Wallas Woes!

Thanks to all for the posting on this subject. 🙂

I had similar issues this past weekend trying to fire up my Wallas stove. It was the most frustrating thing I've encountered so far in my limited R25 ownership.

I read and re-read the Wallas instructions about the "LOCK" condition but was unable to get the Wallas to fire up.

On my R25 there's a Stove circuit breaker on the panel alongside the helm seat. This did absolutely nothing wrt shutting power off to the Wallas. In fact, I now understand that this circuit breaker is for the Electric stove (which obviously I don't have installed) -- boo hiss. I will void out that label in short order so not to confuse others on my boat. 🙂

I now understand that there's a fuse for the Wallas Stove in the area under the removal step on port side of cockpit. My R25 Manual showed the Wallas Stove fuse to be in the battery compartment and I was unable to locate it while having issues this past weekend.

On my own initiative I did nose around under the stove to see where there was a power connection and did find the white plug with a red & black wire. However, I was hesitant in messing too much with it as it did not want to disconnect easily, and ended up leaving well alone.

I will try the resetting "LOCK" procedure again when back on the boat next time.

My one question about all of this is -- why on earth put the poor user through so much agro? Why does the electronics cause a "LOCK" out after several failed attempts? Is it a safety feature? Is it a firmware limitation? What is the "LOCK" out protecting (the user, the electronics, the fuel priming situation, fire hazard, etc) ? I asked Andrew this question and he had no answer, and also wondered about the same question himself.
 
Gil, this needs to be directed to macmac. He's a wallas tech and posted on this thread above yours. He's been very responsive and helpful to all the Brats as well. Hopefully he'll see it here but if you want a quicker answer, copy it and put it in a PM to him.

Charlie
 
I jammed up my stove some months ago. In the process to reset, I went looking for the Wallas fuse. I found it in the battery compartment; pulled it and followed the instructions and it fired back up and (touch wood) it has been running well since. I put a white cable tie on that fuse for next time. I'm obviously not at my boat right now, but seem to recall that the inboard front battery, on the inside of that battery, was the fuse. It's on a wire. Rotsa ruck!

Dave
 
On the boat yesterday...

Found the well labelled "WALLAS" fuse under the removable port side cockpit step. Made sure Wallas was ON. Pulled the fuse and immediately re-inserted it. Returned to Wallas and turned it OFF and then ON and away it went. Fired up like a champ. 🙂

OK -- so now onto testing this fancy and IMO a very expensive boat stove.

1. I placed pot with 6 cups of cold water on left side of stove. It took 8 minutes to reach close to boiling. Stove's temp setting was on high.

2. If a pot has a high center point on its heating surface the pot will wobble seriously while its content is being heated. We threw this pot away. 😉

3. Checked the stove exhaust port and found the exhaust gas was very hot. In fact as this testing was done at my slip I found the hot exhaust gas was being directed at one of my stationary slip fenders. The heat IMO was sufficient to seriously deform the fender and might well melt it in the process. Take note... and ensure there's nothing that can be damaged or affected by the stove's exhaust port gas as it does/can get very hot.. This test was with the stove's temp setting on high.

4. Lowered the stove's lid to check out the heating. After a short while the cabin reached a nice toasty temp. Very comforting for the PNW climate. Again, stove temp was set to highest position.

5. After running the stove in "cabin heating mode" for some 15 minutes I noticed that the galley surface in front of the stove was too hot to touch. This was for some 3 to 4 inches in front of stove. This makes me wonder how will the galley surface top stand up to this excessive heat over several years of using the stove's cabin heater mode. Will it melt? Will it discolor? Will it warp? Will it bubble? How can the galley surface be protected from this heat was a question Gill and I had?

Bottom line -- we were very impressed with the Wallas stoves's performance in just about every way. The exceptions were cautionary notes made about the stove's exhaust port gas temperature (fender melting temps) and galley surface temp with stove in "cabin heating" mode.
 
Regarding the exhaust temperature on the Wallas stove, the "insulated" hose under the stove that carries the exhaust to the thru hull gets hotter than Haedes. It is really hard to get a big wad of melted tupperware off of the hose. This is a good place to store pots and pans, not stuff that melts.
 
Gil and others:

First, thanks for using Wallas! The 85DU/270 stove is a great system, but imperfect if you don't know a few things that we have tried very hard to illustrate on the web site and in our manuals.

