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He helps you find employees, which is a big need right now. That's biz pal org, for those of you looking for technicians and then finally, dan Foss dan Foss, is the sponsor of this particular episode, and now the man whose body odor has been deemed at ozone-depleting substance. According to the Montreal Protocol, Brian or hey. This is the HVAC school podcast and I am Brian Brian or last time I checked Brian spelled with a why that's very important, very important that you get the Y in instead of the I today on the podcast.

We are talking a little bit more about refrigeration controls through the eyes through the lens of the ERC 213. So I'm gon na warn you. This is a very long podcast where we go through all of the parameters of the ERC 213. I've done a video about this.

I already talked to Jamie kitchen about this sort of broadly, but I sit down with Johnathan Romberg who's sort of the local controls expert with Danfoss. He lives in my same area and I actually went to his house and we sat down in his home office and we went through one at a time all of the different parameters of the ERC 213. If you go in the show notes and a lot of apps, you DoubleTap the screen or there's a lot of different ways, you can get show notes. But if you go in the show notes, we've gone through and we've created timestamps for every single parameter.

So if you're a tech - and you run into the ERC 2:13 in the field or you're gon na install one, you can go specifically to the parameter that you want more information about just by going to that timestamp. But for those of you who don't do a lot of refrigeration, I think you're gon na find that this will help you understand in general, refrigeration controls a little bit better. I think it's just a good kind of step by step. Look at it.

It is going to be boring and we're gon na warn you here. This is not going to be fast-moving. We're gon na go through one at a time. Each one of the parameters and Jonathan does a great job as our guide on that journey.

So here we go Jonathan rumburak with dan Foss talking about the ERC 213 universal refrigeration control Jonathan, I are gon na go through. We've talked a little bit about the ERC 213, but here's. What I realize about this trade is that there's two different groups there's one group who talks only about application like this is how you want to set this up for this particular unit. Only application and there's another group that talks all theoretical, and so I like to one possible, bring together the theory with the practical think about this, like you're a technician in the field, the things you need to know what you're gon na need to do in order To use a universal temperature control, so we're talking specifically about the Danfoss ERC 213, because it does so many different things and so Universal in nature.

But a lot of what we're going to talk about applies to the entire danfoss family of controls, but then also to Universal digital controls in general. So obviously the particular codes and numbers aren't going to apply to everything out there, but the concepts will, and so this is not going to be easy. Listening Jonathan and I were talking about how we gon na cover this and use this kind of realize that this is gon na be a little heavy. But if you're out in the field, if you're driving to a job and you're gon na be working on a just, don't fall asleep, don't fall asleep when you're driving that's a good point, especially if you're working with Danfoss controls.

This is gon na, be a good refresher for you of how to set them up in the different considerations and different factors when you're doing this so first off Jonathan. This is the first time you've been on the podcast to do a quick introduction of you and what what you do with Danfoss well Brian. Thank you. I am the Account Manager for the Southeast, United States and what I do for Danfoss has helped contractors and distributors maintain their knowledge and their ability to maintain our products and install our products to make it easier to do business with so I'm out there beating the Pavement to help you guys making it easy to install products, one of which is what we're talking about today.

Here is the ERC 213, which is a universal temperature controller that we've put together. We've got these out there in the thousands of millions, probably and a lot of pieces of equipment through the OEM community. Now we've created one for you, guys, that's universal, so it has the ability to be installed in a cornucopia. That's the new word of it.

Is it a coffee or a cobia, we'll make sure to use applications so that we can have a device on a truck that really fits the need when you need it? So that's what we're trying to do yep. So this is the type of controller that you can stock basically, and you can stock it on the truck use it in a wide range of situations. I did an installation of one of these on a reach-in freezer that was having a cornucopia of different issues. One of them being so, if does you out there playing drinking games, not while you're working, but if you're at home listening you can listen to the word cornucopia and every time take a shot so out in the field we installed one in a reach-in freezer.

That was having issues that we resolved, but one of the issues was it had erratic defrost. It already had an electronic digital control, but it was not, in my opinion, a very good control, not a very well-thought-out control in this particular product. So it wasn't one of the big controls out. There was a sort of a strange off-brand control and it was just doing all kinds of crazy stuff exactly so by replacing it with the ERC 2:13.

We have a good amount of confidence that we're not gon na. Have any issues one thing to mention before we go on probably the best application for the ERC 213 out? There is replacing old electromechanical controls. So if you have a freezer, especially if you're running it in a varied environment, so you're in an environment where you have a pretty wide range of load conditions, you're gon na be loading it and unloading it regularly. That's where having some digital control, where you have a higher level of accuracy and some additional options with defrost comes in really handy, so I think that's a great application for it.

