Gas Fire Remote - Low Battery Puzzle

[medved]

Can any 'techy' explain to me how my insert gas fire which after igniting by remote would run for 30 minutes then switch off and cycle off/on was instantly cured by putting new batteries in the remote control. I can understand how low batteries would prevent it igniting. But how would they influence what it did after burning normally for half an hour ? A gas fitter said to me he had seen this happen a few times but couldn't explain it.

 

[bernardgreen]

It is possible that this is a safety feature. If it is then it may work something like this :-

Once it is lit the gas fire may require the remote control to send regular "Stay burning" signals until the OFF button is pressed. If the fire does not receive a Stay Burning signal it will after 30 minutes shut down to prevent it burning permanently if the remote control is unable to send the OFF command.

With old batteries the timer in the remote control that sets the interval between the "Stay burning" commands may run slow and the interval between them is then longer than the time out in the fire. So the fire times out and shuts down until the next "Stay Burning" command arrives.

Or may the reason the fire is shutting down is due to some other reason ( over heating ? ) and has nothing to do with changing the batteries other than co-incidence.

 

[medved]

Thank you @bernardgreen. I am confident that the fire is ok for overheat and the flue is working. But I now realise that the remote remains in "unseen" safety communication with the fire after it has done the ignition/startup. Is the remote 'talking' at intervals to the fire for a purpose ? Does it sense the room air for CO or something ? I had assumed that once it had lit the fire it's only function was to switch it off again or vary flame height by user input. Anyway you have done a good job explaining what is probably happening. Many thanks.