Video is brought to you by sportlin quality integrity and tradition all right we got got a walk in freezer. They're complaining about and they're saying that it just not uh cold enough in here. It's too warm. So let's have a look back.

Here. I think it might be iced up. Oh yeah look at that don't you know look at that would you just look at that all right well let's start on the roof. Let's go to the defrost clock and put this kind of defrost and see what's up all right.

I'm kind of a nut in the way that i do things okay got my veto rolling backpack got my veto ctxl you can see i like the veto products. I got no affiliation with them. But i just they they last their quality you can actually pick them up from truetechtoolscom. If you use my offcoat big picture you can get an eight percent discount and then i get a small commission from that but anyways whenever.

I'm up on the roof uh use a rope. Whenever possible the older you get the more um knowledge. You're gonna gain the less you're gonna less stress. You're gonna to put on your body right i've made a lot of mistakes in my career.

I've fallen down ladders different things like that trust me take the time. I know as a technician. Especially as a young guy trust. Me.

I know and you're going to hear this from a lot of people you know you feel like you're invincible. But all that damage you're doing to your body. You don't even know it's damage you'll start feeling it now i'm not even that old i'm 39. But i'm already paying the price for a few things my hearing is not the greatest.

My vision is not the greatest the vision is not so much preventable. But i have gotten a lot of things smacked in my eye over the years because i wasn't wearing safety glasses and such. But the hearing. I feel like could have been totally preventable because i put myself into too.

Many crazy situations so use a rope. Whenever possible down on the end of this rope. I put a hook. You'll see right here okay love this guy and i leave it down there okay by leaving it down there when i go downstairs.

I don't have to remember to lower the rope down and then when i go to bring something up i don't have to climb all the way up just to get a rope right and i leave it in a way that it's not going to bother the customers. They're not gonna have to trip over it and then for the most part you know except for a very small amount i try to keep my rope off the ground in case. I start hosing stuff that way it's not getting soaked and nasty. I try to keep my tools you know in as good a shape as possible and your body's one of your tools.

Too so take it easy um today. It is 110 and still climbing it looks like so and uh. I want to say. It is only 12 30 in the afternoon and it is uh july 14th of 2022.

It's gonna get hotter as the day goes on so i got water bottles in here gonna try to prevent any heat stroke or anything like that remember i know this sounded like an infomercial for your body right. But once you feel the effects of heat stroke or heat exhaustion. It's too late so don't let yourself get to that position take plenty of breaks. Okay that kind of stuff.

So let's get on with the technical work get over to the condensed unit. I had a video on this equipment. I don't know a while back maybe a year ago. Or something where we had multiple condenser fan motors bad i tried to talk the customer into replacing the equipment.

They didn't make the decision to do so yet. I believe the head pressure control valve is not bypassing correctly. It was restricting the flow of refrigerant in the bypass mode um. I think i put pressure controls on it yeah.

It's been a mess. I i think the customer. Honestly forgot about it because we've been getting new equipment for a lot of other places. But not this one so regardless let's jump right here to the defrost.

Clock so i said it was 12 30 pm. It looks like the defrost clock has the right time let's see if it turns it doesn't turn the defrost clock is gummed up with sand again completely gummed up all right um. I think we're gonna try something different. We're definitely gonna have to change this clock okay um because like i said it's gummed up with sand.

But uh i think we're gonna go in with a different defrost clock um anyways let's see what we can do uh. I'm gonna put the unit into a long defrost to go test the heaters and let it start defrosting itself. While i'm getting water hoses and everything ready in order to do that we're gonna need to shut off the power make sure it's off and we're going to need to disconnect the x terminal. Because that is the last end of the defrost termination switch and when the defrost termination switch turns on or closes.

It sends power up here and terminates a defrost so we don't want that to happen we want it to run as long as possible in defrost. So i'm going to disconnect this we'll turn the power back on and then we'll confirm that we're actually going into defrost all right disconnected the x terminal isolated. It with away go just for now we're going to turn it back on now it should be pumping uh into defrost. The red light is on and we're going to wait for it to pump down this one has a defrost contactor.

