Can't get my burner to work.. HELP!plz.

SBranson

SBranson

Joined
Oct 29, 2006
Messages
2,912
I put this Ellis burner together over the last couple nights. Didn't have the instructions so I went of my other thread this and looked around.

I couldn't get it to light at all. Then I noticed that my hole in the split nut was off center and so there was likely turbulence as the gas didn't travel clearly down the tube. So with that part ruined I went to the hardware store at lunch break and picked up the best I could, bronze fittings.. Anyway, I think it's straight and looks pretty good eyeballing down the tube.

Still can't get it to light with the 035 mig tip so I put a .030 tip on and this is what's happening.

Maybe it's still not straight enough? I don't have a lathe unfortunately.

This one is for my heat treating forge.

This starts with lighting it at about 3lbs. pressure. Then it's ramped up to 9 lbs. Then down to about 1/2lb as the site says it's good down to that so I wanted to show what happens there. It certainly isn't working properly and I'm not sure how to fix it.

[youtube]SbcU1zhYBPc[/youtube]
 
Last edited:
put your .035 mig tip back in, and it appears to me that your tip needs to either move up or down in your burner. I have my best luck with the end of the mig tip being between 1/8", and 1/4" past the edge of the air intake towards the long end of the burner. as for lightin my burner, I use my sippo lighter or a long reach butane lighter and light through the air intake. I i dont have a guage on mine, but i suspect i light at around 2-5psi. give this a shot and post results.

cheers, adam

edit: I noticed that the ballvalve at the burner wasn't open all the way in the video. this may make a difference, but I'm not sure as my setup doesn't have one of those either.

edit2: my my nozzle is by nomeans centered in my burner, and I have none of the issues that you are having, and mine is totally homebuit with stuff i found laying around the garage.
 
Last edited:
radeo said:
the end of the mig tip being between 1/8", and 1/4" past the edge of the air intake towards the long end of the burner.
Click to expand...

Sorry, not sure where you mean. So it's about 1/8" to 1/4" up towards the business end past the lip of the air intake port? ie,. almost into the tube itself?

I thought the tip was supposed to be halfway in the port opening. That's how it's pictured here:

venturi.jpg


And I have moved the tip as far forward and back as it can go with little effect.

Also, the piece of tube the mig tip attaches to isn't long enough to go where you say (if I understand you correctly)

I noticed on this drawing of the Zoeller burner that the tube is 8" long whereas mine is 9". Would cutting the 1" make the difference?

Picture1.png
 
thats odd that it wont light when the valve is all the way open. as far as length is concered 1" may make the difference. I patterend mine off of the zoeller patter, with exception that my intake opening is smaller, so I use a .028 mig tip. the end of my tip is 1/4" past the edge or the intake that is closer to the business end of the burner. on initial fire up, i have to close the intake almost completely for a few seconds to the right flame pattern at the end. I will take my camera to work tomorrow and take a couple pics and a video or two of the burner running.
 
also, my flare is just a 1" pipe coupler that i drilled and tapped in 3 places and use 3 srews to hold it on. had to cut 1 off flush, but thats just to make it work in my setup
 
Tough to tell, but the flame pattern improves when you choke it off. Overall, it may (?) not be getting enough gas. Do you have a 'POL' fitting. The wide open screw in part that goes into your propane tank.

.035 mig tip, centered in the opening (air intake) should be fine. When the flame stops huffing, it looks kind of small to me, but again, tough to tell.

I don't know what's behind you in the video, but crack your garage door open no matter how cold it is out.

I think the instructions on the other thread will help a ton, Craig
 
The POL fitting that came with the burner leaked terribly so I picked up a replacement.
Come to think of it, it has integral o-ring and inside there's some kind of filtering device.
Perhaps, that's shutting some gas off?

But wouldn't that idea be made moot by turning up the pressure. I could understand that if the problem were only at lower pressures.

The only other anomalous situation is that I received a 0-60psi regulator and meter and that's way to coarse a read out for my intended purposes so I picked up a 15psi meter.

Can't see how that would affect it though.
 
cdent said:
Tough to tell, but the flame pattern improves when you choke it off. Overall, it may (?) not be getting enough gas.
Click to expand...

I was actually thinking the opposite. By closing it off it draws air more aggressively. Also, the fact that the flames are yellow at the tips made me think that it's
running with too little air.
 
Stuart,

I built my burners with the orifice (mig tip) extended just a bit into the nipple.
I'm not sure if your burner can tell which end the air is supposed to draw from.

