I have a WaterFurnace EW system. The thing has developed a failure of late where it just goes dead. No lights / no numbers on the control panel. Near as I can tell this is not a failure mode it should get in. The unit is powered. Power cycling brings it back to life but it just drops dead in a few days again. Of course, WF is completely useless in helping even though this thing is still under warranty.
I deal with Water Furnace because it is good for business. I am not a dealer, because I will not pay for classes that I could teach. I will take their warranty allowance. Then I bill the customer as I need to do. EW does not mean anything to me so more input data is needed. My guess is the unit is over heating and taking out an auto re-set safety. Power down, things go off. Things go on, now cooled, and it works. Water Furnace has a good business plan. I just do not want to play their game. They alter some of the best designs on the planet. Their engineering is first class. They do not in MHO train their dealers. Doc is self trained. So I listen to what he has to say. He likes WF. Warranty, whats that. Mark
I do not believe it is a legitimate shutdown. The manual implies that in those cases a fault code will be displayed on the control unit. In the case of this failure as I stated the unit just sits there like it is not receiving any power. All the indicators are out (in addition to the unit not functioning). The units are nice when they work, but this unit now has failed twice and my water-to-air system has failed once. In both cases it has taken multiple service calls to get someone to figure out what is wrong with the units, incurring thousands of dollars before they decide which WF part needs to be replaced under warranty which takes over a week to obtain. Of course, the documentation provided by WF is completely useless and they don't answer emails and it's takes a week of phone tag to get an anybody to answer questions there.
The EW control board is powered by the 24v transformer. Intermittent loss of low voltage suggests a loose wire or connection anywhere between the transformer and control board inclusive. Intermittent failures are most difficult to resolve, especially if it takes days to reproduce. The next time it goes dead, a qualified technician armed with a wiring diagram, should check with a meter which component in line is not getting or feeding 24v. This will help isolate which component is failing. WARNING- High Voltage lurks within. The control board does not have an inline fuse. It is protected by a breaker on the transformer. The fuses mentioned above are for line voltage load and source pumps.
Not specific to this item, but in general, we have had plenty of issues with transformers in the past. We keep them in the shop and on the svc. trucks.
I have several Water Furnace units. Two of the units are Ew060's. One is giving an error code flashing F1 the other is a non flashing FP, The FP unit is only producing 70* temp? Can any offer help for these codes?
When next failure occurs check for 230V to unit and 24V out of transformer. follow the voltage see where it stops......if it gets to controlboard and the connections are good, the board may have a failing solder joint.
Well the power supply was good even when the unit was in it's "dead" state. Pulling the connectors off the control board and replacing them resets the issue so it was apparently the control board. Of course WaterFurnace won't talk to me directly and it takes them over a week to send parts to their service folk. We replaced the board and so far it seems to be holding. The old board does seem to have a heat damaged area on it, but I've not taken to examining it closely yet. It seems to be in the vicinity of some large wattage resistors on the board so I'm thinking a surge may have fried one of the drivers on the thing....we have lousy power. FP is the freeze protection which generally means as near as I can tell the UNIT is powered up but cold. You might check that all your pumps are actually operating.
Pulling the wire off the board and restoring it was the same as Turing the power off and back on. Doesn't mean it wasn't the board but not proof positive either.
Well it refutes the hypothesis that the power supply was the issue. It was still putting 28V or whatever it was supposed to with the board connected or not. I do have a whole house surge protector.