So this micro switch right here will not let this contactor. Engage. Until this one is completely disengaged. So it has to pump down shut off a low pressure and then when that happens this guy opens and this guy should pull in and it's not guys that contactor should be pulling in right now.

So we need to test and figure out why that contactor is not pulling in because we're in defrost that was weird the moment i tried to get my cup my meter out and and then it pulled in so it had a delayed reaction. So let's test it and see if it pulls in or if there's a delay again so i turned it off let's turn it back on it pulled right in hm. Something's not right here. Let's take it out of defrost.

Okay let it turn back on and let's try it again. There shouldn't be a delay should be instantaneous all right. This is really difficult for me to explain i went to go put the unit in defrost. The defrost contactor took a minute.

I took it out of defrost and i kid you not 20 minutes. The condensing unit did not turn on i went downstairs the thermostat was calling so i came back up here. I put. My gauges on it and it turned on before i could do anything so we're going to try to simulate this again.

We're running about 305 head pressure about 16 suction uh. This is a 404 a system. It is approximately the gauges say 112 my thermometer right here says 115 so right in that range. Okay yeah.

Those are actually pushing 115. Now so it's 115 outside. So let's put this guy into defrost again. But before we do that i'm going to set up to be able to probe that contactor.

I want to see if i can catch that thing sticking all right here. We go so we're going to twist this guy into defrost. It's in defrost now. I'm gonna put my meter right here okay.

We've got zero volts on the contactor. We're waiting for it to pump down it's at 5 psi. 4. Psi.

It just shut off and the contactor instantly pulled in 202 volts. So why did it hesitate last time huh makes. Me wonder if this is full of sand or something. And it's not making good connection.

All right now we need to man this guy's got all kinds of gremlins in it that don't want to solve my problems here. Okay. So let's turn this back on just take it out okay. We're out of defrost.

Now. It has a digital temperature controller. So it takes a minute the way that it's set up that control loses power. When it goes in defrost.

So the control's got to boot up and then the liquid line solenoid valve should. Open we're at 66. Psi. I'll turn the camera when it turns back on all right.

It's open back up we're at 18 psi and slowly climbing. So i think. What's actually happening is the ice that's on the evaporator is insulating. It the refrigerant is taking a while to migrate back up here because it's encapsulated and ice.

So i think that's what's happening here so once we get it defrosted. I don't think there's going to be a problem. There now we still haven't figured out why the first time that contactor took so long to click into defrost. I don't know about that for this right here.

Okay we're in defrost. Now so we can test right here. And we should have a pretty high current 10 amps. But now we need to go downstairs.

And verify that all the heaters are actually working all right my evaporator's right here. We are still in defrost. Let's go ahead and check this guy five amps on that heater. I don't think there's more than two heaters in this guy this guy almost five amps on that one yeah.

I think that's it let me double check where's the heater circuit. Yeah. There's only two heaters on there yeah just the two so both the heaters are working so we're gonna turn off power get it defrosted with hot water and then we'll figure out how we're gonna fix this guy all right so when i defrost i use hot water not a torch um. I don't like to wait just for the electric defrost to do it i grab.

My wand on the shower setting and do it from one side. I typically don't even apply any water to the other side. The steam will make all that ice fall off. I'll usually put a pan down just for the drain.

Because occasionally you'll get a drip drip like it's doing right. Now. You don't want to let water get onto the floor of a walk in freezer. Because typically it'll instantly freeze.

And it's almost impossible. It's a nightmare to get it all defrosted. So and then if they have a raised floor. So that a million times.

This is tile. If they have a raised floor. The water will get underneath the raised floor and then lift that up when it re freezes and then they got to replace an 8 000. Floor.

So don't waste their money. So we're just going to get it all defrosted and then we'll try to evaluate exactly what caused it whether it's the defrost clock or that defrost contact or not pulling in who knows this walk in drain is really draining slowly um and look at those defrost heaters. Too they're totally dangling. That can't be good for that coil um.

