How to test/troubleshoot heating triac

[Fidel]

Sorry my first post is a question, but I will be sure to write about this restore once it is complete (so dang close). The machine is a 2006 s1v1. so heres whats happening. steam boiler is overheating opening the safety valve. When the machine is turned on I have a solid econ light (#21) solid on/standby(#22), blinking #13 and #16 lights. While the econ light is on the steam boiler is heating up with light 13 blinking, the fan cycles and the hot water button works. when the econ light is off the steam boiler and light 13 are off, fan doesn't engage and the hot water button doesn't work. It looks like this machine has had someone (before me) fooling with the wiring inside it. So I dont know if the triac is broken or the wiring somewhere is misplaced... or both.

Any Ideas on what might be going on? Or anyone Know how to test a Heating triac with a multimeter or something?

Thanks

[chas]

When you are not in Economy mode, ECON lamp off, can you momentarily press the Boiler button to get the boiler to turn on?

Which way is the 15A/20A switch on top of the controller box set?

[Fidel]

I am on 15A mode. I think I figured out what is going on. I probably should have tested the machine once more before posting this, ha sorry. My safety valve is acutally opening at 1 bar, so I think that it is the culprit.

[chas]

Since the typical S1 steam boiler sits at 1.3 bar, that would do it. I have no idea what pressure those valves are set to open at. I would assume that it must be something north of 2 bar, for a safety factor probably at least 3 bar.

For future reference once you have it fixed, here's the heat up sequence regardless of whether you have it in 15A mode or 20A mode. The group boiler always heats first, then the steam boiler starts to heat up. If 15A mode is selected then the boilers will cycle back and forth to keep the group boiler at temp while the steam boiler continues to heat. In 20A mode the only difference is that the steam boiler stays on continuously until it is up to temp and the group boiler cycles on and off as required to maintain temp. With this method of warm up, for 20A mode, there is can never be an excessively long time where both boilers are on at the same time.

Also if you ever need to troubleshoot the triac boards, a good thing to remember is that both boards are identical. This means that you can either swap the boards or just their cables. If you do this and one board is faulty then the you should start to see the same problem occur on the opposite boiler.

If the temperature is detected as exceeding 140C for either boiler, the machine will throw an alarm and shut down. One would hope that LaSpaziale engineers designed the machine so that this happens before the over pressure valves open. Of course this also depends on the OPVs opening at the correct pressure.