Right thanks for joining us today mateo hey great to be here brian. Thank you you yeah so we're talking about a subject that i find really interesting. Which actually real soft start technology not stuff that people call soft start and so matteo reached out. And i've been kind of following microair for a while and so.

This is going to be pretty cool to start with though mateo if you wouldn't mind just introduce yourself a little bit kind of your background and and what you do absolutely um. I am a an electrical engineer. And i have been for uh over 35 years now i started off working in the i've always been in product development started off working in the northeast for the old digital equipment corporation making hard disk drives believe it or not back in the day when the biggest. One we were making was only four gigabytes so now you really know how old i am and uh time went on i eventually ended up moving to florida.

Which is where i am now and i have worked the past 20 years plus years in the marine air conditioning industry and now in the residential air conditioning industry. I worked for dometic corporation. The manufacturer of the cruise air and marine air marine air conditioners who those of your listeners who own boats will know exactly what i'm talking about since they pretty much own the world market and we i was working in the engineering department. And we were manufacturing hundreds of air conditioners a day so through osmosis.

I learned a lot about air conditioning. And now. I actually have all my own equipment and go out on the weekends and do service calls for people like your techs do and so i have a real good hands on appreciation for the for your audience. And what they do all day every day.

So anyhow the microair the company that i now consult for i became a direct employee of in 2012. And that was when we developed the easy start microware is the was the strategic still is the strategic supplier to the marine air conditioning industry and that they make all of the thermostat controls. So microware has a big tie to air conditioning in general and easy start the soft starter was initially developed from marine and now has migrated into the much larger markets of rv and home. And that's really where it found its fame.

So i was one of the original development engineers for easy start when it started and now i am in a consulting capacity. The sole continuation engineer. I did all of the most recent developments and all the changes including the bluetooth hardware and firmware and apps. That were introduced in 2019.

So the buck stops with me when it comes to this product. Awesome yeah. And i know the techs always get scared when they hear engineer. But uh.

You know hey mateo can use tools. Too. So. It's.

Oh yeah. I'm uh one of the most hands on engineers you'll find like i said. I have all my own stuff. I can braise fairly well i have home you know torches vacuum pumps recovery pumps.

I just was buying freon last week because i ran out and i have accounts at all the local supply houses. So i'm i hope that your audience can appreciate my connection to what they have to do all day every day all right. So let's jump into the micro air. Easy starts talk a little bit about that product.

What it is and what it does all right so the micro or easy start is a soft starter not a hard starter which we will talk about later because we do a little contrast. Because that's one of the very common questions. So what is a soft starter. A soft starter is a device that has been around in the commercial industry for decades.

And what it does is it electronically ramps up the voltage. And the current to the compressor motor or any mode. Any single phase or three phase motor for that matter to gently ramp it up as opposed to abruptly attempting to start it with all of the force behind all of the power from the utility or from whatever source. It is so a soft starter is kind of the opposite of a hard starter.

It is a gentle ramp of the compressor motor in order to eliminate that very large spike that occurs whenever. A compressor motor or any motor uh starts up the so called lock rotor amperage. Which i'm sure your audience is very familiar with so the easy start accomplishes this through all of its very sophisticated electronics. It has semiconductor devices that it uses to throttle the voltage and the current to the run winding and the start winding separately in order to accomplish this and we'll get into that more later on easy start was of course designed for air conditioning compressors.

But it also has been applied to other motors easy start is only for single phase motors we microwave does not manufacture a three phase version although they do exist in the market. The single phase application of course is much more prevalent especially in the home air conditioning market in the marine and rv markets. So that's where easy start was focused so the models that exist for the easy start are as follows. There are basically two the first model 364 is the small model that is found great favor and huge popularity to the tune of upwards to 70 000 units.

Now in the field in the primarily the rv air conditioning market uh. This model can support up to two and a half tons. There is a 120 volt. Only version for the rv.

Customers. And then there's a the 240 volt. 50. 60.

Hertz version for uh for obviously for residential and commercial applications. Up to two and a half ton um. The enclosures for easy start just to note. And we can talk about this a little more later our weatherproof ip65.

The good thing about that is is when you install it may not always have room in the electric box to fit it so if you have to put it on the outside of the unit exposed to the weather and the sunlight it'll be fine it also has uv resistant plastic as well the model 368 is the larger model that does uh there are two sizes one for three and four ton and then one for four and a half ton all the way up to six ton which is the largest single phase compressor that's available on the market typically the largest one that your listeners would run into would be a five ton. But i have installed an easy start on a six ton pool. Heater condensing unit. At one point with a massive 180 amp lock.

Rotor and uh. It's still working to this day. So easy start uh 368 can handle uh units up to that size and worth noting because we do a lot of a pool heating equipment in in my business. And i'd like to talk about bull heating.

A lot. It was actually one of the things early on that kind of we did to sort of fill in the winter and those are some of the worst locked rotor components that you've got because like you mentioned they're huge compressors uh and unbelievable. Yeah and so having something that's going to help you know even even for just things as simple as dimming lights and and that kind of thing uh. But also just for the the longevity of the equipment.

It makes it makes a big difference and we'll talk about that obviously yes absolutely and in fact we'll get into that right now the customer that for which i put the easy start on for the boolean heater. Did want to be able to run on generator in the event. A hurricane came and took out his power. So you know he i guess he really wanted to enjoy his pool under those conditions.

But in any event. Here are the main benefits two of which you've already touched on two very important ones. The primary benefit of easy start is to eliminate that in rush and that locked rotor surge. So that now your air conditioner.

