Non Boaty - Central Heating

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tarik

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My boiler has gone on go slow. Corgi man said is is the PCB - he explained the fault was similar to a computer motherboard. New one is £275 plus fitting. Surely if it is similar to a motherboard - therefore a printed circuit can it not be repaired? What would likely cost be? I rather fancy he is after an easy life.


many thanks


David
 
I had the same problem and quote. What i did was ask a plumber friend who got the pcb for 140 inc vat, when he picked up the part it was only 75 plus vat,they made a mistake with the first price, fitted it myself and still going 2 years later.
 
What make of boiler? Please describe symptoms. I can find out what we get charged for this PCB if you like.

As a rule you can't fix PCBs, and they do fail..its a hot, sometimes wet environment. The acid test is if a new one fixes the fault. If he's wrong he can't take it back for a refund.

Are the prices ridiculous for what they are ?...yes..just like car spares

Tim
 
Hi Frank,

Had a look at the User's Guide it is for Models 30e,40e,50e,60e &80e we fitted it about 8 years ago always been excellent up to now.



thank you for your response.

regards


David
 
Tim,

It is a Potterton, details as given to Frank, ( I forgot to give the make!)

Symptons would seem like it is trying to get enough gas to light up - a surging noise. After a while it fires up aok intermittent fault - at the moment.



thank you for your response.


regards

David
 
Is it a Potterton Prima ?. If so it can be the gas valve solenoids (we had one at work that went intermittently..we replaced the PCB, but it was a new gas valve that cured it in the end).

PCBs usually either work or don't work. Its quite unusual, but not entirely unknown for a PCB fault to be intermittent unless it is a bad connection to the board. If the boiler will run sometimes, it points towards an electro/ mechanical fault rather than electronic.

Ten minutes with a multimeter, and a call to Potterton technical help line should give the electrical values you should be seeing..and this should help pin point the faulty bit. I cna do it off the top of my head with Glow Worms, but we don't deal with many Pottertons round here.

Tim
 
I had similar symptoms at home. Boiler would continuously fire/shut down - with loud clicking noises. Eventually it stopped heating water and rads. It was diagnosed by Tollesbury Boilers who replaced the pump - no further problems. The original pump was deteriorating and not moving the heated water fast enough. The boiler thermostat was, consequently, switching on/off, hence the clicking, eventually it failed to move any water which gave the failure symptoms.
 
Ive got a worcester electronic, getting on a bit now, for the last 2 winters it has been flaky, electronic prob, poked at pcb and it would go, aha thought i, dry joint, took board off and magnifying glass but couldnt find anything, put it back and work for a while, then have to flex it, did a search and found an outfit on the net that did recons, fair dos, £50ish and board arrived, had to send old one back, no probs now. suspect that it was one of the rheostats, bad wiper contact but hey!!
Stu
 
Tarik, you said it is a potterton, would it be a Netaheat by any chance?
Our boiler in the last house was one of the above, had a problem with the pcb, but on jiggling it about a little I noticed one of the solder joint was arching, so removed the board and resoldered it, which fully cured the problem.
You could inspect all the solder joints with a mag glass, ot try jiggling the board about and see will the boiler fire up.
The problem with ours was that the scavange fan, ( which should run for a little while before the gas will ignite) wasent running because of the aforementioned solder joint.
Another time it was playing up with same symptoms as yours, turned out to be the pilot gas solnoid valve or the main gas solnoid but whichever one it was, I bought one and fitted it myself too, and got it running again.
 
There is a pretty similar well known fault on Potterton Suprima which featured on BBC Watchdog last year - basically the solder to the large external connectors on the PCB will get a hairline crack in it with temperature cycling/vibrations after a while. Often this is the sensor for overheat, so the boiler will think incorrectly that it has overheated, and shut down, requiring the reset button to be pressed to allow it to start again. But it could probably affect other external connectors also.

All thats needed to fix that is reflowing the solder joints to all the external connector on the PCB. So if its that, you're right PCBs can be repaired in about 5 minutes (and thats allowing time for the soldering iron to warm up!). If you don't want to do it yourself there are guys that sell "refurbished" ones on Ebay, taking your old one in part-ex. I wouldn't want to pay even Ebay part-ex prices, but if you don't have soldering skills it would be one way.

Google search on "suprima pcb crack" or similar will give loads of extra info and I even found some photos of a cracked PCB.

I got into looking at this when buying a house with a Potterton Suprima boiler which the surveyor found wouldn't start, but in the end when I got the house the problem was not the boiler but a faulty zone value (also easy to fix with Ebay assistance ;o).

Chris

PS I'm pretty sure its not legal to remove/repair the PCB without being CORGI registered so I'm not recommending any of the above approaches!
 
I had exactly the same problem on a Potterton Suprima 60L, tried to get Potterton to sort it out but all they did was quote me £249 for a new PCB. I looked on eBay and got a refurbished one for £45 from "Sarumlady" with the offer of a £10 refund on returning the old PCB which I did not take up as I will try to fix the old one as a spare when it gets a bit warmer. So far the one he supplied has worked perfectly.

The only problem would be if your boiler has been fitted with the latest version of the board as this entails taking the boiler apart which has to be done by a CORGI fitter but, if you can see the components on the PCB, you should be OK ( the new one has all the components encapsulated).

Hope this helps.

John
 
My nephew's boiler (in an outhouse) won't fire when its too cold. Has to put a fan heater on a timer to warm outhouse slightly. Out of warranty, Manufacturer not interested and wants, call out for a manufacturer engineer monstrous £200 or so I believe.

The price they are charging for these boards is a real rip off (Same with car pcbs).
 
Thank you all for your help and advice - I intend to do 'battle' with the Corgi man and seek a second opinion. If it is still the same problem I'll arrange a repair/refurbish

Once again many thanks for all your replies


regards


David
 
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