Turboburn Monitor Plus

Suggested local user-interface for Turboburn Monitor Plus

With hindsight and a bit of experience behind us, here's my proposed specification for "Turboburn Monitor Plus".  This device does away with all electro-mechanical controls apart from, perhaps, an on-off switch.

Turboburn Monitor Plus specification

The device essentially controls the turbo-fan in any solid-fuel boiler of this type. It does so by monitoring the water-bath temperature, but can also monitor other temperatures. It has a local user-interface for example as shown above, and a remote, web-based interface.

The default local display shows the water-bath temperature in large numerals and the temperature trend in smaller numerals. In the example the water is at 93 degC and is rising at the rate of 3 degC per hour.  A lamp in the large button (or the display) indicates when the fan is running.

Press the small button marked "Display" to cycle though other parameters - after a few seconds the display will revert to the default.

Press the large green button to turn the fan on or off. When the fan is first turned on a period of say 15 minutes grace is allowed before the fan control algorithm cuts in. This is to give a newly lit fire time to get going. The algorithm detects when the water is no longer rising in temperature and turns the fan off and raises an "alert". The algorithm will also turn the fan off when the temperature gets too close to boiling, and raises an "alert".

An "alert" is also raised if the water-bath temperature falls below, say, 50 degC.

The device monitors the water-bath temperature and controls the turbo-fan. It can also monitor up to about six additional temperature sensors and a similar number of electrical circuits (e.g. pump on/off).

The web-interface will be similar to the existing Turboburn Monitor. Thus it also displays the water-bath temperature and its trend, and will also show the last 8 hours of this data in graphical form. The state of the fan and the temperature of other sensors is displayed (e.g. outside temperature), and the fan can be turned or or off remotely. All this data is logged in a file for optional analysis.

The device raises "alerts" to attract the attention of the person responsible for stoking. An alert appears as a banner across the web-interface page. It closes a volt-free relay contact which could be used to activate a siren or high-intensity beacon lamp. It could even send an email or a text.

The device is battery backed so that settings are not lost in the event of a power cut.

I am considering making this technology available in "kit" form. The kit would comprise a partially populated PCB (all the hard bits done for you) including an OLED graphical display and control button, a separate industry-style fan button, a heavy duty enclosure to mount it all in, and full instructions for customising to your own particular boiler set-up.

To register your interest without any commitment please send an email to tb4monitor at gmail dot com (replacing the ' at ' with @ and ' dot ' with . unless you are a robot!)