Which would not have been able to start up on a limited power source like a generator or solar inverter on a home can now succeed. In doing so the best example. I can give is the uh back at the rv application a lot of rvers. Most rv air conditioners are no bigger than 15 thousand btus a lot of air rvers love to carry that little honda eu 2000.

Now eu 2200 red portable generator that generator has enough to run that air condition those rv air conditioners but not enough to start it so easy enter easy start. And it now took a situation that didn't work and makes it work very reliably and that's that you can size up to a home application. Where now you're dealing with a standby generator on a house that's not quite big enough to start the air conditioner at easy start. And now you can we have several solar contract companies that install easy starts routinely on every air conditioner on the home whenever they do their solar installations and their battery backup systems be them from tesla or from other brands that have battery systems with inverters for home.

So. That's the big benefit right there. Now the the other thing uh that you can do is if you don't have a generator the you've mentioned it on utility power. Sometimes that can be a problem.

Especially. If the utility power is limited or there's dilapidated electrical wiring. Things of that sort this happens a lot in the marine industry on old boating docks. Where the wire at the end of the dock.

Is without is a hundred feet long and rusted out or in the rv in the in the parks. It's the same issue homes have that to a less degree. But it's still there now with easy start that surge that occurred when the compressor starts no longer causes the lights to dim or the ups is for your computers to start beeping or other electronics in the home to be affected. Because that surge and now that huge current demand is gone which would have caused a momentary drop in voltage.

So if you do have a situation where you've got a generator that let's say that's already large enough to start your air conditioner. Adding easy start can help you there as well. Because now. You won't have to power manage quite as strictly.

When you're operating off grid. So you can have more appliances in the house. Running and so when your air conditioner goes to start up. Which you typically don't have control over directly.

You just let your thermostat cycle. It as needed now you won't have to worry so much about making sure everything else is off. When your air conditioner goes to start. So.

There's a benefit for homeowners. As well who might already have a large enough generator and then last. But not least the other benefit you mentioned on utility power. Which is where you're going to be 95 percent of the time just the simple act of soft starting a compressor will most certainly extend the life of that compressor the mechanical and the electrical stress endured by a compressor motor when you're hard starting it repeatedly day in and day out definitely deteriorates the windings and the motor and the compressor mechanics soft starting of course pretty much eliminates that stress and so now you can expect a compressor to live a whole lot longer and give a much more effective uh life uh for as long as the unit is is in use so that's a great benefit.

There it's such a mindset shift. And this is the big thing that i want to i want to talk about in terms of what we think we're doing in order to help a compressor. So many people have been selling hard start kits or what they would call soft starts. Which is really just what when a lot of people say soft start.

They just mean a really crappy heart start um. They've been selling these for years and calling them compressor savers of some sort and they always had this thought well the goal is to get the compressor running as fast as possible right. It's the exact opposite of what we're saying here. But that's because we couldn't throttle.

The current and the voltage and especially we couldn't throttle. The current the voltage to both windings. I talk about this all the time where we get so confused about what we're doing with the start winding. We're always focusing on the start winding with hard starts.

But really the run winding uh is is where the majority of the current is taking place in a typical single phase piece of equipment because of the fact that you have this run capacitor. Which is greatly throttling the amount of current that the um that the start winding can see and the only thing that we're doing with a hard start is just pumping up that current that that uh that that start winding is seeing absolutely and uh. I watched your start cap video. And that's obviously as you know what put me in touch of you i was so impressed.

Because i have had to uh explain that a thousand times. Obviously because people uh the people don't understand the difference between heart start and soft start. And it is exactly the opposite a picture is worth a thousand words so for those of you who for those of your viewers who are watching on youtube here's a graph that really captures it all you can see the how the heart start is a very abrupt high peak that lasts. Maybe 200.

Milliseconds and goes all the way up to like say 80 amps for a three ton home unit. Whereas with easy start now the startup is this gradual ramp that lasts about six to eight hundred milliseconds and tops out in the 25 amp range. Big big difference obviously now we're taking now. We're definitely changing how the motor is accelerating and dramatically.

Reducing the current required in order to accelerate and that's the whole magic of the electronics in easy start. It is jet in a closed loop fashion. It is ramping up that we're the run winding in the start winding in order to accomplish this gentle acceleration without over driving it and causing unnecessary current and unnecessary inrush. So that's really the the big benefit.

There and uh. If we go and look at a couple uh oscilloscope waveforms to go along with that graph for those of your viewers on youtube. You can see on the left. What a conventional heart start looks.

Like where there's a big high amplitude current spike sinusoidal current spike. That is uh blown up on the uh on the scope shot in that box that's highlighting it and then the blow up is on the bottom whereas on the right you see what the easy start uh ramp looks like and in this particular case. This was an rv unit that went from 51 amps down to about 13 amps peak. Which was uh quite tremendous so it's it's not night and day yeah and the thing i want to mention again and you can always correct me.

When i'm wrong because i'm sure i am at times and you know a lot more about this than i do. But the thing that so many technicians have been doing for all these years when they take their meter and they you know they put it on in rush mode or whatever and they measure and they're like well this one's higher than that one and they they get really confused. Because what i think a lot of people fail to or a lot of them fail to understand is that that inrush current is really dictated by the resistance of that winding when the motor is stopped and that resistance of that winding when the motor is stopped is fixed. You know just this the truly resistive feature of that motor versus what happens when that motor starts to spin that's when you begin to generate back emf and that's when you begin to get that um inductive reactance that opposes and allows the current to drop that current drops as that motor spins up to speed.

And so unless you are actually throttling the current throttling. The voltage in an active way um. The only option you've got in order to reduce the time averaged. Current is just to make it start faster.

