Relay melted inside control box

Burner only works intermittently. A lot of times its sprays diesel and won’t ignite. Adjusted the ignition coils and even then only ignites intermittently. When it does diesel fuel on the coils usually burns off. Anyone ever have a relay melt like this?



Replaced relay and upon startup it immediately caught fire. You can see the smoke by the wire.

Yeah, I was going to comment earlier but got busy. I was gonna say I don’t think the relay was bad, but something within the circuit it is shorted. That spade that melted in likely the 12v that feeds the burner. 12v comes in through the 30 and then out the 87 when conditions are met. Trace the wire coming off the melted spade and see where that goes

image

Is it a vertical heater or horizontal?

To jordoe: horizontal mounted

As soon as they put in the replacement relay, it immediately started smoking and burning melting the wires inside on startup. Hadn’t happened before. The burner just slowly started lighting intermittently. This was an immediate burn. I think he said he put in a larger wire with the new relay in case it was over amped. Checked the fuses and none of them were blown.


There is an underlying issue and adding a bigger gauge wire isn’t fixing it. You or they or whoever needs to find out what’s causing jt. They just put a band aid on it by adding a bigger gauge wire

The wire didn’t help. They also added a different relay type. I think for a higher voltage rating. Whatever it was it immediately set on fire when starting up. The more I go and watch thr more I learn how to fix and not to fix this. I got the machine in November. Has about 125 hours and has had an entire blower motor assembly replaced and the burner is always on the fritz

You need to take it somewhere else. To someone who knows how to work on it

The only reason I bring it there is because I bought it from them so it’s warranty work that they can’t charge for. Quick update:

They called and said the relay was connected wrong where the positive wire was connected to the ground.

Now mind you, before they replaced the relay the burner did work initially and over time it became intermittent and eventually it was discovered the relay slowly melted. Immediately after they put on the new relay yesterday the whole control box melted and smoked on startup.

So idk if the original relay was installed incorrectly and something else was the problem. I do suspect that when the new relay they put on and it smoked, they did so incorrectly and they are now identifying that mistake as the initial problem. I’m about to go pick it up now.

Now they’re telling me the relay was always connected incorrectly (positive to ground). Doesn’t explain why the burner worked as long as it did and why it never immediately started smoking and melting wires like it did right after they replaced the relay and the wire.

Also asked why a fuse didn’t break to trip the system before it happened and he said because there wasn’t a fuse before it. Now this rig is supposedly ready to pick up but after showing him fuses that were already on yhe system he said jt was missing a fuse and just went to get one. Waiting for him to add one.

Notices some wire chaffing and a yellow but that looks like a cut wire but not sure because its very hard to reach


EDIT:
Guy came out and after asking why the fuse didn’t break to prevent this from happening he suddenly says “oh yeah you need a fuse for the connection to the blower motor”. So if I hadn’t brought it up they would’ve sent me away without fixing something they should’ve noticed and fixed in the first place. Again this is the seller’s maintenance yard. I only go here to have warranty work because otherwise this would’ve cost thousands to have repaired at this pojnt (6-7th visit at least to have this rig fixed since buying it). I have 125hours so I doubt I could return at this point. Just trying to learn enough to fix it myself. Its a 52 mile round trip every time I bring it to get fixed

I would just pay out of pocket and take it somewhere to fix it if you don’t know how to yourself

I would but for several reasons:
It’s a brand new unit under warranty. I took a loan to purchase it to stop spending on rentals. I am meticulous with basic maintenance. Things
that break early not due to operator negligence is under warranty and by should be replaced at their expense. I’m not going to mess with anything electrical or plumbing wise because then they could blame me for causing the issue and deny warranty work. I paid for a working rig, not a defective one so they have to make it right. I’d have spent thousands already on maintenance if I didn’t use the warranty. If it were a car I’d have returned it under lemon law because of the issues. But i’ve taken it over 6-7 times at least to fix the issues and keep working on schedule because I needed to make money on those jobs to pay back the loan and all the other business expenses. I didn’t want to scrap the whole thing and find another vendor hundreds of miles away and potentially deal with the same issues. At least this vendor is within 50 miles, so I stuck with them.

In december (one month after acquiring the rig) they had to replace the burner fan (beckett brand) because it was defective. (Important note, it was replaced with a wayne brand burner fan. Alkota’s wiring diagram states that Wayne brand burners require a fuse to be added to the circuit. Mine came with a beckett and therefore no fuse had been installed prior. It should’ve been added when they replaced the fan but it wasn’t)

Today I found out they never added a fuse to the circuit when they put the wayne burner fan on. So whatever was causing the power relay to melt wasn’t stopped by a fuse.