So, let's start by talking about just the basics. What can this thing do? What is it designed to do? First thing I want everybody to have access to is on their smartphone. They can download the cool code with a ke ke, o LC OD e ku code, and it's available at your local Android Play or iPhone download, and what this application will do for you is give you the cornucopia of all Danfoss evaporative controls how you set them Up what the parameters are so you've got something like a little Jiminy Cricket in your pocket to be able to set this to be a conscience yeah exactly the ERC controller is was designed to do temperature controlled defrost control and energy management and protection services. So talking about the ERC today we're talking about the ERC two one: three: there is an existence in the RC 2, 1 1 and a 2 1 4.

But today we're talking about the 2 1 3. The difference is, is the amount of relays that the controller? Actually, houses 2 1 4 will have 4 relays. Atul 11 will have less. Obviously it's a single relay output and the 2 13 has three relays.

So we hit the sweet spot of what's out there and the majority of the product with Universal ERC, 213 controller, and so those things are, you have the evaporative fan, fan or fans, you have the compressor and you have defrost. Those are really the three primary things that most of you are going to be doing out there in the field, with the ERC 2:13 that one really output for the compressor, in that it could be controlling the compressor directly or your pump down solenoid in a cold Room has a 16 amp output rating, the rest of the output relays have an 8 amp output railing and they're powered by the voltage that comes into the controller, opposed to the compressor, which is a dry set of contacts you can bring whatever voltage you want through Long as it doesn't exceed 16 amps of current yo, this is a key distinction here, because it's a 120 volt control, 1 or 15 volt. Whatever you want to call it's under 20 volt control and so to power. The control you have to have 120 volts, but your compressor could be 120 or it could be 240, 208 whatever, because it's a set of dry contacts, but keep in mind that the contacts the relays that are used for the defrost and for the fans are fed Directly from the power for the control, and so those have to be 120 volts, which again, you can use separate relays in a lot of cases.

That is what you're going to be doing. For example, if you have a heater, a defrost heater, that's higher amperage or getting approaching the amperage of the contact rating on the control, then you're not going to want to power it straight through the control you're going to want to use a separate relay to drive It so you still have to pay attention and that's what I want to say there, and this is true of any contacts in any control that you use anywhere. You've got to pay attention. Are they dry contacts? Are they I'm doing? Air quotes here, wet contacts? I was told by an engineer, there's no such thing as wet contacts.

I use that as a way to describe the water wet just meaning that it uses the power that feeds the control and it passes it through to the defroster to the fan. So it's using control power and the main reason you got to know. That is because you can't use a difference voltage. It has to be the same voltage that powers, the controllers with the compressor.

You can use a different voltage, but always pay attention to that. You don't want to overload the control with amperage, but if you're controlling say a solenoid. Well then that's easy, because those draw almost nothing. But if you're gon na be driving say a compressor directly, then you need to pay close attention to that to make sure not to overload that, and I would suggest not even getting close.

You start to get close to the rated amperage on any set of relay contacts. I would say: use a relay or a contactor Brian, we're going to dial in to these parameters before we do that, though, I just wanted to throw out that we have key features that are part of these controllers, that you can use that are inherently built into Them one of the ones that's pretty unique, is a voltage protection that you can actually set a high and low limit for voltage that comes into the controller. To protect the equipment. It's controlling.

Should you have a high or low voltage condition occur? Also, we have our typical delay on make delay on break compressor, delay protection - that's built into it and in an additional input. That's there for the purpose of monitoring like discharge or liquid line temperature off the compressor, so we can actually set it up to also protect the outputs. Should we have a high ambient condition, occur, fan failure or something of that nature. Blockage on the condenser on the 2:13: those are the inputs all the way.

If you're looking at it from the front, it would be all the way to the left if you're looking at it from the back, it would be all the way to the right right. That's what those additional inputs coming in incorrect yeah? Well, actually, what it is! You are right that is correct. The digital input, it's actually a dual use input. It can be utilized for both contact input as well as temperature, so we have dedicated supplier and we have a dedicated evaporator for defrost termination, but the third digital input - that's on the list, is there for the purpose of monitoring or could be added additional temperature sensor For monitoring the discharge line out of the compressor - yes, it's very flexible now one thing I wanted to ask right off the bat before we start going too deep into parameters.

Is you showed me this and the only thing I know I call this a dongle. I now know that's the right word well. That would be good for the audience. If you all know what a bluetooth dongle is for a PC that'd be pretty close to a assemblance.

This is actually a USB device called a copy and it was developed by Dan Fossett danfoss product to utilize excel on a PC for the configuration parameters that you would either upload or download to the controller. So this particular device has ability to store a program or upload a program. So if you're doing multiple units, you don't have to fat-finger them directly, you can utilize this tool to do a mass download on a number of controllers and it's a single file. I imagine you just load it on there and then you go through all of them and set them all up the same way just by plugging it in it makes it easier to align the program and or once you've actually configured a application, because these applications can Be modified once we generalize the application type, we can go into each and every parameter.

Once that's done. If you get used to a common parameter layout, you can then save that into this copy key for future use and actually bring it into your computer. For storage. Call it what you want and have it for future reference right.