But when you start faster you're actually increasing the overall current. You're actually that kind of instantaneous current is increasing because you are shifting more current to that start winding. Which in turn is just a more violent. It's a more violent thing.

And when a motor is designed for it. The compressor manufacturer says hey. Here's the start capacitor that's for it and all that it's okay. But then we know things happen like we know potential relays fail.

They fail stuck and now and now start windings fail. We know that it is a more abrupt and violent motion on the compressor itself meaning. The mechanical parts of the compressor and so for all of these reasons. There's really no disadvantage that i can think of um.

And you can tell me if i'm missing something here. But no disadvantage to actively managing that voltage and current so that way you don't have this gigantic you know you don't have this gigantic spike. It is just a much slower start and when we normally think of a slower start we're like well that's bad because a slower start would mean that it's drawing higher current. But that's why this is a whole different paradigm because we're actually actively managing those things yes you're absolutely right and and i want to jump ahead to that start cap heart start comparison to because i made a nice drawing for you that i think you'll you'll like and your and your viewers will appreciate uh along the lines of what you just described.

But just to hit on that one point you just made the when the easy start orchestrates this ramp. It does so in a very very sophisticated way easy starts just to dig into the technical part of it for a brief moment without giving away any too serious proprietary information. Easy start is monitoring in real time. Both the voltage.

And the current that the compressor run winding is drawing and the start winding as well and when it goes to initiate the start it it it is it also can detect the compressor's rotation. And we do that by monitoring. The phase of the of the start winding with respect to the run winding and you talked about that a little bit in your start cap talk and we'll get into it a little bit more capacitors shift the phase of the current by 90 degrees. However when the motor is stationary that phase shift is nearly zero because initially everything's a resistor.

But once the in back emf and the inductance of the motor and the effect of the capacitor be it a run or a start capacitor comes into play. Now the current that's going into the start winding shifts out of phase with that of the run winding and that phase shift increases as the motor speeds up so easy start can detect that and we monitor. It and collect it real time in order to orchestrate this ramp so easy start applies some voltage. And some current waits for the compressor to budge applies a little bit more waits for it to accelerate more applies more and more and more and then orchestrates this whole ramp in real time in order to get it to full speed.

Which is a far cry from what happens. Under the normal oem configuration or with a hard start. So. It is truly very sophisticated device.

And that's how it orchestrates the start in order to attain these you know 65 to 75 percent start surge reduction um on average which is quite impressive and we know that slow ramp is not a problem. We've all gotten comfortable with that because we have all these inverter driven systems now that essentially do the same thing do it in a different way because now you're using you know essentially a three phase motor and you're just changing the uh you're just changing the frequency. But but we know that that's a good thing. We've experienced that so there's nothing wrong with taking a motor and starting it slowly.

We just don't want it to stay locked. So by using by utilizing. The circuitry you're actually able to like you said uh say okay now we just we're just gonna slowly. You know we're looking at that feedback from the motor and we're gonna slowly increase.

It until it gets up to its full speed uh as smoothly as it possibly can you're absolutely right. And i think the common misconception came from the fact that people were worried that with a start capacitor or a you know a heart start. Which is basically a start capacitor and a um. A switching device in series people were worried that if you slowed down that condition.

You would be over driving the start winding for too long. Which as you just mentioned if the start relay welds shut or something else bad happens you will in fact. Do that you will in fact overdrive. The start winding and that's where i think the misconception came from that doing the start for too long is potentially hazardous to the compressor not with the case that is definitely not the case with the easy start and the and a soft starter in general.

We're doing the exact opposite yes. We're extending the time at which it takes to accelerate this compressor. But we're not dumping all of the voltage. And all of the current onto the run winding and the start winding at once we're gently applying it so extending that time actually reduces the total amount of energy that you would have applied to the compressor over the course of that start.

I do get a lot of questions that people ask about will easy start save them on their electric bill and the answer is no. Although it does reduce the amount of energy that the compressor consumes over the course of that starting episode. It's such a short duration of time right less than a second that the kilowatt hours. That you would save would add up to less than a penny over the whole course of your month.

Long bill. But the the point once again is we're by extending the time. We are not applying more unnecessary energy to the windings. It's actually the opposite.

We're applying slightly less overall energy to the windings spread out over a greater period of time which in fact is better for the compressor right less resistive heating less stress on the windings of dumping all of this locked rotor amperage versus doing the opposite so taking your time starting. The compressor is not a problem with easy start awesome yeah. So let's talk through. I'll kind of let you talk through some of the specific differences between hard starts.

Wiring and kind of going into the the easy start some more of those specific details. Yes. And uh well. I got some pictures here.

I like to say that heart starts versus easy start is apples and oranges. And they really are and um. You already touched on a couple of these things. But a hard start is simply a start capacitor in series with a start relay.

A solid state device switch like a triac or a ptcr. A resistor and we'll talk about that a little bit in the next slide. So a heart start does in fact increase. Very briefly the startup amperage by funneling more current to the start winding.

But what by doing that it increases the torque on the compressor and therefore increases. The acceleration speed. Thereby reducing the overall startup. Time or duration.

Um. Hard starts were traditionally developed to help old. Tired compressors. Start.

And you alluded to that earlier and that's really what they were there for most of the time. When people have a off the shelf commercially available clamp on ammeter. The app. The installation of a hard start that momentary increase in start up current that the heart start causes cannot be captured by those off the shelf clamp on ammeter devices.

Except for some maybe some real good ones. That became available over the past few years. We in a lot of the videos that i did for microware. I had developed my own homegrown peak current ammeter that you'll see in the videos that captures that peak much better.

