This video is brought to you by sport'ln quality, integrity and tradition. We've got a call on two ice machines that are not working. Both of them say often have error. Messages presents so we're gon na dive into that.

But first I thought, since the bin is almost empty, you ever see what's in the bottom of an ice cream, it's nasty nasty, gritty, gross stuff, so open these guys up. This one has no water in the sump and it's dry. This one has water. It's not dry, it's interesting go right here.

It says long harvests, clear alert, interesting machine is off, let's go ahead and turn it on see what happens and then we'll do the same over here this one. It's not too dirty! That's weird! Alright, let's open this up, see what this one says: long harvest and a bunch of tea sensor faults. So let's go ahead and turn off the long harvest, we'll just clear that alert, t3 and t4 guarantee it's going to have bad sensors. So, there's no point in clearing those: it's going to turn that on see what happens if we go over here and you go to service real-time data time and tenth cannot see.

We've got bad sensors on this. One 2t3 says 302 degrees, that's not good, but the sensors won't shut it down all right. This is right here: service, real-time data time and temp, yeah, t3 and t4. Sensors are bad they're, not 300 degrees.

All right! Well, we're just gon na watch. This thing see what happens so this one started up and it looks like it filled with water. It's getting there. This one is still in a pre chill and it hasn't filled with water.

Yet, who, in for the water-filled to start before I jump to any conclusions, I'm just watching each one make a batch of ice, and this one is about to harvest it start to quick and pop, because the grades getting full of ice this one's following closely behind. So I'm just naturally watching to see what happens before I start pushing and pulling and fix something inadvertently in the real-time data. You can actually see the microphone frequency. The ice thickness Club is a microphone and it's not very high and we have a completely full grade of ice.

So that's a problem without microphone should be getting much higher, it should be have it should have harvested by now. So what we can do is do a tap test. Well, we can just manually harvest it, so I'm just going to tap on it. There we go so it's working.

Maybe it's just adjusted way too thick. Now, that's not the appropriate tap test that they want. You to do, but that's just me proving and manually harvesting it Manitowoc has a specific tap test. They want you to do.

But, okay, let's see what this one's looking like this one's, getting pretty thick too this one's registering a little bit higher yeah. That ice is pretty thick too, but we're gon na. Let the other one run, I'm just watching to see how this ice harvest how it falls off the evaporator it's gon na. Tell me a lot of information.

If it sticks on the evaporator could be dirty all sorts of things so that one just fell off and this one is getting ready to, but it's kind of sticking on there a little bit kind of having a hard time. There goes just broke three. You can see the vacuum when it breaks by looking at the top of the cubes. You can see it right there, so I'm gon na turn this guy off and we're gon na wait for the other one to dump and then we'll get our pressure gauges and we'll watch them both operate and compare the pressures.

Walter run you this, one too, is taken too long and the ice is very thick, so I'm gon na go ahead and manually harvest this one too yep. So we're gon na wait for that one to harvest and then now, like I said, we're gon na pad and paper and cycle both of our men watch the pressures all right. I adjusted the thickness just like an eighth of a turn closer on both of them started them both up. Actually, I didn't, let's turn them off.

I thought I started them both up so start them both up at the same time now and the moment that it goes into the freeze cycle, we're gon na start the stopwatch and start writing down the pressures and I've got both sets of probes right here. These top two are the left machine. These bottom two are the right machine and then we can evaluate what kind of pressures will run and it's currently about 80 degrees ambient, and I currently think that that's gon na rise, probably to about 85 degrees of a total high today. So my right side machine is about to make ice.

It ran both machines made ice. This one took about 18 minutes. This is way too long. This one took about 14 minutes, which was on the hair side of being long too.

Before I go any further, I went ahead. I'm gon na go ahead and take a lunch, but I went ahead and filled them both up with ice machine, cleaner and and running in through a wash cycle and gon na. Let it clean all the parts and then I'll pull the sensors apart, because I noticed that the water levels were kind of low and stuff, so I want to get that taken care of before we go any further. All right! We're not going crazy on this.

I'm just kind of giving it a good rinse down it cycled through I'll rinse that stuff out of there, but look at the sensors. That's not good! That's probably why my water level is so low. It was like nasty stuff on there, so we're just giving it a quick little rinse. Now that the cleaning is done just doing a couple different rinses, I got the water level, probes, nice and clean same thing here, nice and clean we're good, so we're just draining.