Here are a couple of pics of one of mine.


.035 mig tip
IMG_0308.jpg

home position into nipple
IMG_0309.jpg

Also make sure the flair is near the tip of the burner tube or you're not getting
the pressure reduction that the tip is designed to give you. Forgive me if you
already knew this.

Hope this helps.
 
Last edited:
Thanks David. I don't think the nipple I was given is long enough to reach that close to the burner tube.

I just went out and chopped an inch of the pipe, cleaned out the POL so the little ball and spring is gone, took off the angle coupling piece just after the ball valve and still it won't light with the 035 tip unless I choke off the air intake.

It seems like a simple mechanism and it's driving me nuts why it's not working.

I'm about to give up and waste another 2-3 weeks ordering a pre assembled burner. I've wasted 7 weeks on this damn heat treating forge project.
 
Thanks. When I cut the end off tube the flare barely went on so I gave it a couple whacks to seat it and it's only on about 1/4"-3/8".
 
Ok... I've made many of these (pre Zoller plans) including 1/4 inch pipe welded across a reducer (no tee!) with a hole drilled into the side of the pipe facing the tube and... they worked! (for the most part). Of late I've made 6 of these burners like yours and flared the tubes myself by heating the end of the tube in a vise and using a large blacksmith's flared hole hammer to flare it out. They all work. You are correct in that these are simple ramjet engines really but they can be cantankerous!

So....

(1) remove your scedule 80 1/4 and mig tip from the burner and, with the door open ;), have someone (it helps to have a little help here) turn on the gas. Don't lite it. Hold the inside of your forearm, (fairly sensitive skin) in front of the stream and note the pressure both visually (indentation it makes) and sensitivity wise on your forearm. Have them/you turn it up from very little to full. You should have a lot of gas coming from:

(a) a full tank
(b) with a working regulator
(c) and a non obstructed mig tip

Now lite the tip by itself, no tee or tube, hand held. it should, at low pressure, burn blue and clean. Anything else means gas supply troubles or so I would think. Additionally, you should be able to just turn it down to almost "Bic lighter" like flame. In otherwords, were checking your gas regulation here.

If the above can be noted/accomplished, the devil is in the details. I've found that just being off a 1/16 or so of center for the mig tip is without much consequence. However burner tubes in excess of 8" are troublesome although I've made some that burned that were 10"! I've also found that the mig tip/gas introduction should be a little past where tube meets tee, i.e. the tip of the mig tip is, when viewed from the tee port, not visible or just barely visible. Having it in the center of the tee port will not do.

Lastly, these burners put on a new show when in a forge. There, they burn in a dynamic environment. Everything constantly changes but in short, the hotter the forge gets, the better it all seems to function.

regards, m
 
Okay.. I did as you said. I removed it, got good pressure on my arm at 6psi..

In the video you can see what happens. When it finally blows itself out, I'm at about 1psi or less.

[youtube]-yvyjQ7A3-c[/youtube]
 
And I know what you mean about the difference in the forge. My blown forge only really starts to work smoothly when warmed up.. I've had a message from someone else who's said that their Ellis burner runs the same but works in a forge.

But again, if you look at Ellis's site at the little video for the pre assembled burner theirs runs very smoothly.
 
I've had good performance from junk Venturis, the real deal designed by engineers for flow, scavenged off furnaces that are laying out behind every HVAC shop for the asking. They work much better than bell reducers. Be careful of carbon monoxide inside that garage. Propane needs LOTS of ventilation.
 
Move your flare up the burner tube toward the burner head. Try it with the flare tip only about 1", or even less off the end of the burner tube. Then play with it and see where it burns best. I know, seems like you'll have to grind the burner tube a bit to be able to easily slide the flare up it. This can change your burn quite a bit, though.

I ran Zoellers like that for a while, my MIG tip was usually pretty close to the top of the burner tube as well. Never actually inside, though. Probably within 1/2".
 
Probably not what you want to hear, but:
For a HT forge I would get rid of the MIG tip altogether and convert the burner to a blown burner. If a blown burner won't burn there is a real problem. For a HT forge, a blown burner can be controlled much better.
 
It's the Flare, bud.... Salem has it right... 3/4" - 1" sticking past the burner tube. You'll find that most of your tuning will be with the flare. You should be able to take the pressure down to 1.5psi without sputtering. I have lots of practice with the Zoeller type... I've built 12 so far... lol.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top