And you can clearly see how the heart start increases. The amperage versus having no heart start at all ryan. This is the slide that i specially prepared for you to supplement your soft start or your heart start capacitor description. Um back when you did that presentation a few months ago.

So here you can see how the wiring is done for the run capacitor. Which is shown at the very top of this little array of of devices that i have here and a lot of times you'll find that most home systems don't even have start capacitors in them. As you mentioned earlier. Some manufacturers just choose not to add one since it really provides no benefit.

But when they do they have a few choices as to what they can do and a lot of the wiring. Diagrams for home units. Will show dotted lines for where a start capacitor and a start relay or some. Other solution heart start.

Solution is optionally installed or not so. The first one of course is a start capacitor in series with a start relay and or a solid state switching device. And as you can see here the what happens during the start is the start capacitor and the run capacitor go in parallel and when you parallel capacitors uh. Those who had had basic electronic chain uh training.

Know that capacitors add when they are placed in parallel similar to how resistors add when they are placed in series. So with a larger capacitor between the runwinding and the start winding more current gets passed to the start winding during the brief starting enter a brief starting instant capacitors. I like to refer to them as ac resistors you you use the balloon analogy. Which i liked in your video.

Where you talked about how energy builds up on one side of the capacitor and passes through to the other side in the end that boils down to a term known as impedance and impedance is actually ac resistance. If you think about it in simple terms. So by adding an additional capacitor to the run capacitor you reduce the impedance between the run and the start winding during the startup. Only and then you that's what funnels more current to the start winding.

Obviously once the start is done you have to open up that relay or turn off that solid state device otherwise the start capacitor will overheat and will eventually fail. And that is the fear everyone is most concerned about when starts take too long. So that's a start capacitor with a switching device. The other uh solution that some manufacturers have implemented is using what's called a ptcr in series with a start capacitor a ptcr that stands for positive temperature coefficient resistor.

It's basically a resettable fuse. And what it is is when current will pass through it initially uh and its resistance will be very low down in the tens of ohms and then as it heats up as current flows its resistance climbs to basically almost an open circuit. So like a like a resettable fuse. It will eventually open up.

So that's another alternative way to connect any a start capacitor momentarily during startup and then last. But not least some manufacturers choose to just put a ptcr across the run capacitor. Which the ptcr behaves in the same way. But there's one critical key difference between a ptcr alone and a ptcr with a start capacitor and i'm going to ask you brian since you're a smart guy to answer that what what is that difference.

Yeah. So. When you're using a ptcr alone. You're passing um.

You're passing current that isn't phase. Shifted right. So. It's it's just you're just directly passing across the line basically pt.

Very good. I i knew you would get that right ptcrs are when the motor is stationary the fact that the phase of the current applied to the start winding is not shifted uh it really doesn't matter it's only once the motor gets rotated that that phase shift really starts to matter and so a ptcr made alone may help budge the compressor initially. But it won't do a very good job of assisting. The compressor when as it's accelerated and in fact could hurt you because now it might actually oppose what the runwinding is doing as opposed to assist it so that's um.

An important point there yeah and let me just add like when you think about a ptcr. It's just it's it's a really sloppy hammer. You know to get the thing started it's not in it doesn't reset quickly um. Which is another thing.

It has to cool down in my opinion are just they were really only used because at least you know for my way of thinking. There may be other reasons. But because they were cheap um. When you thought of the old carrier used to have a version of a ptcr start and we actually would call it a soft start that was the term that was used and i think even when you looked at the the part.

I think it actually said soft start. But is this little blue ptcr. The things which fail all the time and you would actually go in cases. Where you would have these things failed uh and they would essentially be shorted uh and it could and it could actually even cause damage um equipment start winding yeah and then you'd end up having to change the compressor because it got those star winding got burned out yeah.

And another thing i want to mention here is you know typically typically we're not using a lot of those there are some brands that still do use ptcr's and some that use them in conjunction with the start cap that those are out there. But even when you get into your your typical potential relay. You mentioned that if you have a potential relay that sticks so the actual relay contacts. Say stay stuck um.

Then that can result in start. Capacitor failure. Which is absolutely true because the start capacitor is not a an oil fill. It doesn't have that oil fill design.

So it doesn't handle the heat and so when you see them kind of explode on you that's a that's a big cause. But also during that period before that thing fails that start winding on your compressor is taking a big hit and it really is it's a bad thing. But then also the other thing we talk about all the time that is the scariest thing about your typical hard start kit is that if the hard start kit is not failed. But the run capacitor fails now you're relying on just the hard start kit and you can potentially still start the compressor where normally when you have a run capacitor fail that compressor is not even going to start now you could get the compressor started.

But now once it is started and it drops out now that compressor is really going to struggle to stay running and it's going to run. Really hot and we'll probably go ahead and ramp back down install and eventually go on thermal. But it could do that a really long time before you catch it potentially resulting in compressor failure. Yes.

Absolutely. There are a lot of hazards with hard starts that people don't realize and you know over the years manufacturers in general. I agree i don't see ptcr's at all anymore and in very rare cases. Do i see even a oem installed uh heart start potential relay with a start cap.

I don't i rarely see those now too they just go without because most of the compressors seem to start reasonably well without them. And so they don't need to even bother. I do want to kind of bring up your point. That you brought up about the um.

The old compressor that really is having a hard time starting because that is a case where i probably still would use a hard start because that's not that isn't the role of a soft start the soft start at least to my understanding isn't going to help in those sorts of circumstances. And that isn't the design. Very very good point um. Yes a hard start is appropriate.