Importantly, it was never found what was causing the excessive amperage/voltage that melted the power relay in the first place. They claimed that the relay was wired improperly from the getgo with the power supply wire being attached to the ground of the relay. If that were the case this relay would’ve caught fire immediately months ago and I’d never have had a working burner (and it did work for a while). So that explanation makes no sense. The technician that replaced the relay had a different brand of power relay (with a different voltage rating to boot) than was on the machine originally. He said that he put the wires back in the exact same place as the old relay. The new relay and wiring immediately catches fire upon starting up. I think this different brand relay had the terminals in a different arrangement than the old and he connected the wires in the same position as the old relay, but to the incorrect terminals, causing the fire. He wouldn’t admit to such. Last month this same technician adjusted the electrodes and admitted to accidentally cracking one when tightening it and replaced it. Today he denied ever cracking it, stating it was cracked before I arrived last time.

Folks I take meticulous notes every time I service anything. I included his admission last month to cracking the electrode which I saw as I was watching because I wanted to see for myself how to adjust the electrodes should I need to in the future.

I know this is a long post but I wanted to get the full story out here for your discussion. They wanted to charge me for today’s work but they were fixing symptoms of issues that already existed; from manufacturing; their failure to install a fuse per alkota specifications after replacing the defective burner fan; causing a fire in the control box after replacing the relay; and then never even identifying the underlying issue.

Does anyone know what might cause excess power to the fan? Maybe an improperly specced resistor between the relay and the generator? Again I’m not an expert on these things, at least not yet. I’m gradually learning though. Hopefully I’ll be able to help someone else out from what I’m learning through all yhe issues with this Alkota.

I know you are worried about potentially losing thousands by buying another machine, but, the same could be said for all the down time/travel time/headache of having to reschedule jobs you are currently experiencing. I hate it for you, it sucks for sure, but have you run the numbers to see what it’d be to purchase another unit from another dealer and then have the “old” unit benched until it can be fixed? Consider the lost jobs, rescheduling, fuel wasted, wear and tear on your vehicle, your time, and the idea that this may never be fixed with the current shop you are going to.

2 Likes

Bad grounding connection somewhere… that’s my guess. Make sure there’s breakers in place & check the terminal connections for tightness.

Burner went out again. Worked twice then stopped lighting up. They replaced the temp control unit saying it went bad early (a common occurence on this rig). The new thermal protection plug they put on was sucking up air and causing cavitation. To top it off they put soap into my water tank by accident and ran it through the pump. Tech estimated half a gallon.

This stinks all around for you. Make sure you’re keeping a detailed log of all the things going wrong and issues you’re having. At some point (probably now) you gotta sit down with the boss of the company and have a frank talk about the lemon you’ve been given. Sounds like you’ve been pretty reasonable so far with them, and keep being reasonable :smiley: , but they should realize it’s costing you $$$, you’re not happy, and that they need to take some steps to fix things–money back or new trailer, etc…

Be honest…if this were you and they offered to replace the trailer with an identical one would you have any confidence that it may turn out better?

1 Like

Not much confidence at all lol but I know it couldn’t get worse than the current trailer. :smiley:

1 Like

No probably not. I dropped off the rig and they took it to Tyler to fix it. Sales rep hasn’t told me what Alkota will do to remedy this lemon. Will reach out tomorrow for an update. Had to rent a rig to finish my job this week (which also died suddenly but i just finished seconds before it just quit). The whole point of buying this rig was to avoid rental costs and here I am renting again.

At this point I’m wanting to return the whole rig and get my money back. Build one from scratch. Besides the absolute unreliability of the burner on this thing it’s just assembled poorly. I mean the bolts holding the faceplate on the burner just vibrate loose constantly; then there’s the matter of the fuel lines placed directly in contact with the air filter box next to the muffler. If those chafe and leak it’ll cause a fire.


Soap in the filter after they’re accident puting it in the tank.

Loose bolts.


Poorly placed fuel lines

Sounds like it was put together poorly, Wayne or Beckett there both good quality burners but it seems to me like the wiring isn’t right.

The fuel lines are not in the best place but, it should be fine. I have had machines with fuel lines like that.

Me personally, I would escalate the situation and express the trouble this machine is causing you.

I wouldn’t say it’s a lemon, all these machines are put together from different brands different combinations, You’re burner is most likely wired wrong. A savvy mechanic will trouble shoot and spot the problem relatively fast. Remember all problems have a solution