smev gas ring problem

balooboat

balooboat

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I have a smev two ring gas hob on my boat run with camping gaz. The unit has worked well for the past two years but I'm now having trouble lighting the larger ring. I have a good gas supply and what appears to be a a good spark, yet pressing the igniter up to ten times will not ignite the flame. If I use a domestic hand held igniter [the type you have to squeeze] it will light. I have removed the jet, cleaned it and given it a good blow through but still no luck. A sooty deposit has formed on the saucepan grid.
 
somebody will come on with the knowledge but my thoughts are that if soot forming on pan grids implies that not enough air is mixing .. eg on a bunsen burner if the air control is blocked you get a sooty flame
 
smev gas ring

Thanks for the quick reply.Is there any adjustment for air on this type of hob?. I've stripped and cleaned all the parts, so no dust or rust to prevent air circulating around the ring.
 
Don't know that particular hob, but on my old "Valiant" I can remove the top of the burner & clean out the gas vents. If the top doesn't come off get a piece of copper wire & bend it to poke into the holes the gas comes out of. Concentrate on the hole by the sparker, there is probably a dead spider or a lump of soot blocking it.
 
smev gas ring

I've stripped and cleaned everything on this ring , so no spiders, also the small gas ring is fine so the regulator should be o/k.
 
Some Smev have a top metal plate secured with 2 screws. Under that is a one piece stainless steel burner hob. The gas is injected thru the jet, passes through a big ( ½ inch ) hole in the stainless steel hub thing and is pouched out between de ribeled SS part and the steel upper plate. The ribbles make the separate flames.
The top of the SS part around the big hole is concave. Don’t now the word in English, but rounded upwards. After long time burning the SS steel deforms, is less rounded. The mixture of gas-air is no good, the stuff will not burn. You have to deform the rounding some 2mm. More bombed.
In a vice, with a big nut as a ??? just bend the material up.
Some pic would help.
 
Safety Warning

My brother in law (not a registered forum user) just saw and advised me of this thread. PLEASE don't tinker with gas appliances - unless you're GasSafe (formerly Corgi) registered for LPG in boats and caravans. And, at the risk of upsetting the would-be gas advisers here, please think what you're doing before egging on others to dismantle appliances. It's not clever.

Rant over.
 
I'd go for the regulator, no need to dismantle anything, just think, does the flame on both hobs (ok, when and if you manage to ignite the large one) is similar to what it was before, or is it smaller?
Regulators can go off, a duff bottle may be bought, a bent in the pipe leading to the hob from the vented cupboard where the bottle is stored, few options to check...
Worth trying another bottle btw (butane propane issues or different brands)

V.
 
smev gas ring

I can't check the concave stainless steel theory as the boat is 60 miles away, but I'll check the next time I go down, The problem with the gas /regulator idea is that my small burner has a good blue flame with no soot, but the larger one has a slightly orange flame and the pan support above it has sooty deposits .
 
First of all, Mr. Gravygraham is right. Gas is dangerous, so get help from a specialist.
In the Netherlands, a gas explosion on the boat of a customer killed two man, destroyed 6 yachts. Five brand new Etap`s had the deck ripped of the hull by the implosion. My old boat was lying on the same spot and had no damage because a hatch and the cocpitdoors where open. All coffee mugs in our galley had there handles broken of, they ware hanging on the mug rack, ripped of by the movement of the sealing-cocpitdeck.
Now, I had the same problem with a Smev. Being a mechanical engineer I worked on it for two days. Could not find why one burner was oke, the other not. Checked everything. New gasbotlle, blew the pipe trough, spare regulator, Changed the complete control and thermocouple, the gas was coming but would not burn.
A long time French liveaboard and absolute genius in “ bricoler “new the answer. We deformed the thing one mm, maybe a bit less maybe a bit more, the gas was burning. Thanks Alain.
Now I suggest that you tell the specialist this story, because he will not now. He will sell you a new cooker.
And in general, if a liveaboard cruiser needs a specialist for every failure on the yacht, he will soon be back home working for somebody else.
 
smev gas ring

I've been talking to Norfolk Marine today, who have a good selection of smev hob spare parts,they have not heard of any problems with these burners, so I've decided to go with fitting new burner cap and body which they supply at a reasonable £6.24 I'll post the results when I've fitted them. Thanks to you all for your replies


sales@norfolkmarine.co.uk
 
smev problem

I've fitted the new burner bits which at first seem to do the job but after some time It started to fail again, stripped It down again and noticed the actual burner was not sitting in a vertical position[ off to one side] the only way this could happen is if the base had warped, I'ts very thin metal, I straightened it up and found it helped, I now carry a gas lighter for the odd occasion when the prietzo fails.
 
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