Pelco boiler

[burnsalot]

The Pelco is an outdoor boiler that will burn corn, wood pellets,soft coal and some other grains. It is an open vented system so it will not build pressure.
The fuel is augered from a bin with a horizontal auger that goes into a vertical auger and up into the burn pot. The burn pot is a stack of rings or large washers that get bigger as they go up. This forms a bowl shaped burn pot and a band goes from the floor of the burn chamber to the top of the ring stack. Air comes up through the floor and enters the burn pot between the rings.
There is an ash ring that rotates around the burn pot and sweeps the ash to an auger that removes it.


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Pelco 1520

[burnsalot]

The 1520 has 41 vertical flues that go through the heat exchanger. Each flue has a cleaning auger. The flue cleanout augers run on a timer.
The Pelco 2520 has 67 flues and the 1020 has21 flues.








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Pelco 1520

[burnsalot]

I added a cyclone to remove most of the ash from the exhaust.











The ash bin I have will open on the side


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Pelco 1520

[burnsalot]

Now to answer the big question, how well does it work?
The burn pot does get clinker build-up that I take out twice a day. It is not hard to do but it needs to be done if you want it to burn well. I can do it while the burner is running.
When I got the unit it was rated at 1.5 million Btus. With corn you will not get that much heat from the 1520.
I have made a number changes to my unit, some with factory help and some on my own. I thought it needed more combustion air so I put on a bigger blower. Then a cyclone was installed to clean the exhaust and that put a restriction on the exhaust so I added a high speed motor with a variable speed control to the exhaust blower.
The burn pot was made deeper to reduce the ash that blew out. That reduced the amount of ash a lot.
A plate or baffle was added above the burn pot to protect the flue augers from direct flame. That keeps a lot of stuff out of the flues and will make the flue augers last longer. I did have an auger jam before the plate was installed.
The feed auger speed is adjustable. It will go into a low fire mode and then return to the preset speed. I wish it would fully modulate.
I am now happy with the unit. I have the second unit that was sold to burn corn and some of the changes are on the new burners. I now get around 850,000 Btus out-put.
I read a quote " It worked fine. I didn't need to fool with it. Then I fooled with it, and it worked even finer".
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Pelco 1520

[oakridgeheat]

Burnsalot,
That is one awsome flame!!!!!!! Real nice looking unit!! Thanks for the pics.
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Brian Tracy
Golden Grain 3101
"Heating Homes With America's Own"
www.oakridgealternativeheat.com

[Ahshucks]

A blue ribbon display, achievement, successfull testimonial worthy of it's own line under Stove Brand Specific Questions and Conversations!
The Pelco
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Profit/Turnaround Expert: http://webpages.charter.net/rennhack1/index.html

[kappel15]

that looks like some kind of unit. nice job
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Quadra Fire
Trained Tech.
Sante Fe
Mt. Vernon AE
kan-burn shur-kleenII kap-kleaner

[burnsalot]

This is a test to see if I can get more than one or two photos in a post. Most of these were on the old forum.

First two photos are of filling corn tank.





Pumps that supply floor heat zones.



There are 20 sets of these.



I think it worked.
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Pelco 1520

[Ahshucks]

Burnsalot ... Is that other tank for feeding the poults? How much does your corn tank hold and how often do you have to fill it?
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Profit/Turnaround Expert: http://webpages.charter.net/rennhack1/index.html

[burnsalot]

Yes the other tank is for bird feed. You can't see it, but I have two feed tanks.
The corn tank holds 11 to 12 tons. When a lot of heat is needed, I or my nephew fill the tank every 8 to 10 days. Ok, my nephew fills it most of the time.
If you look you can see that the feed tank is taller than the corn tank. The tanks are built by bolting sections or rings together. The corn tank is 2 rings tall and the feed tank is 3 rings tall. I plan to add 3 more rings to the corn tank and if my math is good it will have 5 rings.
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Pelco 1520

[Ahshucks]

That should give you about 25 days, almost a month's worth. Hope that auger will reach!
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Profit/Turnaround Expert: http://webpages.charter.net/rennhack1/index.html

[burnsalot]

The birds stay in the barn 35 days. Then we move them to grow-out barns. The heat load goes down as the birds get older. I hope we can fill the tank once per flock. Then I will have even more time to waste on here.
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Pelco 1520

[Ahshucks]

Burnsalot ... It could be you have enough fly ash bi-product there to sell to a cement company! Some/most do use it in cement.
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Profit/Turnaround Expert: http://webpages.charter.net/rennhack1/index.html

[burnsalot]

Burn pot photo. I have added what is above the weld line that you can see. I also turned up the ends of the spreader bar. The measuring tape is not part of the burn pot.

The ash ring is driven by a gear motor that has a cog or gear on a vertical shaft that engages a ring gear on the ash ring.

The spreader bar is driven by the vertical fuel auger. The vertical auger runs faster than the horizontal auger. The feed augers and ash auger are driven by the same motor, through a gear box.


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Pelco 1520

[ugenetoo]

burns
so if im reading this right, the firepot has an auger that pushes fuel up vertically from the bottom with the spreader bar attached to it to help eject the ash over the top rim of the firepot onto the ashring which rotates to remove the ash. how does the ash get to the ash auger? is there a scraper that takes the ash off the ring when it gets to the ash auger?

steve