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Manitoba | need some help and sure someone on here knows a good solution. We have an old electric furnace, works great but every once in a while a sequencer will go bad and while not a difficult repair to swap a new one in it can be difficult to know which is failing without some disassembly. The furnace has a bank of 4 heating elements (220 v) which the sequencers stagger powering on. the way its wired is that there is always 110 v going to one side of the element, when the sequencer switches on the element gets 110 through to the other side of the element and it heats. when a problem occurs (lower than normal heat output) I can test each element (or the posts of the sequencers) with a multimeter to find which is the problem or remove the access panel to see which elements are not on but I was hoping to simplify diagnoses with some type of indicator lights that i would mount on the exterior. this would enable me to determine at a glance if there is an issue. I need some sort of small light that will not light at 110 v (since that is always present) but light at 220. (or light one color at 110 and switch to something else at 220, this multicolor might be even better as that would indicate a wire problem vs just a sequencer problem) Ideally I would make a small bank of lights and mount that on the exterior panel of the furnace so anyone at home can just have a look and know immediately if there is an issue. hope that makes sense. was thinking there is probably some small LED type light that would accomplish this without drawing any or almost any power. Have tried looking online but really don't know how to describe what i am looking for so haven't had much success. Only thing i could think of was maybe one 220 volt relay for each element circuit that would in turn power a light (110 or 24 volt light could be used here as both currents available close by) but was hoping maybe something a little simpler existed.
Any ideas?
Thanks
Edited by Oakwood 1/14/2025 10:34
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electric furnace mod, adding element indicator lights
