Have a complaint of a walk in freezer. That's not working now granted this this is discharge air. It's 30 degrees right now so that's not good've got a thermostat right here looks like it has a little moisture in it. But if you can get in there set for negative 10.

And it's not calling. We don't have any ice build up on the back of the coil. So that's a good sign. Um.

Realistically looks like maybe some moisture intrusion. Too. But we're gonna go ahead and need to get onto the roof. Because uh looks like everything down here is doing what it's supposed to be doing i will make a note that they've had someone come in and put these stupid energy efficient motors in here and they put these chinsy plastic blades and motors and the things are just vibrating.

But that's their problem. These things are junk and they don't want me to change those motors like they want to use their own it's just silly. But anyways we'll leave that alone and we'll get up onto the roof. My condensing unit is right here um.

It's not a good sign when the compressor is not running. But both the condenser fan motors are that's not good the compressor is really warm to touch and i've got my field piece meter right here the sc480 and from this is a three phase 208 volt system. So we've got 209 from one phase to another 210 from one phase to another and 212 from one so we have three phase power going to this compressor and it's not running so. What we need to do is shut.

This guy down all right so it's shut down one thing. I will say is this condenser fan motor is moving this one doesn't seem like it's running it seems like it was just moving like ever so slightly really slow. And it's making a squeaking like bearing sound all right next thing. We need to do is we need to pull the electrical uh wires off the compressor and we need to check to see if we're off on internal overload.

If that's the case. Then we can attempt to cool the compressor down. So let's get in there got the electrical wires disconnected disconnect switch is off um. We're testing continuity or putting our meter on ohms okay and we're checking to see what the resistance value of the windings is so from one leg to one leg.

We have nothing okay and then the next one nothing and then this one nothing all right this compressor potentially is off on internal overload. Okay. So we are going to that's a whole nother problem. What the heck was that about stuff all right anyways.

So i'm gonna go get a water hose and a the cool presser tool and we're gonna try to cool this compressor off to see if we can get the internal overload to reset on this guy. What i did was i put a water hose on the compressor. I'm using the cool presser tool and uh. I'm able to slowly run water across the compressor.

I went ahead and clamped on with my field piece sc 480. And put my meter on tone right so within the continuity feature if you hit the select button you can put it on tone and it'll tell you when you have a direct connection or a direct short. Okay. So our windings now have a direct connection.

Because the overload reset. Now i highly suggest that if you do this you let it run for about five minutes after it resets okay because even though it reset the overload. The internals of that compressor are still really hot so just let it keep cooling for about five five to ten more minutes um and when you do turn it on you don't want to turn it on and off okay. If if possible you want to just go ahead and let it run if possible now i suspect that we're going to run really high head pressure so i don't know how long we're going to be able to make it run.

But i do want to see what happens when we turn it on to see if the compressor even works before we start going through the process of cleaning. The condenser changing. Condenser fan. Motors and all that stuff okay um.

Now in this situation. I also have my uh field piece gauges the s man 480v installed on the system. We do have refrigerant pressures equalized out um. And uh.

Yeah you guys can hear the tone and also i installed the electrical cover. It's not going to be perfect. But i tried to install it in a way that hopefully. It's not full of water in there.

But i can always dry it off okay so i think that we've got it cooled enough at this point. That we're gonna go ahead and turn off the hose and then we're gonna turn this guy on and uh. See what happens now this is a piston driven uh reciprocating compressor and on this style of compressor. It doesn't matter.

Which piston goes up first okay. Uh typically there's gonna be two pistons in this guy. It doesn't matter if one goes first or the other one goes first so the rotation the phase rotation is irrelevant on this style of compressor. Okay now if you had a scroll compressor like that that one doesn't have pistons.

It does matter. But this one right here. It doesn't i dried off everything in here. We've got good electrical connections.

We're gonna put the cover back on and uh. We're gonna go ahead and put our amp clamp on the compressor so that way we can test the current and uh. Know what's going on there so let's go ahead and click this guy right here. And see what is happening with that compressor and i'll go ahead and uh there we go something like that so you put it on the voltage setting on the sc480 then you hit the select button boom.

Now you can test current so we've got that taken care of gauges are installed everything else is good. We're gonna go ahead and turn this guy on compressor started sounds rough sounds. Very rough it doesn't sound good at all we're gonna give it a minute. See if it calms down.