I used i made this little thing just out of a couple fittings it doesn't end on it. It's great for getting down in there and blowing drains out just put it on an end blast that thing works for reaching coolers and everything i got this crazy. Idea that it would be a good um. Idea to install a ke2 uh temp.

Plus. Defrost uh freezer controller. So i'm currently knee deep and uh wiring this thing uh ripping out all the old stuff we're gonna rob power from the condensing unit um sensors um i don't know what i was thinking starting this at 2 30 in the afternoon. But we're in it now we're in it to win.

It all right got the controller mounted wired. One conduit for sensors one conduit for electrical. It's kind of cleaned up. It's not you know the prettiest thing.

But it's polishing. A turd right so now i'm going to put the fan motors back in blades back in and then we got to go up top and rewire a few things because i'm only using two wires coming down four and in everything. Else is getting abandoned all right well it didn't blow up when i powered it up so now we're going to go through the settings. And i got this little guy right here temperature set point enter negative.

10. That's correct all right and then i'm just gonna work my way through the settings and get everything all set up. I mean it's pretty straightforward it started up there was a delay for the fans now the fans are running so i need to go in i made all the set points. I put it for six defrosts a day 30 minute deep actually i did 40 minute defrost uh 50 degree defrost termination.

Temp um. Now i need to go in and make sure we're looking at the second coil sensor because i actually installed two coil sensors one in each side. So i need to figure out how to get into the settings for that i went ahead and clicked the unit into defrost so i can confirm that i wired. It correctly so i'm gonna get up in here and check the heaters.

Yeah. Heaters are cranking that heater's going. And then that heater's going uh did i get them both maybe. I didn't yeah.

Heaters are working. So that's a plus. All right cool. It's looking good so far not too bad all right i managed to uh program.

So my room temp is 30 degrees right now and then if we go up here uh coil temp for one side is 22 coil temp for the other side is 17. So we're seeing two coil temps that way we'll get a more accurate defrost strategy. So i'm going to put the panels on and then we need to go upstairs. And make sure everything's working properly up there.

But it is because we have a temperature differential so we know the system's running and then i got to clean up a few things up there i pulled all this stuff out so that's our control cabinet. Now these two wires are doing nothing they're dead that was the x. I went ahead and uh put the two power wires because it's a 208 volt controller to right there. And yeah.

It's just a compressor contactor controlled by the low pressure switches and that's it now um as far as our operations right now. Now remember this system has problems and i want them to replace it but we i mean i just changed that defrost clock in that heater contactor maybe i don't know eight eight months ago. Or something and they're already full of sand causing problems. I think that's what was going on with the defrost contactor.

I think this guy has sand in it and i bet you anything it was had a delayed connection in there so we just eliminated all that stuff and wired. It to the controller now now the controller controls everything we can do everything from downstairs. And this guy operates independent of itself. The only connection point between the downstairs.

And the upstairs is the fact that the power wires get power from here and then go downstairs. So as far as our pressures go. It's about 117 degrees outside right now it's pretty freaking hot. It's kind of crazy too because we got like thunderstorms coming and stuff.

But um pressure's kind of where i'd expect them to be it looks like the temperature's kind of dropping might be getting a little residual air maybe 110 up here or something like that. But i mean i'm not seeing anything crazy my suction pressure is a little bit low. But we do have a pressure limiting txv. But yeah everything seems to be okay one last thing i want to check because i know a bunch of people are going to ask me as i'm going to check the pressure drop across that suction filter dryer because it was kind of frosting kind of funky when i got here so let's check it so on one.

Side we're at. 256 let's see the other side and the other. Side we're 258. So nothing wrong with that everything's cool.

So yeah. I'm going to start wrapping this up. We'll probably come back and do a follow up. But i think all's going to be well i came back to follow up on the equipment.

