Sparks shooting down sides of ozone plates

The graduations are incremental for your ozone output for the purifier control. Generally, the machine can put out enough ozone to cover 3000 sq ft. (when the control is moved all the way to the right, about 5 o'clock.) Half way should be about 1500 sq ft or 12 o'clock. For general air cleansing, you should set the purifier control to produce enough ozone so you smell it when walking into the room (after home) for about 30 seconds. The ozone smell should disappear after that. If it lingers, you've got it set too high. For more severe odor control you can set it higher but remember that some of us are more sensitive to the odor no matter what the setting. It may need some adjustment based on your individual preferences.

I'm confused about the 'red plates' as you mentioned. The original machine comes w/ 2 ozone plates (made of glass) and doesn't produce ozone when one of the plates is removed. I'm guessing that the lines may tell you when you're engaging both plates to work, i.e. more ozone being produced & blown into the room or less only calling on one plate to produce ozone. If you send me a close up pic of the control panel I may be able to tell you more.

You might be able to fix them.
There a couple of things that can go wrong with these units, dirty plates, bad contacts, and bad reostat.

Dirty plates:

The ozone is generated by the purification plates. They should be cleaned once a month with a solution of one part amonia and one part tap water. Use a soft bristle brush like an old toothbrush and scrub the metal contacts on the plates with the amonia solution. Be sure to do both sides. Allow them to sit with the solution for 10 minutes, then rinse off with tap water and allow it to dry completely.

Bad Contacts:

There is a couple of metal strips that make contact with the purification plate. Check the contact strips and wires for corrosion. The metal strips can also be cleaned with the amonia solution as well.

Bad Reostat:

The reostat is the part that attaches to the control knob that sets the purification levels. Sometimes it can go bad. The easilest way to check them is to use a meter and verify that as the knob is turned that the resistance changes with the position of the knob.

You probably have a burned out high voltage transformer. That's what produces the ozone. Helpful hint...........the high voltage transformer is also the one used in bug zappers

You can pull off the rear filter, pull the ozone plates, defeat the safety interlock, turn the unit on, and place a screw driver (holding the plastic handle) one one of the ozone bars, and try to make an arc between the screwdriver and the other bar.

If you get an arc, the ozone plates are dirty. Clean well with a brush and sudsy ammonia. If no arc, either the hv transformer is bad, the main circuit board is bad, or the ozone control is bad.

There's one other thing you can check: The two wires that connect to the ozone bars can arc to the chassis sometimes. You can inspect the insulation on those wires to make sure it is intact.

Contact [email protected]. They will be glad to help you.

try soaking the grid plate in ammonia

Mine has a switch lower right hand side that will stop the ozone.

My XL-15 had the same problem a few years ago. I had a broken wire on the fan, and the Ozone problem turned out to be a problem with the power supply. I had to send it in to have it repaired.

The ozone plates need to be cleaned monthly to work effectively. You can get an owner's manual for free from the manufacturer's website, it's at:

http://www.ecoquestintl.com/support/US50300_Living_Air_Owners_Manual.pdf

The manual has a description of the type and frequency of cleaning of various parts of your air purifier. Hope this helps!