One thing I want to mention real quick is that the size of this and then the clips that it uses are sort of the universal size. I don't know the exact size, but it's a very common size for installation now, the one that I had the manufacturers, digital control was this enormous thing, and so I ended up having to use a dremel and actually cut a new whole front of this freezer, which Is kind of extreme, but that's the original manufacturers issue, which actually wasn't even that bad. It took us ten minutes to do, but for typical. The systems that you work on are gon na use this size control alright.

So if you want to see how to actually get into these different menus, that's best done by watching the video, because that's really hard to describe in a podcast and that'll be super boring. So we're going to jump through first just talking about the different applications in how that set up, which is super basic and then we'll go from there and move into the specific parameters. Because again the wiring on this is very simple: how to get into the menu. That's something that you just have to kind of practice, and actually Danfoss has a really good video on this.

If you look up on the Danfoss youtube channel, they have a video on the GRC 213, the it's very thorough and then the one that I did on my channel as well will show you how to go into the different menus. But let's move forward now and talk about the different applications and kind of what the thinking is there with the application. So you have six different standard applications. I guess actually seven because there's zero AB zero is that's right.

The way that you would think about this is this is how you could program they're, already pre-programmed in seven different applications, so, in other words, all the parameters are Reap reset up for you already. All you have to find out is the application defined that you want. So with that being said, we have an application 0 which has no predefined application. It's wide open, it's a wild, wild west.

You can program all the parameters in any way, shape form that you would like to do. Then we move into a medium temperature, ventilator refrigeration unit with time electric defrost. Ok, let's just go through this application: 0, no predefined application whatsoever fully open application 1, which is medium temperature, ventilator refrigeration units with timed natural defrost. No electric heat just using a defrost timer built into it, which takes us to the medium temperature number-2 application, which utilizes electric defrost heater so we're using ventilated refrigeration units with time electric defrost.

Then we go into the low temperature. It's a low temp with ventilated refrigeration. With time Electric defrost that's application; 3 application for goes back to a medium temperature refrigeration unit with electric defrost, but this time we're going to utilize a defrost termination sensor and put it into the coil, followed by application number 5, which is a low temp this time. But utilizing the temperature sensor and electric defrost for defrost termination.

Application 6 is no predefined application, but it has a simplified list of parameters or our parameter data in there. So 0 & 6 are pretty much open, but if you want to get in and out on a project fast, that's why we utilize applications one through five, okay, so you're, essentially just saying refrigeration, meaning medium temp, cooler versus breezier versus freezer type of application. Right and generally speaking, you're not gon na have a cooler that has temperature defrost plus a defrost heater. That's not gon na be normal, but there is an application and therefore that in general, you're gon na find yourself in app.

One is gon na be a really common one and then app. Five is also going to be very common, because when you have this control, it comes with both sensors anyway. So I don't really know why, unless you literally couldn't get the sensor run in, why you wouldn't go with that five, if you have a freezer application, because that's a big part of the benefit of the control it's to get in and out fast utilizing the parameters That are set so within minutes of putting controller in, we can define number one. What type of temperature sensor are you going to have with the unit whether it be the one in the box which is 10k or do you have 1000 ohm, ten thousand ohm? Five thousand ohm, once you define what you have pre-existing or if you want to use the sensors that come in the box, the two 10k utilize them set that up then, as we're talking about here, the application.

You pick out the application that you want turn the controller back on and it's ready to go predefined setpoint already placed in there. So just need to change your set point. Should you want to modify the setpoint and that's all that's to the installation. So that's really! The ground level of an installation of a 213 now the today's session is going to deal more with, let's customize this and understand what these parameters mean a little bit more detailed, so that we can understand the feature sets that make up this controller got it.

So now we're gon na get into the nitty-gritty, as they say in one of my favorite movies, nacho libre all right understanding that we make two units: one 220 volt 115 volt understanding that the sensors that we use can either be temperature, which are the two that Come in the box 10k or multiple to different variations, one thing to point out: Brian is: if you're using a 10k sensor, all sensors in the controller need to be 10 km. I was gon na mention they, and this comes in weird match yeah. This comes in where, if you have a freezer, say and you're wanting to add temperature defrost to it, and you didn't previously had temperature, defrost and you're wanting to use the factory sensor and the other sensor, the previous box sensor isn't the same. Then you're gon na have to replace both sensors at that point, but it comes with both.

So it's not the end of the world. I that's exactly what I ran into and the one I was working on is. I ended up using both of the factory sensors, which there's some value in that anyway, because then at least you've got new sensors that aren't gon na have any weird issues. The sensors that you do have the ability for inputs are supply air for the control of the air temperature.

What we call s 5, which is the sensor that actually would go into the coil for defrost. We call a defrost sensor for defrost termination and then we have a DI one that it's dual purpose. You could use it for a temperature sensor or you could use it for a digital dry contact input when you're using it as a temperature sensor. It becomes the condenser sensor, so the sense what we talked about before on discharge can be utilized, then to do safety shut down.