It's also under a heavy load right now because the evaporator is fully loaded. So we're gonna let it run for a few minutes. So after about i'd say five minutes of running. It did not quiet down.

The current went up to about 12 amps and then the guy shut off on internal overload. Again notice that we have no current the compressor stopped pumping if you guys can see this compressor stopped pumping. So the head. The suction pressure is equalizing out so we have a bad compressor on this guy more than likely caused by constant on off of high head.

Pressure uh bad condenser. Fan motor and a plugged up condenser lack of preventative maintenance on the customer's behalf caused this compressor to go bad. So we're gonna go ahead and turn this guy off and i'm gonna have to start making some phone calls to see if i can get approval to change this compressor to make the process go faster and smoother. I'm getting ready to recover all the refrigerant and i put a solenoid magnet on the solenoid valve.

So that way we do not have to apply power and the solenoid is open so we can get refrigerant from both sides then at the same time i took a screwdriver and inserted it into the solenoid coil. Because these coils can burn up if voltage is accidentally applied it doesn't take very long so if you keep a screwdriver something metallic in there it'll help it from burning up. And so yeah that we've got that running on that so now we can go up and get the recovery process started on the roof. There's no compressors local to where i'm at i'm way out in the low desert coachella valley.

Um. They don't have this particular compressor. So i have a technician coming from about an hour and a half two hours away. He's bringing me a compressor so in the meantime.

I'm to get started on this pretty much brought. My whole. Van up here nitrogen torches over here. These big bags are really nice.

Because you're able to fit a ton of stuff in there i got scales leak detectors fittings coil cleaning gun all that good stuff so i'm gonna get the recovery process started we're gonna pull out the condenser fan motors clean the condenser get ready to change the fan motors and we're just gonna work along trying to do everything we can before my technician gets out here now um. I'm in an extremely dry environment. So i am going to go ahead and remove the compressor and it will be removed. But i'll make sure i clean everything before then and uh that way there's no potential of water getting in there.

But yeah if i was in a very moist environment. If it was raining or something like that we wouldn't want to pull the compressor out until the absolute last minute. But because where i'm at it'll be fine um yeah and while we're doing this too. We'll look and see.

If there's anything else we can do to make this system. Operate a little more efficient maybe even putting a time delay relay on the compressor contactor. So that way it doesn't short cycle as fast um. We're going to go ahead and replace both condenser fan motors.

I went ahead and talked to the customer that was my recommendation and they agreed we have to change. These motors at least once a year. So we're just going to knock them both out they're good with that so yeah. That's where we're at we're going to get started.

We are hooked up for an evacuation. We have core removal tools on i am pulling through my gauges yes you could do it. Without the gauges. But it's just easier for me used a large diameter hose to the machine large diameter hose to the tank.

We've got refrigerant pressure all the way to right here. We need to open this up and purge it right here. I've got some ice in this guy right here. We're sitting on the scale.

So when i open this we should be able to purge right here. Okay. That's refrigerant and then at this point zero out the scale zeroed and we're ready to go and open. This guy okay.

We're gonna let it take the refrigerant and then that is a vacuum down cylinder. I verified and really we could just hit start okay. The machine is running and we're gonna let that run and while that's evacuating. The system.

I'm gonna go ahead and start pulling the condenser fan motors and getting ready to clean the condenser all right we got the condenser fan motors pulled out they're just set over there for later. We're still in the recovery process we're gonna get the condenser wet and then we're gonna apply cleaner but we just get the bulk of the big stuff off real quick and then we'll get some condenser coil cleaner and we'll get the roof area cleaned up we'll get this all washed out from the inside out now when it comes to the cleaner. We're gonna this is a micro channel condenser okay micro channel condensers you have to be very careful and use a proper cleaner a couple different brands. I personally use the viper condenser foil cleaner the yellow venom pack.

It is micro channel safe do your research. Don't just trust. Some dude on youtube. Um and uh apply it to the condenser.

Okay. So just get it on there let it sit let it foam and the trick to this cleaner is just to let it sit okay so i'm gonna go ahead and wet everything else down in here try not to soak my manifold. But and then just letting the cleaner sit down in here and then we'll rinse everything off here in just a minute all right the cleaner's been sitting for i don't know five minutes. I think that's good enough so we're gonna go ahead.