Let's see i just walked in the door. They just got a giant delivery. It's at two degrees inside the box at the moment and uh yeah. So the customer hasn't even like loaded their product yet.

But it's like insanely crowded in here. I'm gonna try to get over to the controller because i want to see the back of the coil. But i gotta go rock climbing over here sometimes i get these brilliant ideas and i get in way over my head. It's not that i couldn't complete that job.

It's just what was i thinking starting that job at two o'clock in the afternoon. I very could have i very well could have just thrown in a defrost contact or gotten them through the night or even just defrosted and gone back the next morning. It wouldn't have been really iced up that much the next morning. But regardless i got it so went out there with a service call.

I already knew when i was going out there that this was equipment. I'd worked on before i kind of alluded to that in the video and and when i condemned this equipment was back in the winter. So the customer must have forgotten we go through a lot of stuff. So i don't have time to keep up on it i just send emails and say hey.

It's time to replace and then usually the equipment shows up at my shop. And i go back and install it you know this one it just slipped my mind whatever so when i got the service call. I was like oh that's that equipment. I was thinking.

It was gonna have a bad compressor or something like i was thinking the head pressure control valve stuck open who knows right. But when i got out there found that it was iced up okay so defrosted it. But i don't know if the video catches. It i mean it kind of does a little bit.

When i initially put it into defrost the way that that setup works the defrost contactor does not engage until the compressor contractor disengages okay because of that little micro switch on the side or auxiliary relay on the side of the compressor contactor. Okay so when the compressor contactor pulls out and the system is in defrost. It should be instantaneous that defrost heater contactor pulls in okay. The reason.

Why we use the defrost heater contactor. Is because the defrost heaters hold pull a high current and sometimes on systems. They can uh burn out the relay on the defrost clock. Okay.

So you use that defrost heater contactor. And i like the idea of the auxiliary relay. Because you have no potential of you know. It's very hard to have potential of a defrost heater being stuck on with a compressor contactor.

Which can cause like capacity issues right so when i saw it go into defrost. I was like hey and i saw that on camera. You know the the defrost heater contactor. Didn't pull in right away.

And then by the time. I went to go measure boom it pulled in okay now i wasn't able to duplicate that but the only thing i could think of because the only thing keeping that defrost heater contactor from pulling in was the auxiliary relay on the compressor contactor. So the only thing i could think of was that that auxiliary relay was full of sand and it wasn't making a good connection. Okay we know that the defrost clock.

Which i believe i replaced it in my last video. Which was a while back. But i believe i changed the defrost clock. All the compressor or the compressor contactor.

The defrost heater contactor. The auxiliary really i changed all that because to refresh people's memories. I found that it had a bad condenser fan motor. I think the bracket was broken somewhere downstairs upstairs.

And i was having a technician. Bring me a bunch of motors and brackets and so that's why i was like oh i started changing contactors and getting into that and then i diagnosed a head pressure control valve that wasn't bypassing properly. And you know just led to all kinds of stuff. But so it's you know we're burning through contactors on these right and we're burning through defrost clocks.

Because they're getting full of sand so in this situation. I had picked up that ke2 low temp plus. Defrost controller right you can use that for medium temp. Too by the way in the programming.

You can change the defrost from air to electric. Which i might start doing that i might start using that for walk in coolers. Too. It's pretty cool um.

But i was able to relocate all the defrost defrost clock. The you know all that stuff down into the box. And so i just had to have a dedicated power source going downstairs. Now um.

I wasn't afraid to do it. It was just that like what was i thinking starting at two o'clock in the afternoon. Because it was a bunch of wiring using my head. You know just like doing all this stuff.

And i i i think i got home at like 7 30. That night which you know it's not the end of the world. But it's funny because i ended up going back out the next day. So while i was there working on the walk in freezer.

I put in that new controller and i wanted to follow up on it. But i didn't really think i didn't have a reason to think that i needed to charge the customer to drive back out there to follow up right i didn't think there was going to be anything wrong. I just for peace of mind. I wanted to get my eyes on it so while i was working i walked around and i happened to find that one of the acs had a condenser fan motor that was not running when it was 115 degrees.