Should you have high temperature and you're able to set the setpoint up for that parameter which we'll talk about here in a few minutes on the condenser sensor, though, where would a technician generally put that sensor in the condenser when you put it on the discharge line, We put on a liquid line: where would they generally locate that the preferred or recommended spot would be on the liquid line? The discharge line of the compressor, because that's your best understanding of what the temperature we're trying to maintain? No more than 225 degrees discharge temperature. Typically speaking, right so close to the compressor as possible, but you would strap it on the discharge line of the compressor okay discharge line of the compressors close to the compressor, as you can on the discharge line, that's correct got it makes sense, and actually that is An under represented measurement and a lot of refrigeration and air conditioning is technicians taking that discharge line temperature because it actually tells you a lot about how that system is running and that you're not gon na. Obviously, when you go over to 25, you run the risk of damaging it now. One thing I want to point out to everybody out: there is that use these temperature sensors.

It's usually a zero to five volt DC signal and you can pick up electrical noise. So caution should be noted not to run these things next to 460 lines and things that will cause a lot of induction and caused problematic issues. So you want to keep them somewhat away from high-voltage lines if at all possible the distance, the cable within 10 meters. So long cables should try to be avoided if at all possible, moving forward on that, whenever you're using a voltage based sensor, you have to be careful distances.

You have to be careful of noise. All that we talked about sensor type. We talked about predefined applications. These are all grouped under configuration in the menu.

We have basic groups of parameters, we grouped them by letter and once you understand one you'll understand all of Danfoss is programming controllers, so we have a CFG which is configure. We have an R small R, which means thermostat function, which is typically set point, or it may be differential things of that nature. We'll go through that a four-alarm d for defrost f for fan, control C for compressor and then, in addition to that, we have o for others, which is defined as specifically special functions, and we can talk about that here in a moment p for polarity. That's the way it receives it on a digital input and, U is for how we read out everything in status, so its values, temperature value or contact closure, value, 1 or 0.

If you will, on or off, if you will and so forth, from the top of the list after you've got the configuration we're looking at thermostat, which is the lower R R 0 0, is really not a parameter that you would typically plug in, because it's what The setpoint is so it's what you see on the display when it fires off, but it actually has a parameter: R. 0, 0 R. 0. 1.

Your differential and differential is defined as the difference between the cut in and the cut out of the compressor relay. If you well so, essentially the degrees of differential minimum set point limitation. Maximum set point limitation will lock you in the actual set point. So you have the ability to avoid anything too low or too high, make sense on the parameters, and that's one that often text won't set but makes a lot of sense to set.

If you're putting this say in a restaurant or somewhere that you have staff, who has the possibility of messing with the set point? And you don't want that. That's a good thing to set up off set, let's say, for example, Brian, that you're not reading exactly this exact temperature. With your electronic thermometer, we actually have the ability to offset the actual displayed value if you will so that can dial that in. If there's some wire distances that added resistance to the wire that made the display an improper to what you're reading.

How does that make that difference than calibrating the air or defrost sensors themselves, though? How is that different? Well, basically, this would be on a sensor by censor. What you see is the ability to adjust the display offset, and the display offset is a correction value in the display temperature. If the temperature of the products and the temperature received by the controller are not identical and also to adjustment of the display, temperature can be carried out under the menu code. What you just asked me, though, is yes, we do have the ability to calibrate the supply air temperature directly.

We can calibrate any of the one sensors that we pull into here all right, but understand that what you see in the display, it also can be adjusted. So everything can be dialed in to accurate temperature reading yeah. So for you guys that have Celsius in the north or Fahrenheit in the South, we can do both of those. We have a display ro5, so we can do Celsius or Fahrenheit.

That's very important. Ro9 is the calibration supplier sensor we talked about, and that can be up to 20 degrees. Of course, I don't think that you'd ever need that much if you're making that much of an adjustment. I think it's time to take the lace, or maybe your connections.

Our 12 is defined as the main switch and really what this is is it's like a software switch. If you will to turn the controller off, it's not a power switch. It's a controller switch such that. If you wanted to change applications, you turn the power switch or the main switch our 12 to an off condition.

We now can change the application because it cannot be changed while it's processing, if you will okay, so it Holtz the program, essentially internal of the controller, so you can make some changes now in there is a pretty nice feature. One of the feature sets of this controller is we have 0 for off one for on and negative one any idea what that negative one would be. I'm gon na guess it's for service! That's correct! Right! I'm looking at you give that man a cigar. It's not a smoker.

It's a gum cigar and from my understanding you might have a whole box of those laying around right. Yes at home at home. Yes, negative one allows you to override the outputs for diagnostic purposes. You got that right.

So, essentially, if you want to test your relays out to make sure they're functioning properly, you would go to negative one and go to the appropriate you value for the relay and turn it on and off in a manual function. Once it comes out of the negative one back to zero, offering one to turn back on all bets are off on the diagnostic. It goes away. We've got a few more things in temperature.

We need to talk about, and that would be should you need a night set back okay night set back is an offset temperature during the night mode so for running two different operations of set point during day versus night. This is where this applies. Why would someone do that? Because you may have a error curtain that comes out at night, so you don't really need to be running as cold a temperature there's a number of variations that you can run set points. So this provides you the ability to do so.