And give it a rinse um. Because we can i'm going to do it from the inside out you can see clearly there's tons of dark stuff coming out. We're just going to go to town rinsing. The whole thing nice and slow making sure.

It's thoroughly cleaned. You can see the dark dark color coming out as you're close to the water right there to the condenser just keep on rinsing so remember when you're cleaning a condenser clean is clean right not kind of halfway clean you need to clean it properly all right we're done cleaning the condenser just kind of washing the other stuff down the drain letting it dry up the recovery machine it shut itself off because. It has an auto shut off low pressure cut out so i went ahead. And did that my system is completely void of refrigerant.

It's sitting in a vacuum at negative three psi and we only recovered six pounds of gas shown on the wireless scale uh handle so this guy actually takes more than six pounds. I know the factory max charge on this guy's 14 pounds of gas um. So i don't know if it has leaks or if someone just didn't fully charge it because we're out in the desert. And they were just worried about high head pressure.

It's hard to say um. But uh. We're going to go ahead and proceed with the repair and then go from there all right because i'm a little unsure on whether or not there's a refrigerant leak. We're actually going to do a pressure test on this unit.

I have the nitrogen. Why not so i attach the suction line temperature clamp. Which is going to help me do a temperature compensated pressure test so as the temperature changes. It's going to reflect that in the pressure change.

Okay so we've got it set for 404 it's about 100 degrees outside you can see 100 degrees and then suction line temps about 101. So we're going to go ahead and hit tightness test. Okay. And it's basically saying press enter to start.

But we need to get pressure in there first so i'm gonna go ahead and change. My guy on over okay. We're adding nitrogen to the system right now and we're gonna get it up to the test pressures of the system. Which is uh.

We'll just get it up to about 150 psi and see what that does for us after you pressurize it up to wherever you want it to you need to let it sit okay let it sit for about five minutes. Because the pressures kind of move around there's still a little bit of refrigerant in the oil. The compressor kind of things move around so this guy's been sitting we uh settled for about 157 psi. So i'm going to hit enter.

And it's going to start a timer and then it's going to give us the pressure differential on the left hand side over there okay so we're going to give it some time notice that it's actually rising in pressure right now. Which can happen. Because there's still a little bit of refrigerant and the nitrogen will actually react to temperature a lot of people think nitrogen will not change. But it does it's a gas you can change it from a liquid to a vapor.

Just like any other gas all right. I don't know why this didn't have enough refrigerant in it or the right amount it may have been enough for the system to run. But um. But it's uh been running for 20 minutes and originally it went all the way up to 09 psi that.

It lost but now it's going back down to. 065. So i'm comfortable with this i'm going to go and let the nitrogen out we're going to go and get this compressor on sweat and proceed with putting a new dryer on it and all that stuff again my guy's still not here with the new compressor. But i'm confident we're going to be fine.

So we're going to take this off relieve the nitrogen and proceed alright. We got the nitrogen flowing into the suction side. We need to get a new one of these caps. Too that could be a leak right there that happens let's see if we can come up on a cap.

I don't know that i have one of those right now but we'll see um so uh i've got nitrogen flowing. We've got to get this brazed in this brazed in and this brazed in we're going to push it down. I'm still waiting on a part uh because we needed one of the dryers that i had wasn't gonna work so i had to send my guy to go get one of those real quick um. Luckily that's available out here one of these supply houses.

So. I'm gonna get this sweat in real quick and then start putting the motors in while i'm waiting for him to come back with the dryer before i start brazing. I put a heat blocking compound around the compressor just so we don't burn the paint. You know it's not going to be perfect.

I'm just going to do my best this one i happen to be using the viper wet rack. There's lots of different heat. Blocking compounds that's the one that i like though um. So i'm gonna get this sweat in real quick.

And then hopefully like i said. The dryer will be here and get those fan motors done too we put an oversized liquid line filter dryer. So we went with the sporelin 16 cubic inch half inch dryer. I did a flare as usual because of the space.

I had to do a pre made flare on the bottom. I know a lot of people hate those. But i have good luck with them we've got the evacuation running right now everything's sealed up. We're going to wire in the condenser fan motors.

