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fly-boy's avatar
fly-boy
Explorer
Jul 01, 2013

Atwood Furnace 3 red blinks

Was camping in the mountains the last couple of weeks and my furnace would not light.

The control panel shows- blinks red three times. I can hear the clicks as it attempts to ignite, I can hear and feel the blower working, and I can smell propane as the furnace tries to ignite. It tries to ignite three times before it sets the fault code and just the blower continues working.

Water heater works. Stove works... Before taking it in I would love to try and fix this myself.

Thoughts? Next Steps?

4 Replies

  • wa8yxm's avatar
    wa8yxm
    Explorer III
    *** *** *** is "Ignition Lockout" on an Attwood.

    There is a list of possible causes.

    1: No propane
    2: Bad propane valve (Solenoid)
    3: Dirty burner orifice causing weak or no flame
    4: Bad adjustment air damper causing weak flame
    5: Bad theromcouple (or dirty you might try cleaning it)
    6: Poor connection thermocouple to control board
    7: assorted bad grounds.
    8: Excessive (or improper) Spark gap (Very common)
    9: Bad control board(This is Why I know the above)

    Many Attwood furnaces use a single wire flame sensor/ignition system
    In this system the thermocouple (Which generates about 1/2 volt when hot (480mV if you want to get technical, 500 is1/2) gets hit with about 1,000 volts during ignition(Based on the spark gap).

    There is an electronic, sold state, switch on the mother board that protects the flame sensor chip during ignition, should this fail there is no secondary protection. I suspect mine failed and socked that senistive 1/2 volt chip with a kilovolt or more of ignition power.

    I priced a new OEM board 250 bucks +S&H (This was over a year ago)
    I changed undies and ordered a Dinosaur board, 108 delivered.

    Opened the box and was seriously impressed by the look and feel (Quality of workmanship) Looked closer and guess what, That "Secondary protection" that is NOT on my Attwood board.... Dinosaur seems to feel it's needed, cause it's there.

    Board fit perfectly (I added a pair of small zip ties just for fun but I do not think they were needed) and works like a champ, Very happy with it and do not expect to ever replace it again.
  • I fixed mine that was doing the same thing by removing the wire from sparking electrode, cleanig and reconnecting the wire. It was rusted.

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