It just heats water right? What does the computer do?
In: Technology
The computer shuts the gas off and uses higher gas in a shorter time instead to increase efficiency instead of a little gas all the time. It can also keep you from running out of hot water
The computer regulates the water temperature. It’s more precise than a traditional thermostat, and also most likely has an eco mode to conserve energy.
Ever watched The Shining?
They had to keep a guy around to keep the boiler working properly/not exploding.
The computer replaces that guy’s job.
Yes real boilers have emergency systems to prevent explosions, but a computer would keep the boiler from even getting to the point it would be needed.
So the boiler heats water, but it also needs to monitor stuff like pressure,and can also open and close valves to control it.
The computer is probably still very simple though.
Everything has a computer in it. It probably doesn’t do very much. I don’t know what type of boiler you’re talking about, but it probably just watches the temperature and turns the boiler on or off. If it’s a gas boiler without a pilot light, then it probably ignites the gas for a certain amount of time when it turns on, and if it doesn’t see a flame it turns the gas off and beeps at you (so it won’t cause a gas leak). Simple stuff like that.
Along with other’s explanations, the computer controls the whole firing cycle of the boiler. And of course depends on what type of boiler and it’s use. Computers in boilers do perform the same duties as analog controllers used to.
For a typical steam boiler, in sequence this includes: Pre-purges the firebox for any un-burned fuel, (natural gas fumes or atomized oil as examples) with the burner fan; Opening of the pilot-light valve, ignition of & sensing pilot ignition; Opening the main fuel valve and sensing the fuel ignition via the pilot-light; Sensing boiler pressure and maintaining a desired pressure via high or low firing of the fuel; After shutdown of the boiler post-purges the fire box to expel un-burned fuel, (if any).
Just to simplify, it’s the computer, (the “brain”), that takes info from various sensors and controls them accordingly. So, say a pilot-light is not sensed by thermocouple on the pilot assembly, the computer then will not get the signal from it, so therefore the computer will not send a signal to the main burner fuel valve to open for firing off.
More to it, of course, but you get the idea. Lots to it! Which when anyone asks what I did for a living before retiring, I tell them I “Oh, I just boiled water”, hah. Same as much as what you thought, OP. Then I tell them to go look up boiler operator or stationary engineer…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stationary_engineer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiler_(power_generation)
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