When the compressor is old and let's say you're not attempting to run it on a limited power source like a generator or a inverter. All the more reason you're basically trying to extend the life of the compressor before you have to you're forced to replace it uh give it a little extra at the end of its life. So that's all that the heart start is really those were what they were really originally developed for and there's still many times that where it's appropriate to do that so i i totally agree so let's uh. Let's take this same drawing and just cut out the hard starts and let me show you in one picture.

And this will be uh and i can talk to these connections as well how the easy start wires in and that is without the basically if you the first thing you have to do when you go to install the easy start is remove any of those hard starts. So there's an aftermarket one installed or the original equipment manufacturer. Installed one as part of its design. You take that out or at least disconnect it and make sure.

It's no longer affecting so what in the end you end up just with the run capacitor at that point you've got four wires on the easy start uh. A black and a white which are l1 and l2. Which goes straight to the contactor output. So that's easy so there's you're halfway done.

And then the um third wire uh connects splices directly to the run winding. Now most of the time the run winding let's say it's a red wire. Which is very often times used is connected to the output. The l2 output terminal of the of the contactor.

Which is sometimes labeled t2 or t3 depending on the contactor manufacturer you're going to disconnect the run winding from the contactor. So that it is now the run winding is floating in free space and in its place is where you'll put the easy starts white wire exactly. But the now the run winding connection floating in free space needs to get spliced to the brown wire from the easy start as shown in this diagram. Here and now so that's your third connection and last.

But not least the orange wire from the easy start goes to the terminal of the run capacitor that ultimately connects to the compressor start winding that terminal is typically labeled herm for hermetic on the run capacitor. So even if it's a if it is a dual run capacitor be careful not to put the easy starts. Orange wire on the fans start winding make sure you put it on the compressor's run. Winding and uh you're done so at that point uh your wiring is all set so easy start goes in very easily probably the biggest challenge is figuring out where to put it most cases it will fit inside of an electric box for a decent sized unit.

But it's not we talked about it earlier you can mount it on the outside of the unit on the cover of the electric box since it is ip65 and uv resistant plastic so it can get exposed to the elements without any problem yeah and so one thing that i just immediately becomes evident. When you see how it's wired is that the easy start is controlling the run winding yes. And there's controlling it and there's nothing else in the market that does that because and because that's where everybody gets their heads all confused because they think that in rush that inrush current occurs on the start whining because that's the name of it right. They think well.

It's the start whining. It's that's where all the start is but that's not the case and in fact. The easiest way to prove that is just disconnect your start winding disconnect your your run. Capacitor.

And then check your current. Uncommon. Try to start that compressor and see what the current is and of course. It's going to be astronomically high that in rush current under normal operating conditions is primarily in that's in that run winding.

When you add a hard start kit. Well that also now adds additional current to the start winding as well increasing the peak. But in this case. We're really controlling both we're taking control.

But really a huge part of it is taking control completely of that run winding. Which is what gives it kind of this super power. Exactly no i'm glad you pointed that out and uh you'd a quick story. I actually have tried to start as an emerson scroll compressor.

Without its run capacitor and it worked some of the smaller ones will actually go without a star. They run terribly of course because they're not going to go for very long. But the bulk of the starting current is through the run winding as you just said and if you think about it. What are your typical run and start winding resistances 2 3.

Ohms. Something along those lines. Well guess. What a run capacitor.

That's say 40 microfarads is on the order of what is it like 50 ohms of impedance or something like that and that of course now you're saying. Oh. I've got a 2 ohm path. And i've got a 52 ohm path.

Which one am i going to take the bulk of the current is obviously it takes both. But it's parallel resistors right the bulk of the current goes to that run winding during a hard start. Yeah. And all you have to do is just just take a take a current reading on your start winding sometime when the system's running this is what you know blows my mind nobody ever does this.

But just do it see what it is and then take a current reading when it starts so so put it on your inrusher setting on your on your nice expensive meter and and put that on your uh on your start one and just see what it does and what you'll notice is there is no inrush on the start winding the the uh. If you don't have a hard start kit. The inrush is all on that run winding and that's why something like easy start. It has to take control of the runwinding in order to control inrush in order to keep that initial torque low in order to ramp it slowly exactly in the uh installation video.

I did i you can actually see in the brief delay that easy starting parts before it actually ramps the run winding. You can see the amount of current flowing through the start winding because obviously that run cap stays in circuit. Even with easy starts not orchestrating the start. And it's only about two and a half amps on a on the three ton home unit that i demonstrated obviously once things get going then the bulk of the current that is required to start upwards to 25 to 30 amps uh went through the runwinding.

So yeah. It's uh. It's not common knowledge that the of what you just said the start winding takes very little current compared to the run winding all right moving on uh just a couple things about easy start that i want to point out and then i want to talk about some of the protection features to kind of dovetail into what we just talked about how bad things can happen. When heart starts fail easy.

Start is actually quite the opposite. You're going to be way better protected. So we'll talk about that in a minute. But after you install the easy start just a couple quick installation notes here once you've mounted it and all the wires and wiring is done easy start is so smart that it actually takes the first five starts that it uh orchestrates on your compressor and it records.

The information internally to learn the compressor and as part of those five learning trials as we like to call them easy start will optimize itself to bring that starting current to the absolute minimum achievable for that given compressor. So what does this matter to you or your installer or a technician. Who's installing one of these it it really doesn't if the customer is operating on utility power. And all is well you can just let the thermostat cycle.

The easy start in the system normally and the five learning starts will happen automatically. However if um the customer is chomping at the bit to try and run their compressor or their air conditioner off of their generator. We recommend that you allow the five learning starts to complete on utility power before you start switching back and forth between generator power and utility power and inverter power. The reason for that is easy start think of this as a as a real strict engineering type testing and evaluation.