Thermostat reference displacement offset temperature: this is the thermostat reference and the alarm values that are shifted. The fouling number of degrees when the reference displacement is activate activation, can take place via digital input. Essentially, what this means is during the alarm when you go from day to night mode, the alarm parameters need to follow along and they'll be different. So therefore, we have the ability to bring in a dry contact closure or change.

Those set point alarm values, depending on the mode day or night. All right night setback clears mud yeah. That was awesome. That was a really good one yeah.

Thank you that one yeah appreciate it: pulldown duration, maximum duration of pulldown mode of how long it will take to bring this temperature into spec. Okay, there's a limit to that, and that is the pulldown limit. Temperature and pulldown mode is because it's saying all right. We're in this period, that is an abnormal situation, and so, during this pulldown mode, we're not gon na go in to be frost.

It's going to limit certain things so that way it can pull down more quickly, but you have to limit that so that way to extend them on the period right I'll, pull down right, that's very well done Brian! I made that up, as I went along says glad it was that's just alarming. You know what speaking of alarms. Let's talk about, alarms, good segue. Thank you, sir.

All alarms have a delay associated with them from normal condition right the amount of time that we want to wait before we generate alarm. So the value of this delay for temperature alarm during normal conditions. If the upper lower alarm values are exceeded, a timer function will commence. The alarm will not become active until the pre set time has been passed and then the alarm will generate.

So that's what we talked about and that's both the high and low alarms. The time factor is the same for both we set that in one location. So as an example, if you had a case and somebody opened it and was working in there and that was affecting the temperature, you wouldn't want it to throw out an alarm right away. You'd want to give it a little time or say someone put some really cold product and that affected the sensor.

You wouldn't want it to affect it right away. You would want it to take some time before it threw. The alarm in every case is different in the volume of the area that makes up the case would be different. So therefore, your delay times are different in different applications.

So alarm delay pulldown startup defrost 8:12. So this is the alarm parameters. This is the delay for temperature alarm during pulldown and startup and defrost. The time delay is used during start up during defrost during pulldown.

There will be a changeover to the normal alarm time delay when the temperature falls within the alarm limits. So what we're saying is we've got a special delay here, that's only in place when we're within the parameters of normal operation. So you have one that's for normal operation and you have one that's for pulldown pull down, okay or during startup or during the defrost cycle. All three of those are an exception to the normal operating right.

So then, you have a thirteen, which is your actual temperature alarm limit value that you want to generate the alarm based on that after the delays have been met. If the temperature stays above the limit for the time mentioned, the high temperature alarm is then flagged and what you're going to see is a alarm light on the display blinking with the code, a 13. And if you look at that on the cool code, you can easily determine that's a high temperature alarm. Got it low temperature alarm works also the same way a 14 you just plug in the value you want to.

Should you need a very low temperature alarm? You may need that you don't want your ice cream getting too cold there's a number of reasons to have a low temperature alarm. You don't want to exceed or damage product based on the lower-end rating. In addition to temperature alarms, we have digital input. As I was saying, contact closure, these different digital inputs can be used for a number of reasons and you can use them to alarm alright.

So you have an alarm delay for both digital input, 1 and digital input. 2 got it in addition to that. That's a twenty seven! Twenty eight on the digital inputs, a thirty seven is a condensed or high alarm limit. Now, as we were talking about digital one can actually be an analog in temperature or, in addition to a dry contact.

Closure a37 sets up the high limit for your condenser, so high limit condenser. This is actually what's coming off the compressor on the discharge line. If it gets too hot, this will then shut the system down. There's also a condenser high block limit 8:54.

If the condenser temperature rises to increase above the a37 limit and reaches this temperature limit, the condenser block alarm is raised and compressor is stopped. It is restricted to starting again until the alarm is reset manually. I got it, so we don't have the condition happen again burn out. The compressor manually you saw the condenser block.

Alarm can be performed in two ways: power to controller on and off, or switch the controller on and off via main switch. As we talked about a few moments ago, you want to be careful with that, because, obviously, if you've got a compressor say that is running a little bit on the hot side because of the way that it's load it's under or whatever you would want to be Careful because it can damage the compressor, but if you shut it off completely well you've pretty much just given up on your product until you do it. Maybe so some thing we want to be careful with power cycle. You have utilizing the same condenser sensor, the ability to lock it out or to use it to just alarm.

Okay, wow we've covered quite a few in the alarm, we're gon na move on to voltage. Ok, the incoming voltage. You don't have to use this parameter. You can leave it off if you turn the voltage protection enable on which is a 72 or in the alarm grouping that allow for this function to be operative, so you can plug in a 73 and a 74, a 73 being minimum voltage cut in and a 74, minimum voltage cut out so essentially in 73, its defined when the compressor is due to start the voltage of the power supply will be checked and the compressor will only be allowed to start if at least the given value of the parameter has been met or Exceeded where minimal voltage cut out, when the compressor is running, it will be the switched off if the voltage goes below that, given the parameter so cut in is before it even allows it to start, but cut out is while it's actually running, because your voltage will Be lower while you're under load, then it will be before you start, and so in the case of voltage cut out, you would want to set it for a lower voltage than you would for cut in.

