This video is brought to you by sportlin quality, integrity and tradition. Today, we've got a isomatic machine that has given us an error code. You can see by the sequence it's a quick flash with the red light so that my understanding is that can either be a long freeze or long harvest. So we're just doing a visual inspection of the machine.

First then we're going to reset it. Nothing too crazy. Going on just a standard, remote machine, don't see any issues back here. This is manual back there, so so, according to the manual we're going to hold both of these down okay, so we should restart right now, so we're going to watch the machine operate and see what happens all right now, we're going to turn it on and we're Just going to watch the cycle see what happens see if anything jumps out at us again.

I don't know what the cause was. I really don't like these machines, because the circuit board, this is tucked into a pocket. As usual, ice machines are, and the circuit board is all the way in that corner. It's a nightmare to get to um the machine is kind of scaled up.

It's not horrible, but there's definitely scale up there. The evaporator plates don't look too bad. Let's see what happens here looks like we went back into a flash mode. That's weird! Now the power light, the clean light, the red and the yellow are flashing i'll, have to open up the manual and see what that says.

Alright, i reset it again again. I could have reset it wrong in the first place. I did a three second push and nothing's going on we're just waiting right now again to see if something happens, nothing's happening so far, all right. So now we're getting according to the manual right here we're.

So we originally had air one unit experience max freeze once i reset that now we have error three red and clean, led quick. Flash unit has experienced a max fill of five minutes or a max purge of two minutes, but it didn't even try to start that long and i think you reset it by holding both down one mississippi two mississippi three mississippi then letting go now there we go. Okay, so now we're off we're gon na turn, it back on we're in the clean mode, and i hear like a dump valve opening up. There's no water draining and there's no water movement in here, huh again we're working through this, because i've never worked on this machine, so i installed it for the customer, but never worked on it.

So back here i've got water pump back. There kind of feels like the water pump's locked up like it's trying to move, but it can't it's hot and it's buzzing, i'm gon na attempt. I think the water pump drops from the bottom down again new to me, so we're going to pull these guys off and drop this drain pan all the water is going to come out we're going to see if we can get that water pump out so drop. The drain pan this machine in general needs a good cleaning, but i got the water pump out and i mean it doesn't appear to be loft up, but it's definitely tight.

I can definitely feel stuff in there, but it could be calcium and stuff too. So we're gon na investigate a little bit further, all right, so i put it back together. I just want to confirm with voltage that this pump is bad and or locked up, so i'm going to get down in there and check voltage. So we have voltage at the plug when the pump is plugged in and nothing's happening.

So we got a bad water pump, but the machine also needs to be cleaned. So i got the new pump and i like the fact that it comes with the new plastic piece and the thumb screws - that's kind of nice, so we're gon na get this guy slapped in and uh hope that it works okay. So it's on an initial fill cycle right now and then i want to see the water pump turn on and start moving fluid and then i'll talk to them and see if they want me to clean this machine, it's the perfect time because the bin is empty. So you can go to town on this thing and there we go now we have water movement across the evaporator plates, so that is a major plus.

So at this point, i'd like to watch it make ice once make sure there's nothing else wrong and then clean. It if they'll, let me so at a minimum. You want to follow the cleaning instructions, most machines have them somewhere inside there and they also have a service guide and everything, but we're going to start with the cleaning instructions, but we're also going to go above and beyond filled up. My pump sprayer pour cleaner in there.

Let it circulate and then we'll run sanitizer too and give the machine a scrub down got to be very careful. You don't want to use anything too abrasive, i'm using a soft gorilla pad. Usually they tell you to use just a towel, but when they get this calcified, sometimes you got to do what you got to do at this point. We've already put the machine into the clean mode you can see by the flashing lights, and what we're actually going to do is confirm that the water stops flowing out of the drain.

Then we're gon na go ahead and add the viper ice machine cleaner to it and it's in the circulate mode. Now, okay, once the water stops flowing out of the drain, then the water sump fills back up. Then you know it's time to add the clean spray. A little bit on the calcium, let it kind of circulate sit on the surfaces looking good and then we'll disassemble it once we give it a wipe down all right.

