It's just a condenser helps overrated right. This video is brought to you by sportlin quality, integrity and tradition. We have a service call on a package unit that is not working properly today. This is their bar ac.

I'm just walking up right now. Nothing jumping out at me. I can hear the indoor blower motor running so we're going to have to open up the control section and dive into it. I'm not going to power down the unit because i want to open it up and diagnose before i reset anything because oftentimes on many of these units, what it doesn't matter, what brand often times a power down resets safeties.

So we don't want to have to worry about that. Also. I got my umbrella here just to protect me because we're having a little heat wave, so nice little sun shade there um, so we're gon na open this guy up right now. Uh these older reliatel units aren't too bad.

I can't say that they're my favorite, but it's not so much that i don't know how to work on them or they're unreliable. It's just that i'm comfortable working on something else, but i'm the most comfortable working on a linux l series package unit. Those are what i'm most comfortable with so um open this up. Nothing really scaring me so we're gon na start by checking control voltage and going from there all right.

We're gon na check three phase power line, one to line two. We got 202 line, one to line three. We got 202 line two to line three. We got 202, so we have three phase power coming into this guy, which is good um.

Next thing. We're going to do is check control voltage at the thermostat terminal board. This one has a conventional thermostat. So from r to c i got 26 volts from y 1 to c i have 26 volts from w 1 to c i got nothing from g to c.

I've got 26 volts from y 2 to c i have nothing. So i don't have i'm sorry. That's w2. Y2 to see so i have a call for first stage, cooling and second stage cooling.

As i'm testing control voltage. I notice that i've got an error light right here and i didn't catch that when i first came on. It's flashing, two flashes, two flashes and if you come over here to this guy right here, it tells you that um rtrm, basically two quarter. Second flashes: it's telling you that diagnostics exist um kind of further looking into the unit again before i reset anything, i'm just going to go ahead and spin.

The condenser fan motors and stuff, but i came over here to the economizer section, because economizers are constantly a failure and i noticed that economizer's not even hooked up the board is just sitting here, not even hooked up to anything. So i don't know that. That's going to be the problem, or not so again, i'm just evaluating um. I'm gon na do just just spin the condenser fan motors to see, if anything will spin and then after that, we're gon na have to reset it and power it up and just see what happens.

Um the indoor blower motor is running and without shutting it off, the belt looks pretty tight. Moving good air filters. Don't look bad at all, so we're looking good. So far, um, like i said, i'm just gon na test those condenser fan motors, make sure they spin and then we'll uh, we'll reset it and see what happens.

Here's a little tech tip when you are looking at these schematics, especially on these units. You do not, if you can want to wipe these off with a towel. Don't: okay, take your uh, your brush, your coil cleaning brush and just brush them lightly, wiping them with the towel oftentimes when the schematics get old will rub the paint the the print right off. So these brushes really do a good job of just cleaning them up, because it's a real light, you don't got to go crazy, don't use a wire brush or anything, but just give them a light brush because you'll wipe that stuff right off and i'll do this.

Let's see if i can make it happen: oh this one's not bad yet, but if you sometimes, if you take a towel, it'll wipe the print right off so yeah but use the brush. It'll really really help you all right. We are powered back on um we're running on first stage right now. Second stage is not running yet shut.

That panel, let's check to see if both condenser fan motors are running. This condenser fan motor is not running in the right direction. Look at my head pressure. Climbing like crazy, because that condenser family is going in the wrong direction.

I grabbed my meter out to test the condenser fan motor and uh. We shut off on high pressure before um before i could get in there to test it. So we're gon na have to reset this again, but we probably got something going on well. We know we have something going on, because one of those condenser fan motors was spinning in the wrong direction, whether or not it was actually spinning or just being sucked in the wrong direction.

It's hard to say, but i'm going to dive into it a little bit more all right. I powered the unit down to reset it again, but since i had to power down, i decided to test the capacitor. This is a 25 microfarad capacitor and uh yeah. It's got a good connection, so we have a bad capacitor for sure.

So we can try to swap out the capacitor and see if we can get the motor up and running all right. We fired up and uh it's actually blowing. Now this one was was sucking. The air in before so it's actually blowing the air up um, let's go ahead and jump in here.

My condenser fan motor is allowed to run 4.6 amps and we're running 3.54. So we're going to let this run for a little bit and just evaluate the system and see how it's operating, we'll wait for the second stage to kick on we'll diagnose that too. But it could just be something as simple as a bad capacitor. The capacitor that i put on there is a temporary capacitor.

I used a turbo just temporarily to make sure that it works and i'll go pick up the right one, because i don't have a 25 microfarad round. So i'll go pick up the right one here in a few minutes, but i want to make sure there's nothing else wrong with it before i leave okay, the first stage does not look bad um. Let's go back over here, remind you it's still stabilizing out, but i just wanted to make sure there was nothing crazy going on. So it's running we're looking okay, nothing too scary, decent temperature split.

