Any Eberspacher experts about?

msimms

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Have a baffling problem with my Eberspacher D4. It’s 7 years old and done over 7700 hrs, it’s been mainly trouble free with maintenance limited to running 4 litres paraffin through it once a year to clean it through. Problem started a few weeks back with the heater having problems running for any length of time. I ran eight litres of paraffin through it but it still gave issues. The fault codes given off were 053, 054, 055 or 056 (all flame loss) or occasionally 052 safety time exceeded. I removed the heater and checked the flame sensor resistance but it measured okay. The glow plug gauze was replaced when the heater was out along with the pump filter (both looked fine). When the heater was put back on the boat it was giving a new fault, I can’t recall which one but it was again to do with the sensor and when I checked the resistance it was open circuit. Initial thought was that removing it and replacing it caused an intermittent sensor fault to fully fail.

Ordered and fitted a new sensor and the heater immediately fired up for about an hour before failing with fault code 065 (short circuit in flame sensor). Thought I’d got a bad sensor but on checking it’s has the correct resistance at 1K. Removed the sensor again to check for any physical damage to the cable but it’s perfect. Fault code changes to 064 if the flame sensor is disconnected from the heater.

Could only think that the control unit had failed and was misreading the sensor resistance value. Fitted a new controller and heater worked for about an hour before failing with 065 again. Tried pulling the fuse and cable to the heater numerous times in an attempt to reset it but no joy. Left the heater for a week before starting trying again and it fired up and worked perfectly the whole weekend before again failing with 065. Again tried pulling fuse and disconnecting cable but to no avail.

Any ideas if there could be some other component causing a false flame sensor short circuit? Having spent £350 on replacement parts I’d like to try and get it going.

Cheers

Mark
 
Have a baffling problem with my Eberspacher D4. It’s 7 years old and done over 7700 hrs, it’s been mainly trouble free with maintenance limited to running 4 litres paraffin through it once a year to clean it through. Problem started a few weeks back with the heater having problems running for any length of time. I ran eight litres of paraffin through it but it still gave issues. The fault codes given off were 053, 054, 055 or 056 (all flame loss) or occasionally 052 safety time exceeded. I removed the heater and checked the flame sensor resistance but it measured okay. The glow plug gauze was replaced when the heater was out along with the pump filter (both looked fine). When the heater was put back on the boat it was giving a new fault, I can’t recall which one but it was again to do with the sensor and when I checked the resistance it was open circuit. Initial thought was that removing it and replacing it caused an intermittent sensor fault to fully fail.

Ordered and fitted a new sensor and the heater immediately fired up for about an hour before failing with fault code 065 (short circuit in flame sensor). Thought I’d got a bad sensor but on checking it’s has the correct resistance at 1K. Removed the sensor again to check for any physical damage to the cable but it’s perfect. Fault code changes to 064 if the flame sensor is disconnected from the heater.

Could only think that the control unit had failed and was misreading the sensor resistance value. Fitted a new controller and heater worked for about an hour before failing with 065 again. Tried pulling the fuse and cable to the heater numerous times in an attempt to reset it but no joy. Left the heater for a week before starting trying again and it fired up and worked perfectly the whole weekend before again failing with 065. Again tried pulling fuse and disconnecting cable but to no avail.

Any ideas if there could be some other component causing a false flame sensor short circuit? Having spent £350 on replacement parts I’d like to try and get it going.

Cheers

Mark

Sound like the fan isn't running fast enough, could be the motor that's ready especially after that amount of hours.
Is the filter in the pump clean? Try another pump as it could be under fueling and not giving enough combustion to stabilise the correct heat temp to keep the cycle going. Check the fuel lines and make sure there are no air leaks or restrictions before the pump, I've found many tank stack pipes partially blocked over the years giving same problem. Try running it from a can of diesel .
 
My Eber is a constant cause of frustration - anything I do makes it worse so its been rebuilt at a specialist and so far so good. No help I know but in my experience they are not easy DIY!

Also - how do you get the running hours off of the unit?
 
Have a look at this excellent site if not done so already, lots of fault finding guides and plenty of in depth details for resistance checks, wiring diagrams, fault codes and the like. http://www.letonkinoisvarnish.uk/Eberspacher_Faults_2.html

nothing to do with me but used it when replacing the ECU on mine recently to ensure the feed voltages to the ECU from various components were within tolerance so I didn't risk blowing another ECU.. the original one randomly took up smoking one day.. Eberspacher have ignored me when I asked why it would do such a thing on a boat
 
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Sound like the fan isn't running fast enough, could be the motor that's ready especially after that amount of hours.
Is the filter in the pump clean? Try another pump as it could be under fueling and not giving enough combustion to stabilise the correct heat temp to keep the cycle going. Check the fuel lines and make sure there are no air leaks or restrictions before the pump, I've found many tank stack pipes partially blocked over the years giving same problem. Try running it from a can of diesel .


Thanks, think I've tried most of that except the fan speed. The fault I'm getting occurs pre-start so the pump or motor don't start. I've brought my optical tachometer down to the boat and if I can get it to fire up I'll check the speed is in spec.
 
Have you monitored the sensor perimeters, fan speed, pump Htz and control unit (ECU) under actual operating conditions using EDITH software? It is downloadable from the web and pattern USB interfaces are now really cheap from FleaBay, well at least compared to the Eberspacher offering anyway. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HEATERS-DIAGNOSTIC-USB-INTERFACE-for-Eberspacher-Espar-Hydronic-Airtronic-Edith-/230910157246?hash=item35c35161be:g:7qEAAOSwq7JUEXCX

Wasn't aware of these for heaters, looks interesting.

How does it connect? Splice it in to the loom maybe? As I'm failing the pre-start test would it help?
 
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