I've got two new condenser fan motors. We've got the micron gauge right here. And yeah. We've got the gas ballast open until we get down uh usually below a thousand microns and then we'll close the gas ballast and potentially change the oil it just depends.

But yeah this guy's running and remember we have the uh uh solenoid magnet downstairs. So we're pulling completely through the system so my evacuation is well below a thousand microns. So we're going to go ahead and close the gas ballast so that way it'll start pulling through the vacuum pump oil and we can get a deeper vacuum so right now about 800 microns. It's a little difficult there you go about 800 microns.

So we're gonna let that keep running we're just kind of cleaning up condenser fan motor wires making sure the ground wires are put on making sure they're not going to hit anything just making it look pretty we're looking really good making good progress about 570 microns. It's been running for about 15 minutes. So we're gonna let it keep running and then uh. We'll start uh once we shut it down.

We'll um start adding refrigerant to it so i'm gonna go ahead. And add the full charge that i know this system takes. Which is 14 pounds. That's the max charge on this system.

So we're gonna put 14 pounds of 404a uh. We'll go ahead and utilize. What was left in the other one um. I don't know where the other refrigerant went.

But we'll use what's up left in that and then we'll add the difference so uh yeah and then we're just about done changing that contactor. So you can see like i tied up the wires for the condenser fan motors so they're removable. But they're also not laying on the ground anymore. So that way they're you know somewhat secure zip tied up the compressor wires.

Too they're somewhat secure. So the other thing that we did was we went ahead and installed the time delay relay over there so that way whenever. The the pressure control cuts out that time delay relay will come in i think. It's a 90 second relay.

So it just basically will cut down on the short cycling. If we ever get a plugged up condenser basically so it's not perfect um. I think it's 180 seconds to be honest with you let's see if it says it on there yeah 180 seconds. So that way it gives it a little bit more of a buffer time between restarts just to try to save the compressor look at how dusty it is up here.

Too like this whole thing's getting covered in dust. It's all windy and nasty. It's hot too. It's still probably like a hundred and two hundred and three appears last i saw we're currently in our decay right now uh.

It's barely risen to 600 microns. So i'm not worried about that i'm hooking up the service gauges. But we got to pull them into an evacuation. So i hook up the process hose right or the charging hose and we're going to go ahead and pull the gauges into a vacuum.

Before we open them to the system. So that way we can be sure that the gauges themselves aren't going to add any air into the system now once they pull into an evacuation then we will um uh sorry. I lost my train of thought right now uh then we will go ahead and charge. The system up all right now's the moment for some reason.

I can't get my dang schrader in there. So i'll have to pump the system down and play with that when i'm done. But regardless i got high side low side. I put in about two pounds.

I'm gonna turn this guy on and uh see what happens so it's good enough would you mind flipping that on for me. And we're running and i'm just charging through the low side. So i pump down and then the time delay is going to kick in because it's too low on refrigerant right now so it's okay. Though we're just gonna keep charging it up we'll hold the contactor in if anything all the refrigerant that i pulled out is actually enough to get it running and to clear the side glass.

So we got a nice clear side glass. But that's only about six pounds. It's actually just a little under six pounds because it's hard to get the remaining vapor out of that tank. But we're still going to put more gas into this guy because we gotta fill up that receiver three quarters of the way.

So that way we have enough refrigerant for the winter time when it goes into uh when the head pressure control valve bypasses. We want to make sure that we have enough for the flooded charge. So i want to verify hot discharge hot liquid hot right here. So this and this are the same temperature.

So the valve is not bypassing. So we needed to make sure on that um. So yeah. We're going to go and get that other cylinder right there and go ahead and uh top off the rest of the refrigerant all right um.

I stopped at 11 pounds of gas because that's just under the three quarter mark on the receiver. I pumped it down and checked the liquid level. And i don't want to put any more gas in there than that we know that it was operating with the the six pounds. So i went ahead and stopped with the 11 pounds marked.

It we're gonna be fine with that i'll follow up on it. But this also has a very very short line set run um and i just don't know if i trust putting any more gas in this guy. I don't want to max. This guy out these things have a hard enough time as it is um.

We're looking good our superheat is extremely high right now now this is evaporator superheat. It's currently 31 degrees. But that box is really high in temps. So we need to give it a lot of time for it to come down in temperature in all honesty.

