Wallas on the fritz

Well, as we head out the door, late to be off on our cruise due to working on the Wallas into wee hours last night, :amgry with a double burner coleman under one arm and a Buddy under the other; I must say that we really miss the Wallas right now :cry: (glow plug on order) It has been a god-send in this wet and often dreary climate. I think I can honestly say that the Wallas stove (usually) makes this boat. Being able to head down to the dock on a cold rainy day and get into a warm and fairly dry boat after the flip of a switch means we can use it when we might otherwise just blow it off. My brother has a Wallas and a Toyo in his 22 and seldom has to worry about the cold. Maybe that is the way to go, but I do remember a time when he and I worked the better part of a weekend in Prince William Sound trying to get either or both to work :? If my venerable old Coleman gives up, it is going in the drink and I'll install an Earth Stove where the dinette sits now and build a wood shed in the cockpit. :idea
 
Yes, there is wisdom here...IF we didn't already have the dang
Wallas...:cry

dotnmarty":3ppwlf38 said:
Personally I like the Coleman stove/Mr. Buddy combo. It ain't elegant but it's about $100 out the door, does the job, and it's reliable. The Wallas cost thousands, is sensitive and borderline reliable, expensive to repair, and you have to carry the Coleman/Buddy setup as a backup anyway. Just doesn't compute.
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Pat Anderson":2ckqdna6 said:
Yes, there is wisdom here...IF we didn't already have the dang
Wallas...:cry

dotnmarty":2ckqdna6 said:
Personally I like the Coleman stove/Mr. Buddy combo. It ain't elegant but it's about $100 out the door, does the job, and it's reliable. The Wallas cost thousands, is sensitive and borderline reliable, expensive to repair, and you have to carry the Coleman/Buddy setup as a backup anyway. Just doesn't compute.
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However, you can't run Mr. Buddy all night safely like you can with the Wallas.

Nonetheless, if we decide to get a Ranger this fall, a Wallas will not be on the order sheet. We've winter-boated in all months just fine using a ceramic heater (w/shorepower or honda gen) or toasting it up with a Mr. Buddy, then snugglin under the quilts.

-Greg
 
HI guys I tried to get a pdf file from Scanmarine in seattle but just the cover came across How do I get a hard copy from either a fax or snail mail I have the 800 single burner with the rotary 200 fan and what kind of fuel do I burn parrafin ,diesel 2,3 ?? Kleen ? Thanks
 
breausaw":3hs7w6zw said:
Doryman":3hs7w6zw said:
L@@K HERE for an excellent manual on the care and feeding of the Wallas stove.

Warren
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This pdf. file is really a work of art, thanks so much Tom and Rene for making this effort.

Update:
Last night I took some isopropyl alcohol and cleaned the tank filter then blew it out with air. Then put a little alcohol in the diesel, tried to start and same thing; it starts normally with red light coming on then after about 5 minutes red LED start flashing and it goes into shutdown.
I went out this morning and pulled the green bus connection and reset it a couple of times. Took off the exhaust hose at the unit and blew some high volume air through, replaced the hose.
Started the unit and its been running for the last 15-no 25 minutes- I just ran out to check.
I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
:o :D :lol:
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Here’s an update on my Wallas problem:
I ran the Wallas for about 30 to 40 min for 5 days just to make sure it was doing ok, and it seemed to work great.
Last Friday the Wallas failed at the launch ramp. My wife started it with the fan hood up while I parked the truck, thought it may have overheated so we waited for the yellow like to go completely out before re-starting; same problem. The red light comes on as normal during startup, runs for about 5 min, and then goes into shutdown.
We set out shrimp pots then anchored up for the night, tried the Wallas one more time before pulling out the Colman; it stayed running all night.
After starting outboard the following morning the Wallas went into shutdown, crap! :evil: We continued trying to restart it throughout the day with no success, and then we heard noise coming from the combustion blower.
Being underway I reduced speed and gave the helm to my wife, then crawled under the Wallas to have a look. Removed the cover to access the blower motor connection, than pulled the clip off the circuit board and re-set it; I left the cover off. Tried the Wallas one more time and it ran fine the rest of the trip; we didn’t dare turn it off.

Called Scan this morning and talked with Mike, he said occasionally trailerd boats will develop a loose connection, also running the Wallas without the under unit cover in place is fine. He also said I should be fine but if I wonted to send the unit in they’d check it out at no charge, but indicated I’d probable be fine.
So now I’m between that rock and the hard place with respect to trusting this stove for the remainder of the season. If it runs fine the next couple trips I’ll feel better, but defiantly going to send it in for a checkup at seasons end.

