Alright guys so today, I've got an interesting one. This was a real head-scratcher and it kind of threw me for a loop, but once we figured it out, you got that great satisfaction feeling. Okay. What I want to point out is that you can't just always assume that the first problem you find solves, what's going on.

Okay, we're gon na be looking at a nice machine right now and we found a major problem right from the get-go and it took me a few minutes to find this problem. Okay, I was doing my ice machine paper where I write down all my pressures and I was noticing that we had high suction pressure but normal head pressure, but we had really long freeze cycles and we were going off on a three beep or you know. I think was a three beep long for whatever the long freeze cycle, freeze, backup, timer on a Hoshi machine was, and it was causing them to constantly have to reset the machine and they'd had their Tech's out at this particular rush served this particular hotel chain. They had their restaurant out or their Tech's out and they couldn't figure out what was going on.

It was a real and, and I'm not knocking anybody they. You know that this was a very complex problem, but what happened was a few steps were skipped in someone's diagnosis and they misdiagnosed something. Ok and you guys are gon na see what I think happened at the end of the video and then we'll do a recap and talk about it all right. When I'm working on ice machines, I like to take a notepad and write down the refrigerant pressures.

Okay, I was working on a hoshizaki ice machine and if anybody knows anything about Hoshizaki machines, they have in their Tech Specs book they have. The the recorded pressures have 5 minutes into the free cycle, but I like to go above and beyond. It does a couple different things, but it helps me to observe the machine while its operating and start to see, trends and notice things that are happening. So anybody that's paying attention to this sheet right now.

That may be able to understand some of our scribble, but this machine obviously has a really long free cycle. Ok, so what I do is, I start with a two-minute mark, 4 minute mark and every 2 minutes, except for I note the 5 minute mark when I'm working on a hoshii, okay, so Hoshizaki ice machines and just depending on how warm it is and stuff you're Going to be like 28 29 freecycle and then you know short harvest cycle in there too, but you notice this machine when all the way to 36 minute freeze cycle and actually at that point in time, actually 38 minutes. At that point in time I initiated a harvest cycle because something was going on all right, so I'm gon na show you guys on the video right now what happened, but I want you guys to see and understand how these books work. Okay, so you got to pay attention inside the books.

The machine that I was working on was a water-cooled machine. So what I do is I keep my notes for myself to review, okay, a model and serial number, and then I have 70-degree water for condenser and for water inlet valve okay, because this is a water-cooled coaxial condenser. So the condenser Inlet was 70 degrees. When I started and the water inlet for the machine that actually you know the consumable water was 70 degrees, also, okay, so pay attention in your book.

You know it has all the information. You need water-cooled head pressure controls and it tells you all K M models. The temperature range should be a hundred and four to 115 degrees should have about two hundred and seventy PSIG water, refrigerant pressures. Okay, so that's the temperature range coming out the water coming out of the valve okay and then also, I put little notes right here.

We're go ahead and scroll back to the data information. You find your model number right here. Excuse my crude little bookmarks find your model number, so 70 degrees ambient temp, and then you find your water, so we're doing a water-cooled machine and you go down and I'm looking for refrigerant pressures, and then it asks you what the water inlet tempest for the consumable Water and that was 70 degrees, so my head pressure should have been about 271 and my suction pressure should have been about 52 psi. Okay, so let's look at my five-minute mark.

We were at 69 and 261 something's going on there right. So I'm gon na go ahead and pan on over to the video, and you guys will see what actually happened and mind you, I'm monitoring, because this is water cold. I had my temperature clan and I was looking at Inlet and outlet on the condenser so notice. We had about 72 73 degrees, the entire time we were making ice Inlet and then notice, your outlet temperature pretty much maintained a hundred hundred and three degrees outlet.

Okay, now once I found the problem, those numbers changed and you guys will see all of that. So so we're working on a water pool hoshizaki today and we just kind of ran across an interesting problem, and that this is my outlet and I've got water coming into it. I've got a cold outlet and a hot in it. We've got liance, which is what it looks like.

So I've got a hundred degree and see your water valves going out. That should be our hot line, but they're feeding the wrong direction of the wood, but what's interesting is is: when did this start happening? They may have just installed this machine here, we're at a hotel, so they have their own people. Okay, so I switched my manifold because what I did was I went ahead and recovered the charge of this unit. It was screaming.

I could tell other people have been working so first off. To recap: we found that the water lines were switched to n, went in the up and on the water cold system. Okay, so they had cold water which hot water should be coming out. Basically, it's a water-cooled coaxial condenser, my pressures were out of whack.