You want minimal conditions to change from learning start one to learning start two learning start three that is you want your power to remain fixed. And that isn't always the case with a generator so the learning and the fi and the hair splitting that might go on during the learning process happens more precisely and more accurately if you allow those five starts to occur on utility. Power. Once the learning is done.

It's done forever unless you reinitiate the learning. Which we'll talk about later. If you moved easy start to say a different compressor. But once it's done.

It's done forever and after that you can switch back and forth between utility power and generator power as often as you like there's no limit there so another little tidbit. The easy start is smarter than you think it might be i want to talk about the fault conditions. Though now because that i think is probably the most important feature of easy start above and beyond the reduction of starting amps that we've we've talked about here extensively now once easy start is done ramp starting the compressor and it bypasses itself internally with a relay. So all of the solid state electronics are switched out it stays alive of course.

And it continually monitors the compressor for some pretty nasty. Things that can cause you harm specifically a stall condition. Let's say voltage dips and the compressor stalls well once the compressor stalls. You really don't want to try to restart it once the voltage is restored you want to quit.

So we me easy start using that phase detection that it has it knows when the rotor is stopped rotating immediately disconnects the compressor waits three minutes and then reorchestrates the soft start again so that's that happens in the case of a stall and the re that response is pretty much the same for all of the fault conditions similarly over current during the five learning starts easy start averages over the course of five minutes. The current that the compressor is drawing and it saves that away so easy start knows roughly what your compressor is drawing. While it's up and running in addition to what it does during starting so easy start kind of tailors its over current detection based upon what your compressor is doing under a what we'll call a normal condition. So if it ever were to exceed that by like more than a factor of two easy start will say hey something's wrong your condenser fan has failed or the leaves are blocking the condenser.

The condenser is really dirty and it's running really hot and the current has shot way up easy start will shut down the compressor wait maybe three minutes and restart an over current fault like a stall fault is automatically recoverable so it'll do that but the beauty is is now you're not going to leave the compressor running for an indefinite period of time until its thermal overload opens. Easy start will actually protect the compressor better similarly. If the thermal overload does happen to open easy start will detect that because obviously when the overload cools off the clixon device cools off and recloses. You don't want a heart start to occur.

You want a soft start to occur so easy. Start will detect when the click sound recloses and wait and initiate a soft start again additionally. Because easy start is looking at the start winding and the run winding to detect phase. It can also tell when somebody hasn't wired it right or if a wire were to fall off so easy start does have a wiring fault.

That is permanent. So if you ever did install the easy start and you did it wrong. And it doesn't work chances are you wired. It wrong and easy starts has a fault condition it's displaying and then last.

But not least and i this is the one i like the most as far as easy starts compressor protection. Feature and the one i probably spent the most time on since. I don't like waiting and you'll know why in a moment. Easy start can detect a very very narrow power interruption or brown out and as you probably know well know compressors don't coast.

When you remove power from a compressor. It will come to a screeching halt and typically in less than 50. Milliseconds or 120th of a second easy start detects that and if power blinks off and blinks right back on again. Sometimes the thermostat or the compressors elect the air conditioner's electronics misses that and would ride right through and under normal conditions that compressor is just going to try to restart again well as we all know the worst thing to do to a compressor is be running it shut it off and immediately try to restart it why all the internal refrigerant pressures have not had time to equalize at all so your discharge pressure is up high and your suction is down low.

And now you're going to ask the compressor to start against that huge head pressure ain't going to happen so. Easy. Start detects the very brief power interruption that could cause a stall and waits three minutes and then re initiates the uh soft start and people know probably and i've seen them installed on many home units. What's called a delay on make timer or delay on brake timer that are very commonly applied into the thermostat.

24 volt circuit to delay the closure of the um compressors contactor. When the thermostat calls for it to run sometimes these get added. I really don't know the purpose of that other than the fact that the thermostat may be dumb and may not have its own delay built in but i've seen it done even with sophisticated thermostats so it's really unnecessary. But for whatever reason easy starts short cycle prevention timer that i've mentioned as being three minutes is smart in that if easy start had been off for three or more minutes.

The next time easy starts get it gets energized it will not delay any additional time. The minimum delay easy start always in parts is five seconds and the maximum delay is three minutes. So if you had been if the compressor had been off for say. Two minutes and easy start was energized again to ask the compressor to run easy start will wait only one additional minute and similarly.

If the compressor had been off for 10 minutes. And easy start was energized again to start the compressor easy start will only wait five seconds. So we made a special circuit in easy start because i hate waiting unnecessarily and that's what we like to call the smart short cycle prevention timer and so as you can see from this list easy start is really really watching out for the health of the compressor and this is above and beyond. What its primary purpose is so no doubt easy start will protect your compressor better than the oem configuration and will extend its life.

Yeah. I mean there's we see this specifically with certain scroll compressors. I won't throw any brands under the bus. Although i did recently uh accidentally on a video uh certain scroll compressors.

When you do that kind of instantaneous kind of shock. And we see it a lot when somebody's cleaning a drain and they jiggle the float switch or they bump they go to check it they go to check the floats they pull it out it bumps and now next thing you know the unit's running done. But it's not pumping and what actually happens with some of these compressors is they'll actually run backwards when that instantaneous thing happened i mean they shouldn't they i don't know why that is allowed to happen with this particular brand. But we've seen it you know hundreds of times at this point um.

Where those compressors will run backwards. Which is awful for them because they'll just keep running backwards until it cycles off and cycles back on so and it may never cycle off because it's never going to cool under those conditions exactly exactly so and that can happen a customer could do it a customer could check their fluids. Which runs backwards so this would prevent that type of that type of thing from happening. Oh yeah totally totally and uh it's it's quite huge i mean especially in utility environments.