Now there'll be another video for that. But that particular condenser fan motor. Um. It's it's a whole thing that happened and all covered in the video.

But that gave me an excuse right because i didn't have a motor with me anyways. So went back to the shop. The next morning. Which actually was the day that i'm recording this outro july 15th.

I went back out this morning. So i was actually at that location last night so i went back out this morning with a condenser fan motor thinking. I was going to have to change a condenser fan motor and that gave me an excuse to get my eyes on the box. So the little bit you know last 10 second clip on this video was me just walking back in just.

Saying. Oh yeah. Everything's good. You know box was down to temp.

They just loaded it so that's why it was at like zero degrees. Instead of negative 10. Because they just put all that food inside that box so anyways. It gave me an opportunity to come back follow up so far so good i really do like the controller.

The only thing that the only gripe. I have for the controller is that they give you a bag full of flag connectors so the right angle slip on flag connectors and i don't have a tool to crimp the flag connectors let alone even if i did have a tool. It they gave me uninsulated flag connectors. So that wouldn't work even if i had the tool.

Because if i buy one of those insulated flag tool connectors. It's going to be for insulated connectors like i just said so anyways whatever and i used regular slip on connectors like the female you know pres in style and they're a little bit long so the cover goes on. But you can certainly feel the wires behind it so that's like the only gripe. I have about that i mean the controller is huge right so i mean i i don't see why they couldn't have made it an inch deeper because then you would have been able to use normal connectors and you wouldn't need flag connectors so regardless other than that i mean.

It was pretty simple. I will say that you know i had to run a lot of wires to it i could have consolidated wires by using wire nuts or wego connectors. But i don't know i just like doing the wires. So basically you have three dry contacts.

Well three dry relays. So you need a 208 or 115 volt. Power can run on either or to power. The controller and then you have three contacts you have a fan contact you have a defrost contact.

And you have a compressor contact or solenoid contact in our situation. So you had to run a common to each one of those contacts and then you had to have a switched leg coming out of each one of those contacts. So that's um. What is that two four six you need eight wires going into that controller uh to make it work properly now again i could have ran less wires and just had like uh.

You know a wire nut or a waygo connector jumping to the common because really you only needed one power leg for each one of those contacts. But i didn't i just ran eight wires in there um and other than that i really have no complaints. I will say that i did set it up for uh double evaporator sensors. And that's really important because with the ke2 stuff.

I have worked with it in the past one of the flaws that i find is uh. It doesn't defrost the coils enough. So i like having double evaporator sensors. You put them at each end.

So that way it averages between the two and um. I think it averages. I i can't remember i know i've looked into this before i don't think it averages. I think it looks at each temperature or something.

But anyways. I do double evaporator sensors. So it's much better that way yeah. I think i remember talking to ke2 one time and i don't think they average.

I think they're looking for that temperature in each sensor. But um you know i was able to set it up and install it it was i thought. It was going to be difficult to be honest with you when i got done wiring it i was like oh man here we go we're gonna have to do the programming now. But yeah.

It's pretty simple so time will tell but i might start using those i think i was a little bit silly for doing my first install of one of these an hour and a half to two hours away from my shop out in the middle of nowhere. I was a little bit hesitant doing that. But it's pretty simple um. Yeah so that's pretty much it you know um.

I really appreciate y'all. Making it to the end of the video. If you guys have any questions or things that i should have covered feel free to send me an email or. Leave a.

Comment hvacr videos gmailcom. Uh keep in mind uh if you have any interest in supporting the channel you can go to my website hvacrvideoscom i have merchandise available we got hats shirts beanies sweaters we have men's and women's t shirts yeah check it out it's a great way to support the channel also if you're interested in purchasing any. Tools i mentioned in the video in the beginning go to truetechtoolscom. I have an offer code big picture one word you get an eight percent discount on most of their items.