I don't even know if we'd be able to check superheat today. We probably need to follow up. But both condenser fan motors are working everything's looking good oversized sight. Glass and dryer.

All as well we're going to go ahead. And take our tools off and go have a look down at the evaporative coil. All right it's much colder in here. But it's going to take forever.

Because it's been down since last night. So this is the discharge air is 15 degrees. So it's gonna be a while realistic i mean everything's soft ice cream's liquid. So i'll uh probably stop back by tomorrow.

And do a follow up looks like temperature controller says. It's 18 degrees. So like i said we'll stop back by tomorrow do a follow up maybe check the evaporator super make sure everything's good with that all right. I just cut the top off of this guy.

There's quite a bit of oil in there so that's a good thing um. We're gonna pull the top off now i did have to cut this plug off because i didn't have the tool to take it apart. So we pulled that off this is i believe kind of like an accumulator um. They have safeties built into these guys.

I already pulled the bolts. So this guy should pull off yep and then when we rotate it it's hitting it's hitting something very interesting too because i sealed this right away. So there's still refrigerant coming out of the oil. I don't know if you guys can hear it when i turn it it's still hissing it's interesting so we're gonna keep pulling this guy apart and see if we can get down into it and figure out exactly what's wrong with it as far as the oil goes.

I pulled out 36 ounces. I mean it's a little discolored. We're gonna have to let it sit for a while to see what's in the oil looks a little bit low all right as far as in the sump. It doesn't look bad.

There's not very many metal shavings okay um. But when we look down in here. This oil is severely discolored really bad. It's very very dark almost borderline like burnt which we know the system was overheating right when it comes to the pistons.

I don't feel any wrist pin. Play. I mean everything seems to be fine with that they're still moving. But look at the discoloration.

I mean severe discoloration on that and then look right here so. The reeds are still intact. But look at the discoloration severe overheat inside of this guy severe overheat all right. I went ahead and uh pulled the thermal overload to see if i can zoom in.

But this guide clearly been tripping on thermal. See the contacts on the thermal overload are pitted so this guy was doing its job. It's just the customer wasn't doing their job of maintaining their equipment. And you see the shape of that refrigeration oil.

It's black and there's like sludge in it it's super thick. So that's not good and look at the discoloration in here. How dark it is like it kind of wipes off. But it's horrid that's bad that is no bueno not good it's gonna be hard to get it on camera.

But i believe there's a bearing right here right under here and uh it doesn't sound it sounds metal on metal and i realize refrigeration oil should be in there you know when it's running and everything. And it should be lubricating everything. But it just doesn't sound right in there too and i'm i'm curious too if we were bypassing on pressure relief right there even though. It wasn't that high it's almost like it had been tripping.

I think i'm trying to remember what that's called it might be a tod. I can't remember. But i believe that that was bypassing and that would make sense too because dirty condenser bad. Condenser fan motor going on and off on high head pressure it was 100 degrees outside.

It's probably been like that for a day or two and it just kept tripping. The thermal overload is what i'm thinking happened because once i tried to reset. It you know it ran for a few minutes making a ridiculously. Loud noise and then just tripped on thermal again and like i said you can see the thermal overload contacts have been tripping too so well i came back to follow up and this thing is iced up what the heck man the whole coil's iced up so we're gonna jump on the roof check the defrost and see what's going on with that all right um.

So we come up here to the defrost clock between one and in we should have 208 volts and we do so that means. The clock is powered and the green light is on on the clock you may not be able to see it. But the green light's on and then right now it's in refrigeration mode. So you should have power between four and n.

There we go. But the thing is is that when you click it into defrost. It pops right out of defrost. It just clicks out like the limit switch is keeping it from coming out of defrost.

So if we go between two and x or one in x. We have power coming from the limit switch back up not allowing the unit to go into defrost. So i just turned it off. And what i'm going to do is remove the x wire.

Which is the purple. One that's the defrost termination limit switch wire. So if i remove that then we'll put it into defrost and confirm that the you know the defrost works all right we're powered back up we're in refrigeration mode. Let's go ahead and uh click it over into defrost and see what happens here so again between n.

And four right now we have 205 volts that's refrigeration mode okay so we click this over boom now it's in defrost nn4 loses power. Okay and then we should have power between three and n. Now there we go three and in 204 volts. So we're in defrost.

