Low Water Cut out

Hi Everyone

It has been great to see over the past few months that some of the series 2 Lykamobiles have been finished, and we are seeing more and more images from customers of the engines out and about. Off course during that time we have listened to what you have to say about the Lyka, and we are taking your wishes into consideration. We have therefore taken the decision to add in a burner cut off to activate in the event of the water in the boiler getting too low.

We are aware that there are a number of customers for whom this project is their first attempt at building and running a steam powered vehicle, and as such those customers may not have the knowledge or experience to be able to avoid certain circumstances which could lead to scorching the boiler.

The adaptations will be sent to all series 2 Lykamobile customers once it is complete. Ian is starting to develop the electrical system to achieve this, and once that is done and we have worked out a method of putting the sensor into the system we will start to manufacture them and send them out to customers.

And this brings me to a question, does anyone have any methods they have been considering for a low water cut off sensor? We have considered using electrolysis (the system that was used on the old Lyka) but over time this will become less reliable. So if you have any ideas on alternative methods of detecting the water level please let us know either as a reply to this post or via email or by calling in.

We appreciate any advice or ideas you may be able to provide.

Many thanks

Will@STW

Hi Will,
I have worked on this a little bit. I tried a circuit board that is readily available on the internet which worked “okay” using electrolysis. But decided I wanted to have a bit more functionality than just a low water safety burner switch. I adopted Jim Trotta’s circuit board that he developed for the series 1 lyka. He overcame the probe issues that you mentioned. Maybe he will chime in on that.

What I believe would be an ideal improvement would be the following:
1. Low water shut down as a fail safe.
2. Automatic ball valve on the bypass to fill the boiler to appropriate working levels.

With Jim’s circuit I have placed a normally open ball valve past the manual ball valve that closes when the electronics require the boiler to be filled. So the ideal system would have three sensing levels. Burner safety shut off, low level water to actuate the ball valve to close, then high level to open the valve.

As far as better technology I can’t address that question, but here is a website that you might use and contact to discuss options:
https://www.spiraxsarco.com/learn-about-steam/the-boiler-house/methods-of-detecting-water-level-in-steam-boilers
Regards,
Grier

Hi Guys, With the series 1 which I have, I wanted some conveniences that the series 1 did not have which would  make driving easier and safer. This is what the original board had.
1. battery level indicator ( Led bar scale )
2. tank level Indicator           "
3. boiler level Indicator         "
4. fuel led which blinked when near empty.

The board I designed  did the same as above with some added items. The board was designed for easy  I.C. component replacement, all the chips are on sockets. This design was done in 2010, since then no chips had to be replaced. The board was the same size as the original, and fit in the brass box that was delivered with the series 1

5. Burner shut down when boiler level is below "1/4"
6. Boiler bypass back to water tanks when boiler is "full"
6. Red Led Indicator comes on  when boiler is in the bypass mode.

The other item that was updated was the boiler manifold sensor  system. I found the original one  to be unreliable and at times  giving false readings. I changed it  to a vertical column tube  with vertical sensing rods cut to different length for the four levels, screwed into the top. This worked well. the column was made of sch 80 pipe welded. The top cover was drilled and tapped for four sensors and the bottom was drilled and tapped for a drain.

sensors


sensor tube mine is a little different then photo


old manifold



board on left is my design, which is serviceable,  board on right is what came with car, notice the surface mount components which are not replaceable.

Any updates on the progress

not sure what progress you are looking for.

I was just wondering how much longer before these upgrades are ready.
i know stw are busy but this was on the thread back in July.

I've been following this post and I don't remember seeing that STW was doing anything on this problem. I could be wrong if so can you post their reply. When I was over Grier's and looking at his series 2 car the electronics were dumped down as compared to the series 1. I guess this was an attempt to make the car more reliable. Even the water tank gauge was replaced with a water column. The series  1 had sensors that were screwed into the water tank and were displayed on a panel dash. Far-left panel.

its at the start of this thread by will if you can't find it i will copy and paste it.
Regards Ray..

I went to look and read the beginning of this post about the low water boiler. Will from STW talks about series one lika using electrolysis to measure boiler water level. I don't think that's the correct term he may have meant electronics which is what was done. There were other methods used back in the old days  to measure boiler water levels. One was a boiler water column and thermocouples. This was used in a configuration that was called a thermopile. Depending on the height of the water in the boiler column  the voltage varied, the output of the pile went to a voltage meter that had a scale marked from empty to full. The problem with this system was it was too slow in response and had no boiler shut down and was no longer used. The series 1 used a vertical  boiler column with sensors plugged into it at different heights over time the tip of the sensors got contaminated from the minerals in the water and gave false readings and were not accurate. That's why I designed a vertical boiler water column.