HDD vs. Fuel Used

Posted: December 2, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Homemade Boiler, Testing | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

HDD vs. Pellets

Above is a scatter plot of Heating Degree Days (HDD) taken from Weather Underground data from the weather station in Springfield VT. Not exactly Newport, NH but close enough for this graph. It’s important to note that the beginning of October was quite nice which resulted in a fair number of days of timed burns, starting the boiler at 4 pm and running it until 9 pm for example. It quickly became obvious with Novembers below average weather that this would not result in satisfactory comfort and the boiler has been running continuously for most of the month. The trend-line looks like you would expect to see it, but the scatter data is quite varied. It will be interesting to see if this data correlates better as the winter continues.

The total pounds of fuel burned Heating season to date: 92 bags @40 pounds/bag= 3680 pounds vs. a total HDD to Date of 1444.    Last year’s data for December indicates a HDD total for the month of 1069.  This should result in 68 bags burned for the month for a total of 2720 pounds.  Using $215 per ton this should be a monthly cost of $292.40 This is both heat and hot water.  Be interesting to see at the end of the month how close the prediction comes.

You may remember I added a function to collect HDD data at one point, however it never seemed to work as well as it should have so I stopped using it,  I am now considering reviving a variation of that function using an array for the max and min hourly numbers to get a more accurate HDD local number.  I’ll post the code when I finish.

Fire!

Posted: April 23, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Arduino, Data logging, MicroSD card, Testing | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

Well of course there’s fire in the burner that’s how it works. After today however the Arduino should be able to sense the fire since I added a photo resistor,  commonly known as a flame sensor, bought at a furnace supply store. With the Arduino’s ability to sense flame, the addition of automatic self starting should be enabled.  The ability to determine if fuel is building up should also add safety to an already proven safe unit.

The sensor I obtained is a flame sensor used in a normal oil or gas fired burner.  The flame sensor allows me to sense the light corresponding to a fire currently burning. The sensor cannot determine if the fire went out or if the flame sensor can no longer see it but functionally it makes no difference to me.  I am interested in either condition and the response is the same to both conditions, turn off the fuel feed.    If the fire went out, no need to keep feeding fuel, that will simply clog the  feed chute and make a mess.  If the fuel has backed up the feed chute so much as to shield the flame sensor, there is excess fuel, turn off the fuel feed.  Physically the sensor is mounted to “look” through the back of the feed slide.  This positions was chosen purposefully to determine if fuel was backing up.

Because the flame sensor is a resistor, I am using a voltage divider circuit to measure the voltage and then using the software to check the voltage with a if – then statement.  The software determines if the voltage is high enough to indicate flame or too low indicating dark.  I have been  recording various sensor data to the micro SD over the heating season, so I will record the voltage overnight and we can see the range of data tomorrow.  If anything this should be a good time of year for the test since the fire is needed to maintain the temperature in the building, it is mid 30’s F here today, but the fire is not required to be too vigorous since the temperature is not extremely cold.

Pictures and data to follow.

The view from April, Daylight savings time adjustment for your RTC

Posted: April 3, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Arduino | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The boiler has worked flawless all winter, I am happy with the software and hardware but with all things mechanical there is room for improvement. I have just started my 7th ton of pellets. And I really don’t want to get into my 8th and don’t think I will have to, especially if I institute some energy conservation in the software. This is the time of year that I would normally burn what my grandmother called a “trash fire”. In her case it was some cardboard boxes from the trash and maybe an odd shaped piece of wood or two. Just enough for 3-4 hours in the evening, letting it burn out overnight since the days get up to 40°F or 50°F there’s no need for more fire than that. Later in the month most of the nights will be above freezing. But I still want to light the boiler in the evening mostly for the hot water and then turn it off at 2-3 am, so I wrote that into the software and it has gotten the consumption down to 1-2 bags per day. I also added a function in the software to change the real time clock for Daylight savings time and back automatically. It’s not fully tested but I think it will work OK.

void DaylightSavingsSchedule(){//start function
if (Year ==2013 && Month ==11 && Day ==2 && hour ==2&&DaylightTest ==0)//fall back an hour
FallBack();
if (Year ==2013 && Month ==11 && Day ==4 && hour ==2&&DaylightTest ==1)//reset flag
DaylightTest =0;
if (Year ==2014 && Month ==3 && Day ==9 && hour ==2&&DaylightTest ==0)//spring forward an hour
SpringForward();
if (Year ==2014 && Month ==3 && Day ==10 && hour ==2&&DaylightTest ==1)//reset flag
DaylightTest =0;
if (Year ==2014 && Month ==11 && Day ==2 && hour ==2&&DaylightTest ==0)//fall back an hour
FallBack();
if (Year ==2014 && Month ==11 && Day ==3 &&DaylightTest ==1)//reset flag
DaylightTest =0;
if (Year ==2015 && Month ==3 && Day ==8 && hour ==2&&DaylightTest ==0)//spring forward an hour
SpringForward();
if (Year ==2015 && Month ==3 && Day ==9 && hour ==2&&DaylightTest ==1)//reset flag
DaylightTest =0;
if (Year ==2015 && Month ==11 && Day ==1 && hour ==2&&DaylightTest ==0)//fall back an hour
FallBack();
if (Year ==2015 && Month ==11 && Day ==2 &&DaylightTest ==1)//reset flag
DaylightTest =0;
if (Year ==2016 && Month ==3 && Day ==13 && hour ==2&&DaylightTest ==0)//spring forward an hour
SpringForward();
if (Year ==2016 && Month ==3 && Day ==14 && hour ==2&&DaylightTest ==1)//reset flag
DaylightTest =0;
if (Year ==2016 && Month ==11 && Day ==6 && hour ==2&&DaylightTest ==0)//fall back an hour
FallBack();
if (Year ==2016 && Month ==11 && Day ==7 &&DaylightTest ==1)//reset flag
DaylightTest =0;
}//end function

void SpringForward(){//start function
DateTime now = RTC.now(); //get the data from the RTC
now =now.unixtime()+3600; //subtracts an hour from the time
RTC.adjust(DateTime(now.unixtime())); //resets the time to an hour earlier
DaylightTest =1; //flag variable so it won’t go back in time continously
}//end function

void FallBack(){//start function
DateTime now = RTC.now(); //get the data from the RTC
now =now.unixtime()-3600; //subtracts an hour from the time
RTC.adjust(DateTime(now.unixtime())); //resets the time to an hour earlier
DaylightTest =1; //flag variable so it won’t go back in time continously
}//end function