So i'm going to go downstairs. And make sure all the defrost heaters are working and get a look at that limit switch figure out why it's terminating when it's totally iced up. So you have all your heaters coming to h1 and h2 that's each side of the 208 volt circuit. And i tested everything on h2.

We have current on every one of the heaters okay so that's a plus. The limit switch back there is not covered in ice or anything so i don't understand why it's terminating. It shouldn't be terminating defrost. So i believe we have a bad limit switch.

Unfortunately. None of those are available right now and they're all on back order. So we're going to have to leave this one bypass. But we got to get it defrosted first so the interesting thing is is that everything in here is frozen.

So it's like the box came down to temperature. Even the ice cream is hard and that's the same ice cream from yesterday that refroze so the box came down to temperature. But then it iced up so i think it just iced up this morning currently going through my junk drawer to see. If i can find a limit switch.

And i don't think i have one that sucks um. But on the plus side look what i found yes. Score always save these things um. When i throw things away.

So. Remember yesterday. When i was there it was uh broken on the top like it had a leak or something so we'll put that on that valve that suction service valve. I currently have uh one of the my other guys in there defrosting that walk in freezer coil right now.

So i'm gonna get that up and running and then hopefully we can get it down to temp to where we can check superheat because that's what i came back today to do was to check evaporator superheat. So so i noticed that when i got back there was a bunch of icicles hanging down right they're in there they're over there. It's because the drain's plugged up these guys in the lack of pm service. So i don't know what was the start of the freezer going down.

I don't know if it's been icing up and then the compressor finally died who knows you know there's just condenser fan motor dirty condenser bad defrost termination switch plugged up drain. Who knows what else is wrong out of curiosity. I want to see if the fan delay is bad too we have the defrost termination bypass. So i have someone turning it on at the moment all right now.

It's running you can hear the refrigerant moving through it so. The fan delay is still working. So that's a good sign so we just have the defrost termination. Portion bypassed for now it must just be some kind of a short inside switch or something that wasn't allowing it to defrost so that defrost termination.

Switch is supposed to work in the way that when it senses that the coil is too hot it terminates the defrost by sending power on that purple wire up to the x terminal and the clock. And it was doing so when there wasn't even any ice or anything around it i've seen it sometimes when it gets covered in ice where it'll do some weird stuff. But that wasn't the case so there was no reason for that thing to terminate defrost. So now we're just waiting for the fan delay to kick in and then once that happens we'll uh we'll um check the evaporator superheat well we gotta watch it come down to temp too so those two turned on.

But this one didn't fly junk open this up and see what's going on. I didn't see the wires. I had someone else doing it. But what had happened was there's a couple spots.

Where there was tape on the wires. Because maybe it rubbed out and i lifted the tape on one of those i can get it to focus here. And it uh. There it is it's shorted well actually it it broke the line.

The whole line is broken so anyways. I uh cut it shorter so it's not so long did some heat shrink splices. I'm gonna tape them up and then we'll plug it back in and hopefully this motor will work right so my super heat when i got here was still at like 20 degrees. Now granted the box is still coming down in temp.

So we want to be careful adjusting superheat when it's still kind of high in temp um. But i made a few adjustments to the valve. Some preliminary adjustments. I'm probably not going to make any more i back the stem out eight quarter turns and we're just kind of watching.

The system stabilize um right now. We're at 13 degrees. Superheat and again. I'm not going to really adjust any more than that as of yet because i want to make sure that uh you don't want it to still be coming down in temp and then be way too low when it finally you know satisfies or gets close to being satisfied.

So typically want to adjust superheat five to 10 10 degrees within box set point. So we're still a little bit high because our box set point is negative 10 um. But we're just gonna let this keep running for a bit one thing. I should point out too is that you should never adjust an expansion valve before you check the strainer.

This one has an external strainer. It's hard for me to catch that on camera. But i did pull the strainer. Just to make sure that it wasn't plugged up and we're good on that i actually did that yesterday real quick because i was just curious before i you know buttoned everything up and all that good stuff.

But so far we're looking good we're not showing any major signs of anything bad well we got the box down to about eight degrees superheat. It's about 13 degrees in here. So we're gonna leave it at that we're gonna tell him to keep an eye on it and uh next time. We're here we'll do a follow up on it.