Concerning the exhaust pipe, this is the first time we have heard about melting tupperware. A couple suggestions/comments:

- The insulating sleeve over the pipe works well, but can be augmented with another sleeve over it. That being said, we never recommend direct contact with soft plastics like polyethylene (Tupperware). Call us and we can help work this out. I will be at the rendezvous later today...1-888-606-6665.
- Finally, if there was any kind of impedance in the exhaust line (a kink (rare), mice (rarer), bats, etc) will greatly increase exhaust hose temperature (it would also make the stove smoke), but this is a long shot.

The lockout feature is a very important safety feature. So far, the 85DU is the only Wallas product with this feature, ut it will be showing up on future models.

When it locks, it means you have been trying to start the stove and for whatever reason, it has failed. This could be for fuel reasons, electrical or other reasons. If lockout did not exist, then some users would go on trying to start, pumping fuel until it overflowed under the counter and/or draining the battery completely. Remember, the stove draws up to 10 amps for four minutes on each start cycle. Call us if you have questions about why you got locked out.

Here is the unlock information, right from the manual:

* Unlocking the stove:

1. Switch stove ON (lock blinking).
2. Disconnect the main power supply (blinking stops).
3. Reconnect the main power supply (the yellow LED lights up
for 1-3 seconds).
4. When the yellow LED has gone out, switch the power OFF.
5. Switch stove control ON to initiate start cycle again.


Ranger does a great job of installing these units and commissioning them. It makes our job a lot easier when we have people like Andrew keeping an eye on things!

Thanks


Doug McElroy
 
Macmac,

Actually, it wasn't tupperware, but a plastic dish pan.
Probably has a lot lower melting point then tupperware.
The dish pan melted to the exhaust flue and I couldn't pry it off with a crow bar.
I had to cut it off with a utility knife, being careful not to cut the insulation on the exhaust flue.
The remains of the dish pan are still stuck to the exhaust flue.

It's not a problem.
I just wanted others to have the benefit of learning from my dumb mistake.
Don't put stuff on the shelf directly under the stove that is sensitive to heat.

The Wallas stove is a wonderful product, and I am completely satisfied with it.
I partucularly like the way it functions as a fan forced heater.
It is hands down the best way to make heat when you are at anchor.
 
Doug:

I would suggest that given the Wallas exhaust port gases reach high temperatures (enough for melting a fender) that you should recommend to Ranger that some form of warning label be on the hull related to this. I for one will no longer place a fender near that port opening.

...and for that matter, if a laynard securing a boat were to be adjacent to this port it could easily be compromised and melted through setting the boat adrift possibly.
 
RDragon:

A couple of questions:

What kind of fuel is it? How old is the fuel in the tank?

Assuming you have an 85DU/270, it would help to know what kind of fuel you are running and how old it is. The stoves and heaters don't like to sit for very long stretches, mostly because the fuel can gel in the small pipework, making it difficult for the pump to push the fuel into the combustion chamber. The type of fuel will tell us something about whether this is the problem.

We recommend running Wallas products every 1-2 months. If you know you will be storing the boat for more than a couple months, then start your Wallas and once it is up and running well, pull the fuel line out of the tank and let the Wallas run until it stops. This will clear the lines of unused fuel. You will need to wait for the Wallas to re-prime itself on the next start after storage.

The lights blink in various patterns to indicate conditions and faults in the stove. Your operator's manual will tell you what the light patterns mean. Please contact us at 1-888-606-6665 if you need assistance, and we can send you a manual if that would be helpful. We are here M-F, 9-5 PDT.

Doug at Scan Marine
 
Gill and Barry:

We understand your concern about exhaust heat. We will talk to Ranger about this suggestion. To date, we have not had any reports of actually melted fenders or lines that I can remember, but using good sense and being careful in advance is a good idea.

We have experimented with some small wind "fences" just ahead of the exhaust port on some of our fast boat applications. These would serve to hold a fender away from the outlet a bit, providing some protection, but the best solution for exhaust remains the simple flanged hole that we will assume you have.

Thanks


Doug at Scan Marine
 
Doug,

Thanks! Andrew pulled the unit and sent to you guys and I have been told that the PC motherboard was replaced. Since then, the unit has been working like a champ! Appreciate the thoughts....

Drew
 
I'm going to measure the temperature of the Wallas stove exhaust gases at the hull exit port after running the stove at its highest temperature setting for 30 minutes. I will use an infrared temperature sensing device for doing this. I will post back the reading I observe.
 