It's got to stabilize that! I'm going to go ahead and put gauges on the second stage again, i'm not diagnosing refrigerant charge or anything right now, i'm just making sure that the unit's running and there's nothing like crazy, jumping out at me, and it doesn't look like it right now. We certainly don't have the performance that i want as of yet, but we need to let the system stabilize i'm going to put the gauges on the second stage and see what happens all right. I just opened the panel. So that's why my head pressure's so high, but nothing too crazy.

On the second stage, i will say that when i had it on the first stage, i didn't have it on a fixed, orifice metering device. So i changed that over you notice. My super heat on the second stage is a lot lower. I'm a little concerned about the high superheat on the first stage, but again, like i said i just wanted the system to stabilize out i'm going to let it run while i go get a capacitor and then we'll come back and check it out after that, all Right, i am back and uh the system has been running for a while.

This is still the second stage that we're looking at right now notice. Our head pressure is a little bit on the high side. It's not horrendous, but and if you use the measure, quick diagnostics, it says dirty condenser, potentially or non-condensables. I highly doubt it's non-condensables, but let's look at our numbers here.

Real quick, unit's, still running good yeah. Let's um, i have a feeling that there's uh - i was kind of wondering about this condenser, because this has a split row condenser. So i was honestly already gon na probably pull this thing apart, uh they canceled preventative maintenance at this location. So these things can be very deceptive, even though it doesn't look bad.

They could be very dirty on the inside on the split row, so i think i'm gon na go ahead and pull this guy apart and uh have a look at it. I got ta power. It down to change the capacitor anyway, so so sometimes they have these. Sometimes they don't this one right here has a panel and uh.

Let me see if i can get you guys, a view of that. Look at that condenser plugged man. Look at that and there's a third condenser. You see there's three rows on this one, so we have some dirty situation going on here, so we're gon na have to do a proper cleaning on this guy.

If you use your big boy muscles, you can just flip this guy over. I grabbed one of these and just wrenched on it lifted it up and over nice and slowly. I unhook the electrical for the condenser fan motors and then i'll be able to get in there and pull that condenser apart now. So so all right, we got the coil cleaner on there.

It's about time to rinse it off. It's all inside it's going through there through there. We got it from all angles: we're going to give it a good rinse. Now, all right, i did one last rinse with coil, cleaner.

It's coming out the other side, nice and good, we're going to give it a good rinse and get all this stuff off, and then we should be good well that didn't quite go as planned, but there's no damage good thing, that's what that top rails there. I wouldn't have done this by myself. If i didn't have that top rail, but there's no damage in there, it didn't hit nothing or anything. So all right looks good we're just putting it back together.

Now all right we're looking at the second stage right now the the unit has been running for about 15 minutes. I posed off the roof, while i just let it run um everything is looking good. So far, let's go through it here. A decent split condenser might still be a little bit wet, but i don't think so so we're looking pretty darn good the performance, the delivered performance huh.

I guess it's not bad. I'd like it to be a little bit higher, though it's on the tail end being on the low side, but remember the first stage. We haven't checked that yet so we may, let may be low on gas on the first stage, but this is the second stage. So it's pretty much doing everything and we got an all clear up in the right hand, corner from measure quick.

We got the little checkered flag, so airflow's, half ass, decent all right. We're gon na go ahead and probe up on the first stage now and see what that's doing all right so the first stage, here's what we're looking at um super heat's high. This is a fixed orifice metering, device, suction pressure's a little bit low head pressure's. A little bit low, the split is going to be the same because it's using the same sensors so um i'm pretty confident that we're a little low on charge on the first stage.

Uh. Also just you know, indicators, um, we've got the same return. Air temperature and the second stage is sweating back to the compressor. The first stage is not, let's see what measure quick has to say, measure quick, even says that it looks like it might be low on refrigerant.

That's my thought too. I'm going to go ahead and add a little refrigerant to the system and see how it uh takes it and see what happens. So. You can get that superheat down a little bit but before i add refrigerant, i am going to power down the unit and make sure that the belt is nice and tight uh and just do a visual on the evaporative coil.

Just to make sure so. I use when i'm charging with my smart probes. I've shown this before i just use a hose with a low loss fitting on one end and a ball valve on this end, and i've got that fitting right there that i can charge right into on the low side so and it works really nice. I weighed this drum before i brought it up.

It was a brand new drum, so it weighed 36 pounds exactly so that's good, because now, when i go down, i just weigh it, and then i know how much i use so, just adding a little bit of gas, you got to be careful. Sometimes i've. I've uh, sometimes you got to make sure that you get good temperature readings on those bigger pipes, uh it's almost at the border of where that pipe is too big for that clamp. So you got to be careful about that.

Okay, i'm not going to get too much more crazy than that um. I don't know. I don't even think i added like three pounds, maybe two pounds or something we'll see when i get downstairs, but um we've got a green checkered flag from measure quick, but basically i got closer on my super heat. My my delivered capacity is still low and my airflow kind of dropped down, but remember that measure quick's airflow is just an estimate, but my delivered capacity got a little bit better, but it's still a little bit low.

It's on the lower side. I'm kind of curious too, about the return air grille. So i am going to go, take a look downstairs and have a look at that return: air grille! As far as the blower belt, it was nice and tight. The evaporator could use a cleaning, but that's a big process.

