Mr Combi course

If its the one near Bedford, quite a few people have presumably been to it although i have never heard any good reports on it.

The problem I see is that people often attend these courses without the prerequisite knowledge of basic plumbing and electrics.

I would expect a TV repair engineer with little knowledge of plumbing would probably be able to go on that course and do pretty well at repairing combis afterwards because he already has full electronics knowledge and is experienced at fault finding.

A totally competent wet plumber with no knowledge of electronics would probably be strugling after the course because of his total lack of electronics experience.

Modern combis are totally reliant on electronics for their operation. One of the new condensing boilers being launched this month has 4 MB of data storage on the processor chip.

Tony

 

Given the number of different manufacturers and the range of combi's made in even the last ten years or so, I can't help thinking that holding all the relevant installation/servicing instructions would fill up a few ring folders.
Expecting to learn everything there is to know about each and every combi produced on a course such as those advertised might lead to dissapointment.
I do appreciate though that some 'principles' of the combi are common to all, you may need to ask yourself, will I benefit from losing a days earnings and the cost of the course, travel & accomodation.
Only you know the answers..........

 

The MIs are on a single CD now!

All combis do the same job and generally the same way although the components differ somewhat.

I dont see that as a significant problem. Mr Combi has about seven or eight different boilers fitted to practice on!

Tony

 

So where would a guy go to improve his electrical fault finding knowledge. Are manufacturers courses the answer, also involving lost work, travel costs and accomodation. Or are there any decent books to consult? I admit to carrying a multimeter but usually only use it to check fuses. I'd love to increase my knowledge in this area, but I'm a bit stumped as to what route to take.

 

would fill up a few ring folders.
Well I've got er let me see, about 3 metres of shelving full and not got the lot. They fill several CD's.

I don't claim to have seen many books, but the ones I have, have been little better than some of the Manufacturers' Instructions. Many of those are on line and so give insight on how their boilers work. Some of the earlier combis, without any/much electronics, have very simple electrics.
EG:
Call for heat goes to the fan and the air pressure switch, signal back from aps opens gas valve via the boiler stat and overheat stat. If it's a combi then instead of the signal going to the gas valve it goes to the pump. Pump flow switch operates and opens the gas valve. I've just made that up but I expect you get the idea.
The later boilers have more stuff, like flame recognition and temp sensors, and the whole lot just connects to a pcb. There's usually little point going into the circuitry on a pcb, even if you've done electronics before, because you shouldn't be mending pcb's. You may be able to work out that, say, the fan relay on the pcb has fried its contacts, so you could then check the resistance/impedance/Q of the fan, but you might as well use a mains lead to check it (the fan) works without blowing a small fuse... Same goes for a pump relay.
You can check sensors measure what they should.
That's about it really - checking things through in sequence if you know what it is, (MIs don't always say), and that parts electrically "look" like they should.
Learn to use a multimeter and get a basic book on general fault finding, read those MI's and you're away.


I learned a heck of a lot about combis from getting a thoroughly forgotten ancient combi going (Vokera 80/20 turbo). Not done many manufacurer's courses, not been impressed by value for time. Focussed questions to the tech depts convey a lot of info in 10 minutes, which you remember because you have a problem in front of you - but take notes.

Hoe that helps!

 

I attended this course a couple of years back & found it very helpfull in the basics for for fault finding on combination boilers. As has allready been said, most boilers use the same principles for there start up procedure.

I personnaly attended this course & then got a couple of books that helped with the knowledge to sink in. Then spent about a month phoning the boiler manufactures to get there Insterlation manuals (hardest part) for all there boilers for the last 20 years.

I am in the process of copying all these manuals down on a cd-rom. So have them avaliable on my laptop whan at a job.

I Say go & do the course if you are new to fault finding on combi's. You will learn some good tips

 

You have to be CORGI registered to attend and own a decent multimeter.

The course teaches basic combi fault diagnosis in a day. You spend much of your time measuring resistance on various components.

Apart from their own one, there isn't a single working boiler in the place!

Obviously the course is very generalised but you will get a good overview of the startup sequence, common faults etc.

When I went, there were about 10 attendees and everyone had a pretty good time. One of the good things about it was that everyone was about the same in terms of knowledge (low) and enthusiasm (high).

It was better than working anyway!

 

There was a very good book I saw which explained quite well how combis work. It was about £34.99 with lots of colour photos.

Unfortunately it did not really seem to explain how to actually repair them and the fellow who bought it to repair his own did not manage it either hence my visit!


Tony

 

I went to him too! Puma, wasn't it?
Can't help wondering if writing a book would be less aggro than fixing horrible old combis with everything wrong with them, though the owner swears blind it was working perfectly until you opened the flap on the front.