If you were gon na use this function, I mean you can send the same, but the idea there is is that anytime, something is under load. You're gon na have a little bit of voltage drop in most circumstances, and so you want to compensate for that and then give you one more parameter in voltage maximum voltage. So, in the event that the compressor is running, it will be switched off if the voltage exceeds this parameter. So if you get too high a voltage, then we can actually and typically what happens.

Is we protect on drop in voltage? That's where you're, seeing some brownouts and things of that nature or behind it and that's what you get the best protection with the low voltage side welcome to Bryan's tooltip corner, just real quick. I'm gon na talk to you about probes using wireless probes instead of a manifold. I've talked about this many occasions on the podcast, but there's a lot of sense in using probes, especially if you're just gon na be taking a quick pressure. You don't want to release as much charge and the uei makes a great kit there's a lot to like about it.

The UE iHub smart kid there's the hub, which is the air probes there's the hub for which is just the refrigerant side: probes, the refrigerant pressure probes and the temperature probes and there's the hub 6, which is all of them together. You can find these kits at true tech tools. Com I've mentioned that several times, TR you, tech tools, comm use gets cooled for a discount, but what I like about the uei hub kit, it's got great range. The app connects really smoothly and it's nice and easy to use, and it also has passed through ports on the refrigerant probes, which I really like.

So that way you can charge or recover through the probes without having to add an additional adapter. The other thing that I really enjoy is on the air probes. They have quarter-inch metal probes that slide in and out of the duct really easily, especially if you ever work on duct board makes it a lot easier. You don't have to make a giant penetration and then, in addition to that, they lock and 92 with good, strong magnets that make them really easy to use so all-in-all a lot to like about them.

Also, I want to mention the wrs scales by uei. You can also find those on true tech tools - the wrs X scale in particular. It goes up to 330 pounds, it has a display on it and it connects to bluetooth it's the best all-around scale that I've worked with. It's the scale that I've told all my technicians, that's the one they need to use moving forward because it goes up to that nice high weight so in case you're, working commercial, refrigeration or something - and you need to put a heavy tank on it - to weigh it Out it's great for that! It's got a display on it, so that you don't have to use the app if you don't want, but sometimes it's nice to not have to look down and bend over to see how much you've added.

So it's a really good device and it's also very very heavy-duty. It's all in one. It doesn't have a separate cord or anything weird to it, so that is the wrs scales by uei and the ue iHub smart kit. Brian.

Would you like to talk about defrost today? I think defrost is probably the most popular topic of all Jonathan. I hope nobody got in a car accident sleeping on this so far, but let's go on, shall we we shall all right. So the defrost method is defined here, deal 1. If you have and there's a number of defrost, you could have no defrost, which is no or natural, which uses the natural process of shutting equipment off with no additional heat added or natural gas or electric.

So you basically have four decisions that make you have any defrost whatsoever. No, do you want to use defrost? No, you don't that's no natural, no electric heater, but you definitely want to shut off cooling and allow for the fan to continue to operate, which is another parameter, we'll talk about under fan and then, whether or not it has electric or gas heat, podcast yeah hot Gas defrost, yes, defrost, stop temp is do to in the list and do to analysts means what this is parameter defines what temperature the defrost cycle will stop the temperatures given by the evaporator sensor or the cabinet temperature sensor, as defined in menu code d-10 d-10, which We're going to talk about now, since I brought it up, is the defrost stop sensor this parameters define which sensor has to be used to exit the defrost temperature? If you don't have to temperature sensors, none would be utilized. If you want to use the air sensor, you can do that the supplier sensor under air or if you have the second sensor, installed de F defrost. We also call that s v but anyway, that is the sensor in the coldest part of the evaporator.

So, let's mention where that sensor would be located while we're talking about it. So the idea here is a defrost termination sensor is to identify the coldest part of the vaporators once all fans have stopped operating and so forth. So this would be closest to your metering device, feeding the evaporator, where you have least amount of airflow it probably at the top of the evaporator coil, which may be an area that doesn't get as much air flow so outside of the fan. Opening, if you will would be a typical location for any selection, if you have some sort of hot gas, then that's a consideration too.

When I say hot gas, some people - I always get these emails, you're saying hot gas, but there's also cool gas. I get it. There's different types: okay, but it's basically the same idea. You want to think about where that's entering the coil to and how that's piped in, because essentially, if you imagine this evaporator coil you're gon na want to put this in the location in the evaporator coil.

That would be the last point to defrost, so if you're imagining that coil completely frosted over and it goes into a defrost, you want to put that sensor on the point of the coil. That is the very last to have the ice removed. That's where you want it am i right or am I wrong well stated. Thank you appreciate that I don't think you were listening wall state, so this is a set point of which you reach this temperature you're going to take it out of the defrost right.