That's not an easy thing, because this is a down shot um. I can't do that today, but it's not plugged, so i definitely would like to clean it though, but that one's something i'm gon na have to get approved by the customer. So this is probably where we're gon na leave this one. We've got it much better than it was when we arrived, so the unit took about seven pounds of gas so but yeah.

That's i like to weigh it before i go up on the roof. If i can so that way, that's one extra thing i don't have to take on the roof is the scale all right. I cleaned up the roof better than it was when i got here definitely cleaned off all my coil mess. You know there's a little residual but put all the screws back in the units washed.

All the stuff down the floor drains, i'm going to tighten up some handles on those doors rolled up the hose. I wanted to talk about this refrigerant charge, so this unit was low on charge. Certainly refrigerant doesn't disappear, so that means that there is a leak somewhere. I have to run that by the customer, we're in the middle of this covid thing and they need the unit operational, but things like cleaning the evaporative core, because that's going to be take me a while, you know cleaning the condenser.

I could do that because i fell within the not to exceed value even adding refrigerant, but i'm pushing my not to exceed value on this call. So everything else i caught up, i got to kind of run by the customer, so we'll, basically just tell them hey. This unit was low on charge. We got you operational, we clean the condenser and then we can see if they want us to come back and diagnose.

I have a feeling they're not going to want to do that again because we're in the middle of this covid thing, and they just want to get things operational and try to save as much money as possible, even if it costs them a couple. Bucks down the line you know, most of them are okay with that right now, because they just want to offset their expenses for the most part, so yep, that's pretty much it we're gon na wrap it up. I uh certainly dodged a bullet when i dropped that uh condenser lid huh, so that uh train unit has this metal strip that covers the condenser. As like a protective thing in the past, they didn't used to have that and you would have rub outs on the top from the condenser shroud cover, whatever just leaning on the condenser, but i guess i'm thankful.

They put that on there. I probably like i had said in the video, probably wouldn't have done that by myself. Had i uh not had that metal cover there because um i was able to get the condenser up, but boy man did. I dodge some bullets dropping that thing on there um.

So i wanted to address something measure quick. I really do like measure quick. It does a great job, but any software is out there. You cannot just rely on a software.

You have to use your own brain to kind of diagnose things too. Now i will say that 95 to 99 of the time measure quick is accurate in its diagnosis, especially when we're dealing with air conditioning systems. So i give it a lot of props because it does a really good job, but you have to know how to input the information correctly right. There's some certain questions that measure quick asks.

You, such as the design temperature differential, the condensing temp over ambient. You know things like that, so you have to understand how the system was designed. Okay, just just keep that in mind. You can't just you know, expect a piece of software to do all your work for you.

I really do like software. I like what it can do for you, but you have to know when it's inaccurate, when you don't have a sensor in the right place. You know all kinds of things like that. Another thing to think about too, when you're working on package units you're not really supposed to put the the cyclometers or you know the supply and return air probes within eye shot of the evaporator or the heat exchanger.

Okay. So in this situation, i'm working on a package unit and i had my return and supply air probes just in the top of the unit. Ideally, you want to take those downstream in the ductwork where they can get an accurate temperature where they don't have any residual. Cooling coming off the coil or radiant heat coming off the heat exchanger in the heat mode.

You know that kind of stuff, so you know you have to know how to interpolate this data um and and in all reality, it's not practical, sometimes to go. Put your return air probes all the way down in the ductwork, because this is a restaurant and i can't really get up to the return airstream. Okay, so sometimes you have to learn how to like work with things. So things like the delivered performance and stuff that could be skewed a little bit: okay, um! I was a little bit more concerned about my super heat uh.

You know looking at my sub cooling being high, you know that kind of stuff - okay, just be cautious when you're using the software, it's a tool to make diagnosing easier. It's not meant to diagnose, for you that's my opinion at least, and that's with any software out there measure quick the field piece app, the i manifold app any of those okay, that's just my two cents on that all right, no affiliation with any of those guys, But they all make great products and great software. You just have to know when it's giving you inaccurate data or incorrect data, maybe just simply because you didn't put the temperature clamps on right or something like that. Okay, so this one wasn't too difficult.

Uh we had a dirty condenser. We had a refrigerant shortage. We corrected those problems. I brought to the customers attention much just like.

I had thought i brought to their attention that the unit has a refrigerant leak and they really didn't want to go any further with it at this time. They just want to leave it be and the same thing i told them: hey i'd really like to get in there and scrub down that evaporator. But again they decline that one too, because the unit is doing what it can right now and we're in the middle of covid, and i certainly don't blame them. They just want to get things operational and try to limp through so right now, it's april 28th.

I think this video was shot earlier. The earlier this week, maybe three four days ago, uh or something like that and um uh restaurants at this time in california, still are not allowed to have people in their dining room. They're only allowed to serve to go food or take out food, they are hurting very bad, just like everywhere else in the country. So times are tight, you know, so we just got to do what we got to do to keep the customers up and running and keep them happy in hopes that they call us back, you know, got to make them happy all right.

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