Just didn't seem right to me and I kind of feel like they have their own maintenance. People and they've been playing with this. So I went ahead and recovered the charge and found that it was under charge, so vacuumed it down put in the factory charge and now we're on to 777 over 250 for Revell five, seven minutes in and the head of my compressor high school. So they've got that expansion, all this overfeeding and the previous tech, probably let some gas out to try to compensate for it so and the head pressure was on point because the water regulating valve was regulating.

It Breeden had pressure up to where it should be, but then we had a weird back pressure, so yeah, so we weighed in the charge, it's got a bad expansion valve we're gon na go ahead and order it. Let him know what's up and we'll come back out, but on these things you can't just assume you know running all kinds of weird stuff. The other thing too, like there was a wire that was just dangling and I put a wire net on it and just I could tell people been working on this also, okay, press key on the side instead, so so that's where rat alright. So that was an interesting one right.

We had a Hoshizaki ice machine. We had a service call that it wasn't producing very much ice. Okay. This is a small little itty-bitty, 500 pound machine and what I found initially when I first got there after going through my checklist, I happen to notice that the water lines were reversed.

Okay, this was water cooled. Obviously we had a coaxial condenser and we had the warm water coming out the wrong spot on the machine, so the water flow was going the wrong direction through the machine. Okay that can cause some problems. Alright, it's just like piping.

The refrigeration system incorrect through the condenser and what can happen is you're not properly changing the state of the refrigerant from a vapor to a liquid the correct way. Okay, so more than likely when I first got there, we were feeding vapor to the expansion valve and it just wasn't working right. Once I corrected the water flow issue, then I found that the Machine still wasn't quite acting right and it was low, uncharged. Okay, you guys saw that I recovered there.

I told you that I recovered the gas and went ahead and weighed in the charge and then once I weighed in the charge, I noticed something right away. Initially, when I started up the machine, you guys didn't see it in the video, but I had a hundred suction pressure. 100 psi suction pressure; okay, that's insane for a hoshi and then a few minutes after that, the suction pressure dropped down. But then all the sudden, it still didn't get to where it should be, but then all of a sudden, the compressor head was ice-cold.

Okay, on a hoshizaki ice machine, that's a dead giveaway! The way that this was cold. I wish you guys. Could we had like smell a meter or something like that where you guys could you know, feel what I, what I'm actually seeing out in the field, but this compressor was ice cold, the whole head? Okay and let me step back to the very beginning, one vital sign again using the my vital signs that I noticed was the compressor head was extremely hot from the get-go in the very beginning. Almost to the point that I thought we had a plugged up, condenser anyways back to the end, the compressor head was ice, cold, really bad, not just our the inlet to the compressor, but the whole head.

That indicated to me right, quick that we had a bad sucker, bad expansion valve okay. Now what I did do is I did check the valves in the compressor before I diagnose the expansion valve just to make sure, and what I did was I disconnected the liquid line, still annoyed valve, there's a little molex plug you can just unplug and then watch The system pump into a vacuum, shut off the machine and made sure that we weren't bleeding through from the discharge to the suction side, which would indicate we had bad valves in the compressor. That was not the case when I pulled it into a vacuum and shut it off. It held the vacuum.

Okay, so we knew that was good. So after I did that, that's when I found the head was ice-cold, told me that we had a bad expansion valve. Okay, I have not replaced the valve yet, but I did let the customer know, but this is one of those ones that I really wanted to point out and I had another tech working with me and it was a great experience for him because I wanted him To see this problem, he can't just stop at the water lines in the beginning and assumes everything's okay. We could have left and said: oh, I keep an eye on it and then they would have called us back all right.

I stepped back looked at the big picture: okay and we didn't solve the symptom. We solved the problem right, the symptom was the weird pressures or you know the water lines being swapped, okay, that but the problem was the expansion valve all right. So my idea was was that they sent their tech out there and he didn't quite know what he was doing and he probably saw that really high suction pressure and he thought that it was overcharged. So my assumption is that or he we used really really long gauges, because that system only holds 14 ounces, but regardless, when I first walked up to the unit and started to troubleshoot it, it was acting really strange and even after I corrected the water problem, it Was still acting pretty strange, well is because we were low on charge so once I recovered the gas vacuum down made sure we had no leaks.

I weighed in the charge, and that's when I saw the issue with the expansion valve. Okay, so always got a look at the big picture. Make sure you thoroughly evaluate things, and especially if you know other people been working on it and that's when you really got to get kind of like okay, wait a minute and see I called the maintenance staff. The people in charge and said, hey, you know, I'm really thinking someone's been messing with this.

I don't know what they did. Maybe we have the wrong. Maybe you know who knows, and so that's why we just recovered the charge and started over alright, really appreciate you guys taking the time to watch these videos. This was a really fun one actually for me.

Hopefully, you guys get something out of it too, and we will catch you guys next time. Okay.