We've got the machine all disassembled now, and i just want to show you underneath here. I'll often use the bin as a catch place, but you want to make sure you get in here to the water level, sensors and really look inside the hoses to make sure that there's no massive amounts of calcium and stuff and then also underneath. This is the hidden place that a lot of people forget about, because when the water splashes, it builds calcium up there, so we'll definitely get in there and scrub all that. So it's kind of nice when they have this sink tucked in the back, because i can come work here, scrub everything down and then now we're gon na put it back together and run sanitizer through the machine process to do the sanitizer is exactly the same as Cleaning it you put it into the clean mode and you put the appropriate amount of sanitizer in there now you want it to foam up.

As you can see right now, the sanitizer is really foaming inside there. That's part of the process. If you mix it correctly, will do that you just have to make sure you rinse it all out all right. We are uh the sanitizer's all rinsed out, i let it go through itself rinse, and then i also dumped the drain.

Pan uh flushed it with good water myself a few times put it back into the freeze mode and we're gon na watch. It make a batch of ice and then we're gon na bounce, the machine itself. It was simple: it had a bad water pump. Again, though, looking at the big picture guys now the ice machine being dirty, i don't think it was dirty enough to stop the machine from working okay.

I think it probably would have worked for a while, just like it was, but doing my job. I gave the customer all the information, let them know hey, there's a bunch of calcium here, it's not a very good thing. Um, you know you've got it built up in places where people haven't been cleaning it, and i got them to approve me to go ahead and clean the ice machine. Now um.

You know, following the manufacturer's instructions and then going above and beyond now i did end up having to use like a soft scotch brite pad. It wasn't like a really rigid one. Okay, the manufacturers tell you not to use those, they tell you to use a towel and that's it, but when the customers are not cleaning them on a regular basis, sometimes you got to do what you got to do, but you do need to understand something. If you have to take screwdrivers and start scraping the plastic, what you're actually going to do, and even a scotch brite pad is borderline, not okay, because what you're starting to doing is is you're building micro um cracks.

Essentially, if you use a screwdriver, you're scuffing it up and you're building little surfaces, you know you're gouging it out and it could just be very small stuff, but that's a place for bacteria to build up and the same thing, even just basic calcium. If you have abrasion and like scuffed up spots, then that calcium is going to build inside those and it's not necessarily going to be easy to clean. So you got to be careful, but sometimes when you're working with these ice machines and the customers don't maintain them. On the level that they should, you got to do what you got to do to get it cleaned up.

Okay and that's why i did have to use a scotch brite pad, but i try to be as careful as possible but make it clear you don't want to use things. You don't want to scrape the calcium off. You don't want to use a steel wool like that's, really going to scrape it up, be very cautious. I'm not saying i haven't done any of that stuff because i certainly have in the past, especially if you get really really bad ice machines, but i think it's important for us to know the rep the repercussions of this kind of stuff.

You know a lot of people, don't understand that by scraping it off with a screwdriver you're, actually doing more harm because you're making little cracks for the calcium to build up in next time and yeah, you might be getting the calcium off, but you're you're, making it Worse for the next time, okay, um, you know ice machine cleaners, it you know you got to be cautious about which ice machine you cleaners, you use with which particular brand ice machine. The cool thing about the cleaner that i'm using about basically any well kind of any nickel safe cleaner, is that it's safe to use almost on any ice machine. Okay, nickel, safe ice machine cleaner in a nutshell, is diluted down regular ice machine, cleaner, okay, but it's not quite the truth. That's the way it's been explained to us, but um.

You know like the clear ice machine. Cleaner is almost pure phosphoric acid. It is diluted down a little bit: nickel, safe ice machine cleaners, there's a couple different methods that they take. Sometimes they'll have a couple different mixtures: they'll use, uh citric acid and a couple other things each manufacturer has their own different blend, but you the reason why i say you want to be careful is in the past.