And i get a small commission from that so it helps the channel um you can support the channel via paypal via patreon via youtube channel memberships you can do it you know there's all different methods those are all it's all in the show notes there's links and everything if you're interested in doing that every little bit helps so i appreciate it from everybody um yeah. And that's awesome so i try to go live on monday evenings work permitting. It hasn't been able to i haven't been able to do it in like a week or two been kind of crazy. But i'm trying oh.

I also announced on social media. Keep in mind too that i am in the planning process of a complete system replacement on my home hvac system. And i've already been reaching out to people i have a good friend of mine. Adam.

My buddy from the hvac overtime show. He's helping me out uh kind of helping me to do a load calculation on the house we're doing 3d modeling. We're going to do blower door tests we're going to do duct leakage tests. We're going to um.

I mean i have this whole idea and we're just in the planning phases of it all. But i really think that this is going to be cool. It's going to be a little mini series on my channel. We're gonna show you know the process and the thought that goes into everything the actual installation.

We're gonna show um you know the the evaluation of the envelope. The house in general we're gonna do like i said blower door tests. We're gonna get high end. Thermal imaging cameras to look at the house and and figure out.

Where uh. The biggest infiltration spots uh are you know we're gonna try to fix certain things and we're gonna evaluate that's one of the things i want to do again we may not get to all this because my head's kind of exploding with ideas. But um you know i want to show my existing system. I want to show the the issues that i have with it the airflow issues the the noise issues the size i'm pretty confident it's an oversized system with undersized ductwork um.

And i want to show all that i wanna i wanna get it out there you know that it's more than just changing an air conditioner right because we need to address the envelope. So i have all kinds of cool ideas. I'm looking for feedback. I'm looking for help i'm looking for manufacturers that might want to work and talk to me about different things now understand something if you are a manufacturer and you watch my videos and you want to work with me on this process.

I gotta give you a big caveat uh. I'm a jerk and i do things my way okay so i don't want people to get their feelings hurt um. I'm not about just promoting products. I've never been that person on my channel.

I only like to promote products that i like to do so. If if you do want to work with me just understand that it's going to happen my way and i have no problem paying for everything myself. If i have to okay of course. I'd love to help promote someone's product or something like that if it's something i want to work with i've already gotten some people reaching out to me with new products that i wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole okay and i'm just not i'm not a sales person.

I'm not out there to just promote any crap that someone sends me and that's not my style and i hope you guys my viewers my normal viewers know that okay but i'm talking to any potential manufacturers. I doubt anybody's watching at the end of this video. But regardless i want to work with you but you just need to understand. It's going to be on my terms and and we'll have to figure some stuff out so i probably just turned everybody off as far as a manufacturer.

But i just like to do things my way so uh keep in mind let me know in the chat. If you guys actually made it this far. But yeah. If you guys have ideas or manufacturers you want me to work with feel free to tag them send them an email let them know you know what i'm doing because i'm looking for exposure.

Um. I'd like to get some cool stuff on here. I'd like to get you know you my viewers to be able to see some really interesting products right and i also want to be practical with you guys and show you guys that like hey you know what yeah. There is a really high tech fancy system.

But maybe the price of that system will never repay itself. So it's really maybe not practical for me to use that system. Even if it was given to me for free because hey nobody's ever going to return on investment on something that expensive with the energy savings that they're going to get in the house. Maybe.

There's better places to work on the insulation in my house and the envelope and air sealing and different things like that instead of going with the the top level highest in communicating variable speed capacity blah blah blah blah system right so we're going to weigh all this stuff out. And i want to see different things and i want to show cost comparisons so anyways. I went off on a tangent. But you can clearly see i'm all into this project.

This is going to be fun you know tentatively if things go well it's gonna happen this fall slash winter. So we're gonna be doing it you know and we'll see it sounds like a fun project. So i'm excited to do it so anyways now that i went off on a huge tangent like i said. Let me know if you made it to the end feel free to shoot me an email.

If you have any questions. I really appreciate you all and we will catch you on the next one okay.