"Defective" 3rd Party Burner Tubes


 

John-NY

TVWBB Pro
I always just thought that burner tubes are pieces of steel with holes in them that gas can travel through. But what I am coming across is throwing that whole concept into question. Allow me to explain.

I bought several bundles of the Votenli bars and burners when they were on sale for a Genesis Silver B.

I knew that I had used them before so I wasn’t worried about their performance.

However, I installed a set of them on a grill and noticed two distinct things.
First, the middle burner would not light all the way, or even hardly at all.
Second, the first burner’s flames would start to hover and dance an inch or two above the burner tubes.

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I uninstalled them and installed them on a totally separate second Grill, and the behavior was exactly the same.

So then I swapped in the middle burner with an old genuine Weber burner, and it lit up perfectly, although with gigantic yellow flames probably because the inside of the tube was so dirty.
But again, as you could see in the picture below, the first burner stops being lit from the beginning until 3/4 of the way down with the flames hovering above at that point.

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So finally, I uninstalled everything and took out a different set of brand new Votenli burner tubes, installed them, and they worked just fine (I hesitate to say perfectly because I don’t think any can replicate brand new Weber tubes).

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Has anyone experienced anything like this with brand new tubes and have any kind of actual scientific explanation as to why this would happen with all other variables being equal and the only difference being the literal tubes themselves?
 
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John, I am pretty certain that if you take off the control panel, you will find that the Voltenli middle valve is not fully seated inside the burner. For some reason, the Voltenli burners are designed so that the middle burner installs slightly shorter than it should. The dancing flames can be adjusted via the venturi air inlets on each tube.
 
John, I am pretty certain that if you take off the control panel, you will find that the Voltenli middle valve is not fully seated inside the burner. For some reason, the Voltenli burners are designed so that the middle burner installs slightly shorter than it should. The dancing flames can be adjusted via the venturi air inlets on each tube.
I do remember that the burners from last year were too short, but these were from the same lot purchase this year. Either way, are you saying the valve orifice is “not far enough inside” the burner tube?

To tame the dancing flames, should the Venturi be “closed more” or “open more”?
 
probably need to be closed a bit. But just try going both ways until you get the flames you want.

For what it’s worth, I put the middle third-party tube next to the Weber metal tube and they are identical length.

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So a difference that I noticed is where the burner holes stop. They stopped shorter on the third-party too.

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So then, when I took that picture, I noticed that the weld which closes the end of the tube is further in on the third-party tube.

But also, the crossover bar tab, which the middle tube slides into does not have a divider between the slots, so the flat part and slide too far into the crossover tube slot. Which effectively shortens the length.



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The flame propagation has a lot to do with position of the orifice in the venturi (think carburetor) and how well the venturi itself was formed
 

 

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