Adventure note:
It was bitterly cold and wet this past weekend on Prince William Sound, shrimping was great, the rock fish were biting, but without the Wallas working the trip would have been miserable. Our second night we set our shrimp pots just outside the passage we were staying in, the seas were calm. The next morning we discovered why everyone else set inside; seas were choppy and had built to about 4 feet. :shock: Needless to say it was a challenge pulling the pots; the greenhorns learned a valuable lesson that day. :thup
 
Very strange problem you have. How does the connection at the battery look? Any corrosion or anything loose? I spray my battery posts and bus bars with corrosion x and they stay good as new. More likely a problem with the unit itself though.
 
Yes that sound right to me. If the wallas goes into shutdown mode with the light flashing, you can pretty much know that it will not restart until you remove power off of the circuit board and reset it. That is by design. You could raise your confidence level by just turning power off of the circuit board and restarting the wallas. Since I found out the reason and the cause if the led is flashing I just reset the board and it has never failed to light since. You could put a switch in the line or just pull the fuse at the battery to make things a little easier.
 
jkidd":2zurx6p8 said:
Yes that sound right to me. If the wallas goes into shutdown mode with the light flashing, you can pretty much know that it will not restart until you remove power off of the circuit board and reset it. That is by design. You could raise your confidence level by just turning power off of the circuit board and restarting the wallas. Since I found out the reason and the cause if the led is flashing I just reset the board and it has never failed to light since. You could put a switch in the line or just pull the fuse at the battery to make things a little easier.
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Been there, done that. :thup It always lights just fine, staying lit was the problem, think re-seating the blower connection may have fixed it,,I hope.
 
flapbreaker":2laxvd83 said:
Very strange problem you have. How does the connection at the battery look? Any corrosion or anything loose? I spray my battery posts and bus bars with corrosion x and they stay good as new. More likely a problem with the unit itself though.
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Been there, done that, do that also. :wink:
 
OK, the gory details - deja vu all over again. See above for initial problems. In April, Scan Marine replaced the circuit board and glow plug and cleaned everything. They covered the board, we paid for everything else, something like $270 (more, as Marty noted, than our Coleman Fold-n-Go and Mr Heater Buddy). John Livingston got it going for us at Anacortes, where we learned the need to pull the power cord between each unsuccessful startup attempt. Ran it a little at Anacortes, but we weren't using it there, so not aware that it was not really working. Fast forward to August, Gulf Island cruise. The sucker would run for some period of time between 15 minutes and an hour and then white smoke would billow out the exhaust and it would shut down (anybody know what this white smoke thing is about?). Never got hot enough to boil water. Tried the reset and restart numerous times. Then after a couple of days the fan quit. I have pulled it out and Patty will take it in to Scan Marine this week but I have no confidence that they know shit from Shinola about this thing - these things are just too damn complicated and finicky. I wish to hell I did not have to deal with this piece of crap. There is no way I will buy another one but since I have this one, I can't really just toss it overboard, can I????
 
Pat.
I had the same thing happen to mine a few weeks back and finally pulled the exhaust hose off and found water inside. May have gotten there from hosing down the boat or rough water. Any way it was giving off white smoke and smelled like unburned fuel. Fired up and worked fine after that. Took a couple days to finally get the smell of fuel out of the boat.
 
anybody know what this white smoke thing is about?
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On my stove it is unburnt or incompletely burnt fuel vapor. I see it on start up and shut down and it's normal(for me). The only other time I see it is when my stove is malfunctioning. My malfunctions have always been the result of a dirty "fuel vaporizer" (wick).
 
Pat we are going thru the same thing again with ours. We had a lot of trouble with it last year and had scan marine go thru it. worked great when we got it back for a little while. we really did not use it that much. It never really got all that hot. I just started using diesal and that made it burn hotter but Now I cant get it tot fire up. I spent one day fishing last month trying to get it to work with out sucess. The next day it started on the first try and ran all day just fine. at bellingham we could not get it to start at all. we hit the button and the red light starts to blink right off. I hat ethe dam thing. anyone got any bright ideas other then scan marine or use as anchor.
 
In the manual there is a discription for the red light flashing. But when mine does it it's because it did not startup or shutdown right. At that point you can turn it on and off all you like it's not going to start. You have to remove the power by unplugging it at the wallas or the battery first and then try to start it.
 
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