THE MYSTERY
A local company had a power failure during the night. They have a large salt bath with two burners. One burner relit automatically but the second would not relight — and upon manual relighting would not stay lit.
THE CLUES
The ACES CSI called to the scene noticed that both burners used the same combustion blower and the same safety interlocks, so if one was working both should be. He did a quick check of the safety circuits, gas valves and other circuits but all were working fine.
THE PERP
The only thing left was the heart of the system, the flame relay: The flame relay performs a series of safety checks, sends the signal to light the flame and receives the signal from the UV scanner to detect when the flame is burning. The CSI determined that it was not functioning correctly.
In addition, the CSI discovered that the original UV scanner was not the correct type for a salt bath — any burner that operates on a continuous basis such as a salt bath must have a “self-checking” UV scanner. To meet the current safety standards he upgraded the UV scanner to the correct type.
THE SOLUTION
After the CSI installed a new flame relay and the correct type of UV scanner the burner not only performs flawlessly but also meets current safety standards.