But i'm good with this one. I'm happy i kind of question whether or not this had ever been adjusted properly that happens a lot on some of these new restaurants that i start servicing because there's nothing in the strainer. And i basically had to go quite a bit on that valve. But it's all good everything's working give them the keys back and uh tell me keep an eye on it so with the repair as big as we made on this system.

The contactors majority of the time gonna be part of that repair anytime. I replace a three phase compressor especially three phase. Okay because if you have a single phase. Compressor and you lose a contactor.

It's not going to be that big of a deal right let's just say you lose one phase of power. It's very unlikely that that's going to damage a compressor. I mean i guess there's always some weird possibility but on a three phase. However if you lose a contact point meaning that you get you know a voltage drop across that contactor you could single phase that compressor meaning delete a lag of power going to it and if you single phase.

It you can cause an overheat situation that could actually ruin the compressor. So anytime. You're changing a three phase. Compressor.

You always want to thoroughly investigate the contactor now in this situation. I more than likely think that that thing was short cycling on high head pressure and that would have been in out in out in out in out. And that would be reflected in these contact points all right now. There's always a possibility we could have gotten more life out of this contactor.

But the question is if it would have failed after and i had a brand new compressor and it single phased and ruined. The brand new compressor. How do you think the customer would feel about that and then on top of that that might likely fall into my warranty period. And then i might have to eat the labor right because i warranty my workmanship for 90 days and then the parts whatever the manufacturer warranties i honor their warranty right so i'm warranting my labor on this job for 90 days and if i didn't change this contactor and then the compressor failed.

I would be warranting eight hours of my labor basically to change another compressor or whatever. It was going to take me okay so always investigate your contactors and i highly encourage you guys to start tearing them apart. So you can understand what makes them tick. And what's going on with them.

But yeah those points are clearly corroded never jump to conclusions on these calls and always you know go through the basics right so um. I knew something was a little off because condenser fan motors running without a compressor on this particular condensing unit that i know very well is not correct okay. So i did my best to try to cool that compressor off and it's very important too that when you guys cool them like i mentioned in the video. If you're gonna cool off a thermal overload.

You need to run the water over it for a. While okay. If you understand how deep inside that motor that thermal overload is it's it's very very deep okay. So this is inside that compressor right and then on that thermal overload is encapsulated in the windings right there right so this is off of a scroll compressor.

But it's the same concept. Okay so that thermal overload is overheating. And it's it's opening. And that's you know completely inside that compressor so just cooling.

The outside shell of that is not necessarily going to cool this right so you need to keep letting it run and letting it run. I mean ideally you let it sit for 24 hours. But in the situation of this video that wouldn't have helped okay. So what i think was happening was i think there was a lower bearing that was failing.

I think that was part of the sound that we were hearing. But then i also think that there was an internal pressure relief inside the compressor that was slightly bypassing too causing the compressor to go off on thermal overload high current. You know all that good stuff clearly that oil in the compressor had been broken down. It was really thick.

It was hard to explain how thick that oil was because it was just completely destroyed. That oil has a shelf life you know copeland says that they don't want um. I think. What is it 220 degrees uh.

6. To 10 inches on the outlet of the compressor on the discharge line or something. But you have to understand something that it's 220 degrees surface temperature on the discharge line inside that compressor is even hotter right and and it starts to break down that poe oil and once it's broken down. It's done okay.

It's not lubricating anymore. Then bearings are overheating. You know. It's not lubricating the the places that it's supposed to you get metal on metal action.

And it's just no good proper preventative maintenance would have prevented this service call and more than likely and i'm going out on a limb. Here we could have gotten another 10 years life out of that compressor. If not longer had the customer done routine maintenance now here's a problem when you deal with big giant conglomerate restaurant chains you know that across the country all that good stuff they take a cookie cutter approach for the most part right i deal with a lot of them and they take a cookie cutter approach so from new york city. All the way to california down to mexico up to canada hawaii all those different places other places in the world.

They do the same approach when it comes to preventative maintenance. So it doesn't matter in their eyes. If you're in the desert. It doesn't matter if you're in the cold or whatever they apply the same uh time frame.

Even if they do a preventative maintenance. You know once every six months once every 90 days or no maintenance at all okay. In this particular case. This customer doesn't do any preventative maintenance.