I ran some more ice machine cleaner through this one. What I found is is that the water filters are actually bypassed for this guy, and that's probably, why there's so much calcium in here this one didn't so much have calcium as it did just like slime buildup. So this one I just ran some sanitizer through will do another sanitizing thing once I put this back in I'm noticing that on this left machine - and I saw this a lot - the first cycle that I made that it's taken a long time for it to drop In suction pressure, in fact, the suction pressure even rose a few minutes in so you see where we started. This is suction and discharged.

So this one's dropping the last I was at 45 psi, but this one hit 52 then started to go up and linger, which is interesting and the last one. The left side took 18 minutes to make ice. The right side took like 14, and that was before it clean, so there's something something there, but I want to finish watching this cycle. I mean it's, making it it's cold, it doesn't have a hot water makes me think that, like maybe possibly something in the compressor valve, or maybe one of the cool vapor valves is leaking by.

Usually if it's a cool, vapor valve you'll see it when it's um. When it's shut off you'll see it never shutting off basically, but and the left side machine is not even I mean it's barely starting to form, frost or ice, but the right side machine has already got good ice on it and it's starting to thicken up. Usually, these machines need to make ice by the 14-minute and wipe or there's something wrong, so alright, I'm on the roof. This is a this.

Is the machine that's taking a long time and I don't have any compressor data, but I'm curious about the the valve and there, the reed or whatever, in this compressor, I'm wondering if we're leaking by so I pump the system down by turning it off. So I'm pushing in the contactor and the unit will only pull down to about 12 psi. My suction line temperatures about 102 degrees. Now, when I let go it kind of sounds like the valve in there is leaking by my suction pressures.

Rising suction temperature rose a little bit, but it's not horrendous. I would think that if it was a bad suction valve, it'd be a lot worse. We're gon na do the same to that machine, because we have a working machine next to us and we're going to test that one and see what it does all right. Let's see what this bad boy does.

Okay, so I'm going to push in the low pressure control, compressors running yeah see it's already pulling a lot lower, so this guy right here pulled down to zero psi and held when I shut it off and the suction line temperature didn't rise so see that other Compressor has got a read or something inside of it. That's damaged it's not pumping correctly. That's why we're running such a long freeze cycle on that other machine. Okay, I'm glad see.

Sometimes these things can be a pain and it takes a while to figure it out. I thought it was gon na be a problem with the head pressure control out, but actually no, it's just an inefficient compressor. That's not pumping properly. Alright, both have made ice.

I've adjusted the thickness. This one's still taken a little a bit of a long time. Obviously, and the pressures you can see it like from the get-go: they both start around 56 but then, towards the end, this one's getting low, it's you know and on the last cycle, is even worse, so this one definitely has a compressor that is going bad. This one right here is questionable because the pressures are a little low compared to the work, but I'm gon na.

Let this one be and fix this one first and then evaluate the right side. Once we get the left side fixed, so they're operating for now. Okay, we got the approval we came back today. We just got done recovering the gas recovered out just under 12 pounds, which is perfect, because the factory charge was 12 pounds.

You end up losing a lot when you're recovering with the appian machine. It loses a lot. A lot gets trapped in there, so it comes with a bunch of new stuff. We put a new check valve in.

It actually came with all these fittings right here, so we redid all this all the way up to here. I'm surprised it came with the new low pressure control too, so we got rid of all that crap we put a new suction filter, it's not a dryer. It's just a suction filter and then we're gon na put a new liquid dryer downstairs, and then we redid some electrical because the new one, the it came with a plug too, and it was shorter. So we just ran a chase nipple and ran it into there.

So we're getting ready to pull the evacuation downstairs all right, we're in the process of watching the Machine operate. We already vacuumed it charged at everything's good, the first batch. We let it throw or dump and we didn't pay attention. So this is technically the second cycle and we're currently on the third cycle.

So after the second cycle, the pressures were much better. The time was much better, but we did notice that it was a little bit on the thin side, so we adjusted it a little bit thicker and we're watching our next cycle right now so far, we're looking pretty darn good. The machine is now making ice. So here's what we have our cycles were a little bit longer by an adjustment to thicken it up in a little bit, so we're right on the money less than 12 minutes for the freeze less than a minute for the harvest.

The only thing that's off is the harvest, high side pressure and I'm telling you every single time so we're in the 70 degree range says it should be 150 to 170 and we're 142 to 133. I have never even on a brand-new machine. I always see low harvest high side pressure, so I kind of ignore that one. If you look at the suction pressure in the harvest, we're on the money.

