Propane Space Heater Help

[Banshee]

Gents

As I'm sure you're all aware it's horribly cold outside at the moment which is making getting anything at all done on the truck impossible without the use of my Space Heater.

I have a Clarke Devil 3150 connected to a 47kg bottle of Calor Propane.

It recently just stopped working for no apparent reason. When I try to light it, I start the heater as per normal but when I lose my finger from the pilot bypass the heater goes straight out.

So off I went and took it apart to see if there was anything apparent. At the time I didn't know what a Thermocouple was until I started doing a bit of searching around online but it seems like that is to blame for why they fail in this way.

My Thermocouple certainly didn't look fresh and when I took it off to inspect it, the ground wire fell away;





I grabbed this one from Screwfix which looks similar to mine and modded it so the thermostat was in line





Slapped it all back into the space heater and fired it up and it worked!!!!!!!!!.......... for a minute Then it went out again.

It lights straight back up again and then does the same again and goes back out.

Anyone got any ideas?

[Flying Torquewrench]

Disregard. ��

[solarman216]

Your Screwfix one will work no problem, but you need to separate the two wires, on the original it had two but the new one uses the outer as one wire the other is inside, so cut the end off completely then with a fine file cut into the outer all the way round about 6 inches from the cut end, bend it back and forth till it breaks and slide it off the inner wire you now have the two wires to work with, the outer sheath and the inner wire, any more questions give me a ring, Rick

[Banshee]

Originally Posted by solarman216

Your Screwfix one will work no problem, but you need to separate the two wires, on the original it had two but the new one uses the outer as one wire the other is inside, so cut the end off completely then with a fine file cut into the outer all the way round about 6 inches from the cut end, bend it back and forth till it breaks and slide it off the inner wire you now have the two wires to work with, the outer sheath and the inner wire, any more questions give me a ring, Rick

I've done exactly what you've suggested above Rick and I've been able to get it from not staying lit at all, to staying lit for a minute or so and then going out again

[solarman216]

I have the same heater, my gas valve solenoid failed today and I used a wash machine coil minus its metal bits works a treat, your thermocouple produces around 20 millivolts and this has to go through the overheat stat mounted on the top of the burner, mine was U/S so binned it so at the end of the day the thermocouple powers the hold on solenoid on the gas valve, the main thing to watch for is ground is ground and the inner wire goes to the inner wire on the valve, wrong way round and it will not work, these are so simple it is not true, Rick

[Banshee]

I managed to fix this in the end by swapping the thermocouple for a higher rated one. It appears after some in depth research. The thermocouple that I grabbed from Screwfix was only rated up to 600c and wasn't meant to be subjected to a blue flame.

Another £9 later with the right thermocouple from Amazon and I was fixed

Typically the weather has been quite mild since I've fixed it