That are poor like this is why rvers and marine applications love it because there. The power is typically of much poorer quality and assist and the power wiring is of course often questionable and so they this is a great benefit certainly protects the compressor when it otherwise wouldn't. And there are actually a lot of old style mechanical control air conditioners out there that have no built in short cycle. Delay.

So easy start would be their only line of protection. If somebody turned it off at the knob and turned it right back on again. So it's it's quite uh quite a big gain to from that yeah for sure i like it as far as uh. The description of easy start that pretty much covers it and i'd like to talk about a couple.

Additional features that are kind of new over the past uh couple years that i think the techs will really enjoy gadgets are important. So people are loving the fact that they can have their home thermostat on wi fi and they can see what their house is doing while they're at work or something like that or while they're away because easy start. It was well let me back up you'd be shocked as to the number of people who have installed easy start on their own in the rv world. The rv world is made up of a lot of do it yourselfers as it's the whole market too in a lot of cases.

But we've had a lot of people install easy starts on their own because it's really fairly straightforward. If you can read a wiring diagram and it's four wires. But what we a lot of times when we ran into problems under those particular situations. We really had no recourse to help these people because we couldn't put eyes on what was going on and customers uh.

You know if they weren't within reach driving distance of say me in florida or one of the team members at the factory in new jersey. We couldn't really do anything to help them the next thing you know they'd be taking maybe taking photos or shipping. The unit back again and find nothing wrong. And it's all a bunch of wasted time so three years ago.

The owner and i got together and said. You know what we really need to put bluetooth on easy start because this will allow us to upload data and do a whole bunch of other things that we couldn't otherwise not do and it really would advance the application of the product and let me say this it's been huge easy start is very popular now and there is no way that the support team. It's really only three or four guys in new jersey could handle the load if it weren't for the bluetooth the bluetooth feature on easy start will help your uh contractor technicians as well because if they have problems. Installing it the bluetooth allows you to upload the critical data that the easy start has accumulated so thus far including faults and all that learning data.

It allows them to upload that to microware and then it can get a it can be presented in front of one of the support technicians for them to see what's going on send you back an email or call your phone number depending on which you know if you put that information in when you upload it and help you out so. The bluetooth has allowed us to put easy start into the hands of more people than ever before so. That's a a really nice feature. It also shows the live data.

So if the customer wants to go in and see what the last start peak was or what the running amps are things of that sort here here is an example of the screens. That it has it has six screens and so there's a connection screen and a live data screen. There is a screen where you can re initiate that learning process. So let's say.

The learning process has an issue based on what the technicians spotted when you uploaded the data you can actually reinitiate that learning process through the app. Before we had bluetooth. You had to take the cover off of the easy start and move a jumper around it was horrible and then people wouldn't put the cover back on right. And it would leak water and bad things would happen of course.

So that's another one of the big uh features there as far as adjustments. The diagnostic screen where i just described where you can upload the data to microware so someone can put eyes on it there is the fourth screen super powerful. I mean. It's just that right.

There is was made the bluetooth all worthwhile um. The fifth screen in the app isn't where we have the ability to turn off faults selectively. We tell people don't do that unless you're being advised to do so by the technician. This allows us to perhaps troubleshoot a little more deeply if we weren't sure.

What was going on and then last. But not least mateo is not perfect. And so i may introduce a bug in the firmware inadvertently the bluetooth app does allow you to update. The firmware over the air in the field.

So if there were ever something that we found that we could do better with easy start. Now. The bluetooth allows you to download and update. The firmware over the air and enjoy that benefit of whatever that change was so this bluetooth feature come on as i said in the video in the installation video.

No other soft starter in the world has this and i can say that without a doubt so it's quite powerful and now for someone who's not too sure about what they're doing now you've got help you've got the whole support team at your disposal. If you've got this you know you've got a smartphone. You can upload the information and we can tell you what's going on so it's a very very powerful feature the bluetooth and all of the home models. Which are ul approved have bluetooth the only models that don't have bluetooth are the lower cost rv models that we currently still sell.

But those are eventually going to get switched over to be bluetooth as well so great stuff and i think it i don't know would you think this is something that the contracting technicians would enjoy the ability to be able to diagnose what's going on and get help if necessary. Oh yeah for sure especially. When you have a product that's um. That's different you know you you put it in the hands of you know your rank and file tax.

Um for example. Just making that you know disconnecting that run winding and connecting it you know that's one. Where you see they might get a little confused um can help with that and then yeah. If there's any question about whether it's doing what it's supposed to do it helps confirm that but also i just love the fact that you can go in and see live data and you can actually look at what your last start peak was um.

That's pretty cool and i can see that being really valuable um. Again you have different types of clients right. And this is where i yeah this product is going to you're going to use it in different ways for different types of clients you have one type of client. That is on solar or does have a generator and in those cases.

This is just an absolute no brainer like if you have traditional single phase. Um. Non inverter driven equipment. That's going in that's in a home.

That has solar or or generator power. I mean the this is just what you have to have it makes total sense uh and that's true whether that whether that generator power is backup or continuous state. Because in a lot of cases. You know there it wasn't a lot of thought put into that initial inrush.

It's just a really smart thing to put in uh to your equipment. If that's the case and we have these entire retirement communities. That have all these backup generators and all this it just makes makes great sense in those applications. And so let's say that you they are having some sort of issue when they are on generator power being able to go up and just see okay well here's what's going on or if they switch to solar you can see what's going on with it um.