89 psi the entire way through. And if you look at during the freeze cycle, where 252 to 35 and 55 to 38, where we're right on the money, just a hair low but yeah we're good, this machine is working properly. Now all right, we are wrapping this one up. Everything's, good machines are full of ice, so yeah they're happy ice machine calls.

They can be time-consuming, they can be stressful. There's no like perfect solution. If you, if you talk to the manufacturer first off, when you read manufacturer's instructions on ice machines, the first thing I'm gon na give you the piece of advice. I'll give you is whatever they say in the book, however long they say it takes to clean their ice machines double or triple that time.

Okay, they never publicize the true length of time that it takes to properly clean their machines. Okay, my opinion on that is: they need to be able to market these machines as cleanable in a set amount of time. Oftentimes they're instructing the end user on how to clean them themselves. So they're trying to put any information out there to make it seem like hey.

This is a better machine than the other one. Okay, each ice machine has their own weaknesses and their own strengths. They all do the same thing. They make ice.

Okay, one of them just you know you have to do these things to clean it, the other one you got to do those things to clean it. So it's really like they're kind of I don't really have a preference per se, but there's certain machines that I work on a lot. Okay, I happen to work on these Manitowoc ice machines quite a bit, so I'm pretty comfortable working on them. Other brands too.

I happen to work on quite a bit that I become more comfortable on and then, if I come up to an ice machine that I rarely work on, then of course I'm gon na scratch. My head a little bit more okay, but even when you're comfortable working on an ice machine such as these Manitowoc, these are the the quiet cube or the CVD machines. Indigo quiet cube, I think, is what they call this one, I'm comfortable working on them, but every one stall makes you scratch your head. Okay, so just because I work on them, often I tend to notice, like I mentioned in the video that no matter what I always see low head pressure in the harvest cycle, always okay and in the beginning, I've chased this problem.

I've chased it. I've called the manufacturer, my head pressure's low. Well, it shouldn't be change. The compressor doesn't fix it.

Put a new head pressure. Control valve in there doesn't fix it, so I've become very reluctant to change parts for that head pressure. You know for the lower head pressure. I kind of leave that alone, because I tend to notice that these things run fine.

They make ice great, but it can also be confusing because when you have multiple things going on, you know and you see low head pressure. You start to think. Oh man, this thing has a leak. So then you chase the leak down.

You never find it. You recover the gas you find out. It wasn't short on gas. I mean there's so many things on these okay, so just because it's published in the manual like this is how it's supposed to run.

You have to look at that and be cautious, ironically, that high side pressure, I've noticed it over multiple models of these Manitowoc ice machines. So there's the Q series there's the S models and then now you have the Indigo models and they all have quiet cubes, and I've always noticed that the pressure that's published where they should be running in the harvest cycle is always lower. For some reason you know and like I said, I've chased it to no avail. So when it comes to the high side pressure, I don't completely ignore it in the harvest cycle.

But it's just kind of in the back of my mind, like I'm, not gon na jump at it just because it has low high side harvest pressure. Okay. Now, if I see low suction side, harvest, presser and low high side harvest pressure, then sure I might dig into that a little bit more. But if I see normal operating suction pressure, then you know I might push the harvest pressure.

The high side pressure off okay and the reason why I'm talking about the harvest cycle is it's commonly known on these CVD machines, these quiet, cubed machines, you diagnose most refrigerant charge issues in the harvest cycle. They show themselves first in the harvest cycle, because when you know they require so much extra refrigerant, when the head pressure control valve opens to flood the condenser to raise the head pressure in the system to help harvest the ice off, and that's essentially what it does. These units all use some sort of a hot gas or a cool vapour refrigerant for defrost. Okay, on this particular model machine, they actually use cool vapor.

So what they do is is they have a tea on the top of the receiver and they grab the warm vapor off the top of the receiver and they backflow it into the evaporator and it helps to harvest the ice off of there. Okay, in the past, a lot of manufacturers use hot gas, and this particular one chose not to do that. There's probably a couple issues. I can you know kind of guess: it has a lot to do with having to run extra refrigerant lines, all the way up to the roof and stuff like that, but anyways again going off on a tangent here.

So you know these problems can be head-scratcher. Sometimes, okay, so just because the book says to do something, just stop and watch the Machine operate, so you notice ice machines, I'm not in a hurry. When I'm working on these machines. Okay, I dig into them.

I monitor them. I always watch the first cycle without putting gauges on her anything just to observe the Machine. You know that way. Sometimes you can get in there and you start tweaking and pushing oh.

