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My oil boiler locks out occasionally, when it does so a light comes on in the control box, which is attached to the burner.
This means I can’t easily see if the light is on or not.
My question is; can I buy about 1m of fibre optic cable with a cap or lens on each end to relay the lamp situation to outside the boiler house?
Google is only showing me data cables, I want something really basic and quite chunky, ideally the output lens will be 1/4” or bigger.
Where should I be looking?
What you need to be searching for is light pipe, on a quick search the longest I could find is 66cm.
https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/led-light-pipes/7134829?gb=b
If you are handy with a soldering iron, it would be easier to wire in another bulb and locate it somewhere visible. You could get clever with a relay and add a buzzer or something.
Fibre optic end glow cable or pipe is what you’re looking for - whether your boiler light is strong enough to be transmitted remains to be seen as they’re usually connected to an LED light generator.
Thanks all, I would cheerfully wire in a strobe light and buzzer but the control unit is quite fragile and £40 a pop so a less effective but non invasive method wins on balance.
People have made Raspberry Pi devices, but for under a fiver I'll try a light pipe 🙂
Latest thought; with a rigid light pipe and some drilling and grommet action I will have effectively extended the illuminated lockout button outside the boiler house which will save some faff.
Single fibre optic will just send light not an image. Endoscopes use a coherently bundle of fibre optics to send an image. I expect a new boiler would be cheaper
My oil boiler locks out occasionally, when it does so a light comes on in the control box, which is attached to the burner.
Wouldn’t it be easier to find out why it’s locking out in the first place?
What burner is it...... Riello?
I presume you want to know whether the boiler is just off between burns or locked out.
Old oil boilers are pretty simple things.
I'm pretty sure a lock out will occur when the photoelectric sensor doesn't see a flame when there should be.
The first thing I'd do is remove the burner and clean the sensor.... Or just replace it. (While you're there you could replace the jet!)
It's an old HRM Starflow, it throws an occasional lockout then I reset it and it works for a couple of months more. The first we know of a lockout is a lack of hot water, this almost always coincides with my having a lie in on a wet day. Anything which speeds me back to bed is a good thing.
The original manual even states that lock-outs can occur for no apparent reason and I can live with that. Ideally it wants to be a rigid clear light pipe so that it will double up as an indicator and to press the reset button, unfortunately the longest seem to be <90mm, so the search continues (needs to be about 200mm from memory).
I May be missing something here, but a clear acrylic rod painted/coated on the outside would do what you're asking here? Maybe wrap with Aluminium tape for added reflectivity?
Allow light to pass through - check. Rigid - Check
?
@simian True enough, I was wondering the same myself. I could fit it inside some aluminium tubing (lots of choice at the model shop) and a mounting block attached to the boiler cover to make it captive and stable enough to protrude through the boiler house door.
Sorted, all bar the actually doing it and seeing if it works...