It was always said that nickel safe was diluted down ice machine cleaner, so you could use it on anything, but that's actually not the truth, because if you open up a hoshazaki ice machine installation, i mean a hoshazaki ice machine tech, specs book right, the one that Tells you the big orange book that tells you everything. I think i even have one back there, but um. It actually says: do not use nickel safe ice machine cleaner. That has citric acid in it because they attribute the evaporator failures that they have all the time to the citric acid eating away at the tin solder that they use that holds the evaporator plates together.

So you want to understand and be cautious about the ice machine cleaners that you are using. Okay in this particular situation, the viper ice machine, cleaner, works, perfect on this. I actually use the viper ice machine cleaner for almost all the brands. I even use it on hoshis, but you just want to be cautious about that stuff and understand what the different ice machine cleaners are.

Okay, so it's safe to say that if you're working on a hoshizaki ice machine, you can use clear, cleaner and you want to be cautious using clear on almost any other brand unless you get into some of the weird brands like vote um. Some of the faults, uh fullet. I think you might even want to be careful with full it it's it's kind of safe to say. If you're, not working on a hoshizaki, you might want to be using nickel safe.

But you know there's a couple weird brands here and there, but you know with folate ice machines. Again i'm going off on a tangent right now i actually like to use the fullet ice machine cleaner. I don't necessarily use the hoshizaki cleaner. I don't necessarily use the manitowoc, but there's something about the fullet ice machine, cleaner on the folded, ice machines, and it just does a really good job.

So um this job ended up being a warranty repair. So again, being upfront with the customer like hey warranty, is only going to pay me this much time, okay and they're not going to pay me to clean it um. In fact, i told them that if warranty knew that this machine was this dirty, they might not even warranty the repair. So you got to be cautious about that stuff, but anyways.

I went ahead and got the customer to approve my extra time and actually got them to approve me to go pick up the ice machine part i had to drive about an hour to go, get the water pump and then i had an hour back of which Warranty doesn't pay for okay. I think the warranty on this machine paid me an hour and a half total, that's it hour and a half to install the water pump. So these warranty manufacturers are getting skimpier and skimpier when it comes to what they pay to do. The warranty, repairs and, in all honesty, i'm not really interested in doing much warranty work unless the customer is okay with me back billing them the difference, which is what i typically do, and what i did in this situation was.

I went ahead and discounted the invoice for the water pump in an hour and a half of my labor and then build the customer the rest of the time. I want to say that all together from the initial diagnosis to picking up the water pump to coming back and cleaning the ice machine travel time back and forth and all that stuff, i think i was there for about seven hours, six and a half hours, something Like that, so i mean i was there for most of the day. But again the customer was okay with it, because i gave him the options: hey, we can order the pump, you guys can pay for the freight and uh. You know we can come back in a couple days or you know here's that, and you know they were okay with going and paying it so um you know.

Another thing is: is that i'm not 100 fluent in every ice machine? Okay, i have the general understanding of how ice machines work. This one is the new isomatic machine it. This is the first model that they put circuit boards in um, i'm still getting used to that circuit board. Uh scott uh isomatic was actually the one guy that was hanging on and still had an electromechanical ice machine that did not have a circuit board for the longest time up until this new model that just came out.

So i'm still getting used to the sequence of operation and how it works um. But it's not too hard. Once you understand ice machines and understand the basic operation and plus you had that uh, the cleaning instructions and the operation information on the side of that panel and i downloaded the manual it's super easy. You just open up your phone pull up almost any manual for anything, and you can read it.

Of course, though, i really do enjoy holding a paper manual in my hand, so anyways, i'm rambling. At this point, i hope you guys enjoyed the video. If you haven't already please consider, subscribing to the youtube channel. Okay, um got ta got another youtube channel that we just created with my buddies, called hvacrtools.

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But i've got everything else. Plenty of everything else in stock, so if you're interested check it out other ways that you can support me, you can support me on patreon on paypal, youtube channel memberships, there's links for everything in the show notes of this video. I really really appreciate you guys. Thank you so very much and we will catch you on the next one.

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