We call that defrost termination generally in the trade and the biz there's many many definitions, all right, so defrost interval. What do you think what that'd be brown it'll be? The interval of defrost yep defines a time period between the start of to defrost cycles. In case of power failures, elapsed, time is stored. The memory and the next defrost will happen after completing the define time interval huh yeah.

Basically, this defines a time of the defrost cycle maximum defrost time. It was another parameter which we define as the defrost time when it is time to do the base defrost in the case of temperature base defrost. This is treated at a safety time to stop the defrost if it is not terminated based on the temperature. So, in other words, if we got a time defrosted, that's set up for every six eight hours.

What have you you, then look at the time factor of the increment, but also what overrides that would be. The t frost termination sensor if it determines that it's warm enough doesn't need any defrost. It will then disallow for the time defrost to occur. So you can look at that either way, so it's going to do it based on temperature, meaning that once it gets to a given temperature, but let's say it doesn't hit the given temperature, the target temperature and you set the fails.

We call this failsafe a lot in the trade, so you hit set the failsafe to what do they call it again. It's not failsafe. What do they call it? Defrost terminations be for us stop temperature as well snuggle, and, I believe, call that failsafe and what that means is that if it still isn't fully defrosted based on the sensor - and you set that to thirty minutes, then after 30 minutes, it's still gon na. Take it out of defrost.

Am i right, or am i wrong there if the time factor is just while you have a defrost termination sensor selected? The first process is to do that interval based on time and then the second process is qualify, whether that's required not by the defrost termination sensor to initiate the sub defrost. Second part of the defrost termination sensors ability is then to sense when the temperature setpoint is reached the warmest point to take it back out of defrost. So we have defrost stop temperature. That's what many of us call the defrost termination temperature.

This is the temperature which its gon na come out of defrost within that coldest part of the evaporator coil right. Yes, okay with me, there defrost interval that's the periods in between defrost. It doesn't even think about going to defrost until you hit those intervals right. That is correct.

All right, then we have our maximum defrost time. So at that point, if we get to say 30 minutes, which is the default value on this, if you get to 30 minutes, it doesn't matter whether or not that sensor is saying that it's time to come out of defrost or not it's coming out of defrost Is correct: got a safety time stop right, and we would call that the failsafe for a lot of people call it the failsafe got it. Sometimes. You just have to kind of interpret these different terminologies.

Absolutely it's! Why we're doing this all right so now we're on. Do five, which is defrost delay a powerup parameter, decides the time offset when the defrost is triggered by digital inputs or during powerup. So two things can effectively Commission this to operate and that would be a delay at powerup or dry contact closure on a DI point. The function is only revelant if you have several refrigeration appliances or groups where you want the defrost to be staggered, so that are not pulling high amps all at the same time.

So just an extra parameter to work with. In the event, you have multiple, what you wouldn't want is power to be off power to come back on and then have a whole bunch of systems. Doing the exact same thing. At the exact same time, yeah the inrush would be high and it cost a lot of additional utility dead cost trip delay all right.

That's the delay set once we're going through a defrost after the defrost heater has been heated up. It's generally provided to ensure all the water droplets on the evaporator have dripped off, so we don't refreeze them right, so this is defined as the drip delay. The fan delay after defrost, so the fan shuts off during a defrost cycle, unless it's told not to do so in a natural defrost cycle, but right for every day use the fan would shut off, and then this defines how long the delay of the start of The compressor and then how soon the fan then would start back up the idea there is to absorb all the heat out of the evaporator from the defrost heater prior to circulating that back in the cold room. You come out of defrost, so you're done with defrost.

If you set the drip delay where the compressor doesn't even come back on until a certain period of time, so you come out of defrost the heaters shut off, the compressor doesn't even come on for a certain amount of time. Then the compressor comes on. Then you start your do7 fan delay after defrost, so that way you don't blow a bunch of water straight that coil and have snow all over the place as well. That's another reason for that: if I'm not mistaken, it allows for proper draining fans start temperature.

This is only applies. The evaporator temperature sensor is actually fitted, so we've got to have a defrost termination sensor in place in place. They keep calling different things. Evaporator temperature defrost termination, there's all sorts of different names here.

In our case, let's call this defrost termination sensor. Just to be general, it's okay, because everybody understands that all right, the parameter determines what the evaporator temperature should be before the fan should come back on. Okay, so if the time set in do7 occurs before the temperature and do eight, the fan will start and do seven. It's gon na go based on time unless you set a temperature as well, and then it's going to be based on time and temperature.

Correct so fan delay after defrost, we talked about fan start time. We have the fan, start temperature, which was what we defined as if we have a defrost termination sensor when the fan will allow to come back on after a certain period delay. Also, what can factor in there is if we can actually measure the evaporator temperature, and it still is above a certain temperature. We can limit the fan operation until it drops below that temperature, so fans start.

