furnace won't stay on - Burnham gas FHW
Forgive terseness; posting from smartphone.
Have Burnham P204A-WNI with Honeywell components: R8285D control center, S86H intermittent pilot; can't see model #'s on the rest, but specs claim L4080B /L4006A hi-limit control, VR844P / VR8440P gas valve, Q348A pilot. Age unknown.
Working fine til power lost Saturday. Now on generator; wouldn't start til I disconnected thermostat (Lux 1500 programmable, 2-wire) and joined wires together to fake a call for heat. Seemed to run fine for a while (an hour or so?), then stopped and didn't come on again. Shut off gas & power, waited about 10 minutes, then turned on gas and then power. Came right on, sounded normal, flames looked healthy. After 1 or 2 minutes, it shut down and didn't come on again. House temp is in the low 50's. Can't afford a service call. Have searched web, studied manuals; don't know what to try next. Did realize that I failed to get generator power to 24v transformer for thermostat, but therm. is still disconnected from furnace, with wires to furnace twisted together w/ wire nut.
Some controls
will not function correctly on generator power. There has to be an interface for proper operation . I am on the way out the door but suggest you call the company that makes the generator and they should be able to assist you.
which control
When you wrote "some controls", did you mean the external thermostat (Lux) or the internal control center (Honeywell R8285D)?
Regarding "there has to be an interface": I thought that with a 2-wire 24v thermostat, the 2 wires served as a simple on/off switch for the furnace, controlled by the thermostat, and therefore replacing the therm. with a wire should cause the furnace to run constantly. Am I misunderstanding something?
Thanks for the help!
Quality of AC
The ignition control uses flame rectification to know that the pilot is on so the main burner can come on. This is basically looking for a DC micro amp current passing through the flame. This requires a good clean AC signal coming in. There has been problems with generators not producing a good AC supply and therefore not working well with heating equipment.