It's all reactive maintenance so when it breaks we got to clean it you know and that also adds another thing to it too you go out for a service call. Now this one you know whatever. But you go out for a service call and before you can even diagnose you got to clean the equipment you know it's a pain in the butt. But it is what it is right i take what i can get so we went through.

We diagnosed a bad compressor. I had another technician with me i had someone else picking up parts. So i was able to focus and stay busy instead of just sitting up on the roof. I was doing stuff right i recovered the refrigerant i cleaned the condenser i pulled the motors out i was moving the entire time.

I did a pressure test on the system to see if i could find a refrigerant leak. You know we're taking our time. And i'm thinking. And i have a methodical way of doing things so i try to be as efficient as possible when i was downstairs.

I'm thinking okay you know what i don't want to have to come up and down a bunch of times. So i'm going to put a solenoid magnet on the solenoid valve downstairs. Because i knew that way i could flow nitrogen through the system when i was brazing and doing everything that i needed to do okay take into consideration to the environment. You're working.

In now. Polyester oil is uh. It it. Absorbs moisture.

Very quickly right. It's hydroscopic. So um. You don't want to keep that compressor open to atmosphere for very long right.

And you don't want the system open to atmosphere. Now the new compressor. I didn't open it until it was time to install it but the system. I did have it open for about an hour.

It's not ideal. But i will tell you that the the relative humidity outside was like six percent. Okay so it's very very low moisture content in the air. There's still moisture in the air.

But it's very low so i wasn't really too concerned plus. I waited till the last minute to pull the the rubber plugs out of the compressor. So. The new polyester oil.

Really wasn't absorbing much moisture okay um. But you know you always want to be cautious about that stuff being careful. If it's raining going on to uh you know installing the compressor. I took my time.

I made sure that i tied up all the wires. I changed both condenser fan motors because one of them had failed the other one was gonna fail soon this particular customer agrees with me because i i'm literally as we're typing or filming this. I just got a service call at that same location for one of their acs and i guarantee you it's gonna have a bad condenser fan motor to the point because it's two hours out in the middle of nowhere. I'm gonna take a condenser fan motor and fan blade with me and and so be it if i have to return it.

But i'm going to take it with me just because the failure rate of condenser fan motors out there is insane. Because you know right now. It's not even summertime yet right it is may 5th of 2022. So it's just barely the beginning of may and it's well over 102 degrees out there on a regular right and it's going to get as high as 120 during the summer.

So imagine what the temperatures. The internal temperatures of those motors imagine what the bearings the the temperatures of the grease in the bearings in those motors is when it's 120 degrees outside. It's insane to the point that you barely get a year's life out of those motors. And it's just it is what it is okay the last thing is the compressor contactor now i really didn't show footage.

But we did change the compressor contactor. I showed footage of the autopsy after and then i tried to go the extra step and i installed a time delay. Okay because i was worried about that compressor cycling on head pressure on and off on and off on and off because the customer doesn't do preventative maintenance. Now yes.

It's the customer's problem. Yes they're the ones that have to pay for it. So why should i care well. I care because they call me out at nine o'clock.

At night. And i don't wanna go out. There at nine o'clock at night. But i have to because it's an emergency right so it's just one of those games.

Where when i have the chance. I'm gonna do what i can to make it last longer okay. It's amazing all the feedback. I've been getting from all of you it's very very cool please keep it coming feel free to send me an email hvacr.

Videos gmailcom. Leave me. A comment on the video uh interact on the video you know find me on social media. I'm on social media at hvacr videos on pretty much all the platforms at hvac our videos.

So i appreciate all your support um remember be kind to one. Another. You know i keep saying. This.

And i can't stress this enough. There's a lot of craziness going on in the world. You know and you never know what someone's going through not justifying them being a jerk or anything like that but just chill out and relax okay i i too get caught up in it and that's why i say this stuff because i have to remind myself all the time. I was just driving in the car with my kids.

The other day and some guy was trying to merge in the middle of traffic and i was yelling at him right with the windows up. But i was yelling at him. And i'm just sitting here thinking my kids are listening to me get all pissed off you know. And it's like i gotta slow down chill out and remember life's too short to be stressed out about stupid stuff okay.

I really appreciate you all uh be kind to one another and we will catch you on the next one okay.