Temperature is dependent on our defrost termination sensor to make sure that our temperature does drop down before it comes back on right, wow. That was great okay fan during defrost. Okay, the fan during defrost parameters define whether the fan is to operate or not operate during the defrost cycle. So obviously it's only gon na operate if you're, using natural, defrost, cooler, refrigerator type of application, and in that case the prior two parameters are senseless.

Brien defrost stop sensor. You can configure it for many different things. D-10. Is the configuration parameter and we are talking about having it not used or de F defrost? Are the two decisions made your defrost stop sensor? If you're gon na use this parameter it's to define which sensor was going to be used for defrost monitoring yep.

So if you have an S, 5a defrost sensor then use that one and the other option would be use air or don't use anything. That is which would only make sense if you are only doing time defrost we have a parameter called D 18. It's called compressor accumulated, run time to start defrost, so won't allow for defrost unless we have an accumulated run time time clock so, in other words, the compressor has to have a run time for a certain period of time before it allow for defrost to start when The accumulated run time has occurred, it's equal to the value that in this parameter the defrost will be triggered. If the compressor run time is less than the set value during the defined interval, defrost will be triggered based on defrost interval.

This feature is disabled when the parameters set to zero. Let's just say you want to defrost on a runtime value only right, that's where this would come into play, because it's going to take preference over the interval, so you could set the interval to something really high and then just base it on compressor run time. This would be in a circumstance that, where you have a unit that it doesn't really require that much run time in order to do the job so based on sizing or based on usage, it just doesn't require that much run time. You wouldn't want to necessarily have all of these defrost, but again some of this stuff is redundant because, if you're looking at temperature anyway well, then that becomes less of a factor, because if you're looking at temperature for defrost, then it's more accurate, yeah, that's gon na, Be more accurate but let's say you don't have a defrost temperature sensor, then using accumulated run time may be a better method.

The challenge with accumulated run time is that you've got to really know your piece of equipment and most of us understand. Defrost interval. Very few of us understand accumulated run time, so you're gon na have to have that extra bit of knowledge there to know what is an appropriate amount of accumulated run time to initiate deef and as the humidity changes in Florida, it can be varied based on the Time of the unit, so there's a lot of factors playing party to it. Yep yeah all right, so I'm gon na actually add this in, because when Jonathan I were going through it, we understood the basic principle of defrost, on-demand d-19, which is essentially that it uses an algorithm to calculate when it's time to defrost and it goes into defrost.

On demand based on the algorithm, but the problem was - is that the instructions weren't really clear on exactly how it did that, and so I spoke to several engineers within danfoss and then I finally got this kind of full report on it. It's very technical, how it does it, but I can give you the basic overview and then I'm going to read through what they actually sent me and so the basic overview of defrost on demand, which is d-19 in the ERC 213, is that what it does is Is it looks at the previous three times the unit cycled off so the previous three times that it actually achieved setpoint and its comparing the s5 sensors, so the coil sensor to the air sensor essentially, and so it's looking at all right, it's satisfied and so the Set here and here's the temperature that the coil was when it's satisfied, and so it does that for three times when it cycles off and then it's comparing that average to what the actual coil temperature is because the more ice you build up on an evaporator coil, The colder it's gon na get lower, the temperature is gon na be, and so when it sees that that coil gets X, number of degrees colder, then it's going to initiate a defrost and so depending on how you set that setting, which is anywhere from 20 to Zero, I think, on the Kelvin scale, depending on how you set that setting that's going to dictate, and so, if you set it all the way up and then it's not gon na do anything. So it says the way that it says it is Wendy. 19 is set to 20, the function is switched off and the defrost interval will be determined by the parameter.

Do three interval between defrost starts? So that's time initiated defrost and the receive setting overview. This value is six hours which is in conformance with the typical settings. So that's six hours would be a common interval to do a defrost, but if you set anything different than 20 then this is what it will do and I'm just going to read this after successfully completed defrost sequence with a successive pulldown of the air temperature, the S5 coil temperature will be registered at that moment when the cutout temperature of the thermostat has been reached. So when it shuts off it's going to measure that temperature of the coil, this will be repeated for the following two thermostat cycles and an average temperature gradient between s5 and the thermostat cut-out value will be calculated and stored for future calculations.

And so then, it goes on to say that essentially it's gon na do this a couple different times and it's gon na kind of keep watching in and keep adjusting the algorithm until it figures out. Where is the exact best time to set that in so when you're setting it? What you're setting is how large of a slide the s5 temperature will be allowed from that average temperature? So if you were to say to set it at 10 degrees, then it would wait until that coil is 10 degrees colder than that last set point temperature, so there's still some human interaction with it. I think it's not going to be a real common, that you would use this defrost on-demand function, but there may be applications for it. It's just another way of helping to ensure that if you have a excessively cold coil, which is indicative of abnormally iced coil that it will add in an extra defrost in order to take care of that.

So that's what it's for, if you're, having a lot of trouble with a particular unit because of some may be intermittent somebody leaving the door open or whatever the potential causes could be. This is another way for you to add an additional defrost.