That thickness probe looks too thick, so you adjust it before you even watch it make. And then you can't find anything wrong and you say well, it must have been the thickness sensor, but maybe there's something else going on. So don't start twisting and pulling and pushing because you can inadvertently fix a problem and not know it, and then you know or think you fixed it and then you really did it and then it turns into a callback and that kind of stuff. Okay, so looked at the machine found, you know little things like you know the the machine when it went into a harvest at first it was out of water.

Like that's not normal. You know, I noticed there was a little bit of slime buildup. So then, that led me to look into the cleanliness of the machine that water level probe that I showed in the machine had a slime and calcium on it. Well, when that has slime and calcium on it, the Machine thinks that it has more water than it does.

So that's why it was running out of water at the end of the harvest cycle. The water level probe was dirty clean that up, but again big picture diagnostics right went in there saw hey. This is what I'm thinking, but I noticed the machine is dirty. I start cleaning it, I'm not doing a thorough cleaning.

Just a quick cleaning made sure the customer was ok with it then evaluate again. Ok, ok, you know we're still having some issues here. The thickness is still too thick. Ok so start adjusting the thickness centers, but I don't just stop there.

Ok again, watching the pressures. I like to watch on these Manitowoc machines. If I don't find anything wrong, they usually have less than a 15 minute cycle. I like to watch at least three to four cycles on these things.

Ok, if you're working on like a hoshizaki machine that has about a 30 minute cycle when it's not hot, outside up to a 45 minute cycle, when it's really hot you've still got to watch at least two cycles on a hoshii, ok, they're time, consuming. There's nothing that you can rush on these things. I mean you can try to take a shortcut, but it might kick you in the butt later. So, as usual, I take my time watch the cycles put it out on paper like you guys, saw and start just evaluating.

Why is this pressure doing this? This machine is taking a lot longer to make ice and look at this trend, because I wrote down the pressures and I'm comparing it to the machine. Next to it, I can say: hey look at suction pressures. We have the same water temperature same air temperature. We assume that the refrigerant charge is the same.

Why is this machine going faster? This machine going slower, the slower machine, is running or pressure, but it starts out low, it's kind of weird you know, and that led me in to think I said it very on early in the the call you know. I think I might have something going on with this compressor, but you know I still evaluate it further. Now the compressor itself happened to be under warranty. They didn't pay for labor.

It was a manufacturer's five-year warranty on it, but I had to be a hundred percent sure. Okay, so I decided I had a hunch that there was inefficient compressor, but then I went ahead and did the valve tests now the valve test, the manufacturer doesn't tell you how to do that. Okay, that's something that I've done on my own. I'm not gon na! Diagnose a compressor just for that, but I just used the the working compressor that was doing good and compared it to the compressor.

That was suspect, and I noticed a big discrepancy when one compressor would not pump past 15 psi, but the other one pulled down to zero psi very easily. Okay, and then, when I shut it off the one that wouldn't pull the 15 slowly rose. Okay and the one that pumped down to zero didn't rise at all, and I also noticed that the suction line temperature on the one that was having a hard time pumping down that rose when I shut it off. Okay, all of that indicated to me that we had an inefficient compressor.

More than likely the suction read the little Reed flapper was loose. I mean a weak on the compressor and it was allowing refrigerant to bleed back through okay. So that's my theory. I know that we had any fish and compressor - I don't know a hundred percent.

This is suction. Reed was the problem. Unfortunately, it's a manufacturer's warranty compressor, so I have to return it to the manufacturer. I can't cut it up and you know look into it, but I suspect that if we cut it up, we'd find some some issues with the reed on the suction valve.

It would be my thought but anyways. I am NOT a perfect service technician. I do not know everything I tend to think that I'm a little bit inquisitive and I do like to take my time and make sure that everything is working properly. So if I had to guess, I think the first time the first call where I went out there and cleaned the machines and watched it operate.

I was probably there for about four and a half hours watching that machine, just monitoring it. Okay, when I went back with to change the compressor, we were probably there for about six hours, maybe just a little under six hours, and I did have another service technician, but I was letting him do all the work. So really, I was just monitoring and I just wanted to see the after-effects and you know record the numbers okay, so he was really doing all the work. I really didn't do much on that other than helped him to get stuff up on the roof.

I think he actually did most of that too. So again, I am not in a hurry. Okay, I get a lot of questions about this guy's. I run the show here I can choose to take as long as I want okay, but even if I wasn't in charge, this is how I would approach service calls.

Okay, I understand that some companies don't give you the time to do so. Hey you know. I can't control that, but I always take the proper time needed to do these right, because I don't have time to go back to this call. That's just the way I roll okay.

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