That makes that makes perfect sense um. But then we have our regular clients and this is where i think i know i really want to think about this even for for kalos you know we we have this disadvantage in the marketplace. And the disadvantage is that we don't sell upgrades that aren't useful to our clients and so things like hard start kits that a lot of people have traditionally sold as an upsell. I can't sell them because i i don't i know it's not a great i don't believe in that right i know it's not a great idea in most cases so.

But when you have a product that you do believe in and now you can get some live data you can show it to the client you can say okay here's what it's doing you can see now this is that is really really valuable and that's exactly what you would do especially because it's not going to be a do an air quote. So there's not going to be a cheap upgrade for a client. But a lot of people were really excited about upgrading their homes. Um.

And this is i know you know even in doing this i know i'm going to get some of the comments. Some of the pushback will say well hey look is it worth it well the client decides if it's worth it. If something is good for the equipment. And this is then the client decides whether or not they want to make the investment or not it's up to us to communicate it but then when you do the installation and now when you're done you can show.

Oh here you can see your start current is really low. This is what it would have been or this is what the the data tag rating is even on inrush and you can compare those two or locked rotor that's just a really nice kind of um additional benefit that you can show the client because we also know it has all these other little benefits you know like we said protecting the compressor all these little things that you know the customer's never really going to see this gives us the ability to sort of visually demonstrate the value yes. And i do actually have something to show you how easy start could in fact pay for itself. So we will we'll talk about that in a minute okay.

But uh one more point about this. It is a gadget in terms of uh. The bluetooth feature is kind of a sophisticated feature. It's really as you can see designed to be more a diagnostic tool for a technical person as opposed to a show off tool for somebody who may not be interested in any of what this is going on more as you said your your customers who really don't want to know anything about what their air conditioner is other than the fact that it's working this may be not very not very meaningful to them.

But for the service technicians and the contractors who make up your listening audience this feature is huge because now they they'll be able to really take advantage. But it you know the world is modern the world has changed and always will continue to change. There. We have a lot of people who just love this app to death because they're so tied to their smartphone.

They want to they want to expand its use and everything possible so they they look at the information. Too so to that point that i made up earlier. I made this chart for easy start and gen for generator sizes both with and without easy start. And i did this because we were at all we did some home shows over the past couple years and uh.

We did actually exhibit at the ashrae ahr expo. In las vegas the big granddaddy of them all air conditioning trade show uh that goes on typically in chicago. But it was in vegas in 201 2021 and we did have a microwave did have a booth. There i made this chart that shows you what you would typically need as a function for a generator as a function of air conditioning size up through you know one and a half all the way up to six ton without easy start and with easy start and you know there's i looked up the specs for a lot of units to come up with the running amps and the starting amps so those are averages and then i throw in the fan.

And then so there's a running watts. Number that i show there that on average you know let's pick on the three ton model since it's right in the middle. So your average three ton once it's up and running is drawing somewhere in the 4 500. Watt range.

But when it starts without easy start it needs. 80 amps now generators as we all well know are sized with running watts and a starting watt specification typically that starting what specification is 20 to 50 percent higher more often they don't advertise much more than let's say 25 higher. I have found and we have founded microwave. Most generators can tolerate up to about a 50 increase momentarily and they they survive it so based upon uh that number.

I used 40 in this case. I came up with the generator size that you would need to run to start and run a three ton compressor without easy start and one with easy start and of course. The with easy start is uses the starting amps reduced by the seventy percent savings that easy start provides to you the seventy percent starting at production and so in the case of the three ton. We're talking about a 12 kw.

Generator. You would need to start and run that unit reliably without easy start. Whereas with easy start you really could get away with almost a 5kw right there the cost difference between those two generators would pay for the easy start and so if you don't already own a generator and your customers are you know you're looking for that upsell as you you talked about earlier. If they're looking to buy a generator you can say hey if you get a generator if you buy an easy start from my company and i install it now you won't need to oversize your generator nearly as much and that right there is a huge win and you know the easy start can pretty much pay for itself as a result.

So i i feel that's an a pretty important value and then for those who already have their generator. Let's say they've got one of those permanent standby generators. That's which is over and with the transfer switch. When power goes out and runs on propane or natural gas or something like that for those customers now when they're on generator power.

If they have easy start installed. They won't have to power manage quite as strictly so now they won't have to worry about what's already running in the house. When the air conditioner cycles on and cycles off. If they have easy start whereas.

Without easy start. They'd have to be much much more careful about what sort of load is already being drawn on the generator when the air conditioner wants to start so. There is some economics for you and it's it's a pretty in my opinion. I think it's a very valuable and uh pretty easy upsell yeah for sure and especially for contractors who do generators.

Which there are a lot of hvac contractors who do that makes a lot of sense. But even for the technician who you know let's face it there are a lot of techs out there a lot of contractors who are looking for things they can offer to their clients you know that's that's just reality you want to increase your average ticket. There's nothing wrong with that so long as you do it ethically and if you go up to a customer's house and they already have a standby generator in place that gives you the ability to have that conversation uh. It may be in some cases that conversation may be a little tricky to have it may be something you just put on a menu of different options that the customer can get.

But when they have a generator you can say okay i see you have a standby generator. I'm going to take a look at your equipment and see if it has you know soft starting capabilities. And if it doesn't would you like to hear about how we can actually um. Optimize your generator.

So that so that it works better on startup. And and i think most clients make sure yeah. I'd be interested in that and then you look at it you come back. Yeah.

It turns out you don't have that in place um. And so here's you know. This is an additional benefit along with all these other benefits that it provides um. So i do see it as being a nice uh option and you know just go back to what so many techs focus on they so often they don't like to offer things that feel again air quotes.