos flue pipe, so I get a lot of draft, so I installed a Draft Regulator for wood stoves and I set it to almost no draft on the firebox this almost eliminated draft on my boiler fire. You need the fan to force air into the fire. I also added a Motorized Zone Dampers to the inlet to the fan. So when the call for fan stops the damper closes stopping the air bypassing the fan. When the aquastat calls for fan it powers the Motorized Zone Damper and when the damper opens all the way it turns on the fan. Hope this helped
G,day from Sydney Australia. Wow fantastic invention. Would another way for the same purpose; Bench power supply LCD of V and Amp with a meter between cables to appliance measuring Amps? You could limit or set V and detect if a short exists because no amps are passing through the short? 🌏💫
Yes that is possible, Any fuel burning device (oil furnace, wood boiler, wood stove, pellet stove, fireplace) has the potential to go wrong.... We always try to minimize that risk, I have an insulated Metalbestos chimney and there is very little creosote buildup. I clean the flue every year into a 5 gallon bucket. I have been using the same bucket for 10+ years and the bucket is still less then a 1/4 full.