Three comments on Wallas:

At the Vancouver Boat Show, the Wallas rep said that using stove oil is better then kerosene -- less wax. A bit pricy, hard to find, but I have been using it for the past 8 months.

A caution regarding fenders/bumpers. I accidentally had one rigged so that it covered the exhaust of the stove. I heard funny noises and got strange smells that I checked out. My fender was about to burst from the heat. I have put some red tape on the cabin top hand rail above the outlet to remind the somewhat forgetful owner of my boat to NOT hang fenders in this area.

I have the heat discharge on the starboard side. If you raft up, make sure you don't burn the boat you are rafted up to -- or if it is another Ranger -- don't let them burn your vessel.

Dave
"Lobo"
 
baz":22e7y683 said:
...I will use an infrared temperature sensing device for doing this. I will post back the reading I observe...
Click to expand...

And my wife says that I have too many tools. I think not 😀
 
dloop: don't feel bad about this as the temp sensing device I have is a shared resource borrowed from a co-worker. 🙂
 
I was able to get some time on the boat today so I used it to take some temp measurements related to the Wallas stove operation.

Ambient temperature outside was 75ºF.

I started the stove with the knob temperature setting at its highest position and left it this way for 30 minutes before taking temperature readings.

1. Temp of the left stove was over 500ºF and so was the righthand side. The IR temp sensor would readily display "Hi". 😉
2. The shielded exhaust pipe under the stove was displayed as 250ºF.
3. Temperature of the gases coming out of the stove's hull exhaust port was fluctuating between 270ºF and 310ºF.

I then closed the stove's lid and left it in cabin heating mode for 15 minutes.

1. Temperature of the counter top surface immediately in front of stove where the air blows out was 210ºF

I would say that with these temperatures people need to be careful and take special care with anything close to the stove's hull exhaust port.

I also noted that during the first 5 minutes of starting the stove there was a fairly strong 'fuel burning' smell when standing in the cockpit area presumably coming from the outside stove's exhaust gases. After the 5 minutes the smell abruptly vanished.
 
Thanks for the good info on exhaust temp. of the Wallas. We use our Wallas for heat often and have even left it running at night on a low setting while at anchor. We also use the cabinets directly below as a pantry of sorts. While cleaning the cabinets today in preperation for winterization, I discovered that a small plastic bottle of syrup had been sitting against the exhaust pipe in the cabinet. The insulated pipe that goes through the cabinet. The plastic lid had melted into the insulation and had to be cut loose to remove. The lid was melted sufficiently that it can not be used as intended. My point is that if any cardboard or paper item had been in that spot, or if the stove had been left on for a longer period, we could have easily had a fire and likely at night. PLEASE BE CAREFUL when stocking that cabinet with anything flamible....that pipe is HOT. Point of interest for this posting: I have used stove oil in my Wallas since new and have not had a bit of trouble with functioning. ed
 
Concerning the exhaust hose of the Wallas, we also experienced an incident of an item melting into the insulation. In our case it was the spout of a Rubbermaid pitcher that we had stored in the cabinet. We had to cut the insulation with a razor blade to free it. So, we agree one must be careful of what one puts in that cabinet. We feel that it could cause a fire. And, for the record, we use diesel in our Wallas, and have had no problems with it.
Herb and June
 
The stove uses 6 amps upon start up. This is for about two minutes and then as the charge goes down to 2 amps. The batteries, ie house, have to bee close or above 12v for the stove to work. Usually any problems with the stove is due to low batteries and all the start up problems, flashing lights, computer resets etc were all solved after I had the new electrical system installed.
 
Except for the most recent post, all the others in this thread are around 2 years old. Do these issues remain with current Wallas stoves? Although most folks conclude with statements of support for the product, an objective reading of the comments would indicate that there are some concerns about its design. Examples: sensitivity to battery voltage in an application where battery voltage could reasonably be expected to be marginal; an awkward reset procedure (why not simply provide a "Reset" button to interrupt the power in a product that apparently needs surprisingly frequent resetting?); inadequately shielded components that get very hot (or is this a factory installation problem?).

The fact that there are so many postings lends weight to my concerns. Perhaps I misunderstand? Perhaps the concerns are overstated?

I ask because we are considering an R-25SC with the Wallas stove option for cooking and heat. Presently own and like the R-21EC.

-- John H
 
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