Okay, so we have a prep table here: six drawer with the cold rail, it's not working on the bottom. Okay, so one of the first things I'm going to do is put my thermometers in it. But before I do that, when I calibrate it ice water should be reading 32 degrees. This is the fluke 52.

This is great because you can calibrate it without taking the panels off love. This guy very important, though, that you pay attention the thermocouples have to stay. That's why they're labeled they have they're calibrated for that terminal now, and you can't switch these thermocouples to another thermometer without recalibrating them there. We go so now we're gon na use them to bear by the box ten.

So I have two probes and they're in the return of each coil, 55 56 degrees evenly inside the box and right off the bat. I do not feel a lot of heat blowing out of the condenser, so I'm gon na make a guess and say that we're low on refrigerant, because I not basically rejecting any heat suction lines, lukewarm discharge, lines hot, but so at this point we need to apply Service gauges to the system so seventy-six degree liquid saturation temperature, seventy-seven degree ambient rule of thumb on this guy is about 25 degrees above ambient 25 to 30 degrees above ambient. Obviously, the right way to do it is the way to charge in, but if you're in the field - and you need to feel charged it without weighing it in you could start with about 25 above ambient 30-ish somewhere in there they'll get you in the ballpark. So that's we're gon na start, I'm going to add some refrigerant.

I definitely know that we're low once I get it to where I think it needs to be, and the system's coming down to temperature we'll go ahead and leak check the system and then figure out where the leak is not worth in the ballpark now box is Coming right down to temp, now to once I got the right amount of refrigerant in and it started kicking butt. We're gon na weigh parts of satisfying pump down. You don't like this. No, this is just a fluke.

This is a problem because the 34 degrees is the left. Coil 37 degrees is the right call, knots return air, they should be pretty much identical, so I'm gon na have to make sure that both of those coils are actually working properly and we don't have a bad txb on one of them. It looks like we've got a multiple issue here, but we'll see still waiting for it to satisfy the interesting thing is: there's only a temperature controller in the right coil, the one that's at 37 degrees. So I was gon na pump this unit down by letting it satisfy and then bypassing the low-pressure control, so that the system would pull into a vacuum.

But I couldn't because I started thinking about something. This thing has a refrigerant leak in it more than likely it's on the low side of the system and the evaporator coils. If I have pumped it into a vacuum, we potentially could have pulled moisture or air into the system. When I did that.

So what I did was, I just ran it as low as I could to about 1 psi. Then let the pressure control go, or I was just bypassing it by hand - then looked at the suction line or such and pressures to see if they rose really fast to indicate that we had a weak suction valve. That's a very crude way of testing a compressor, suction valve. Most manufacturers actually say you can't do it that way anymore.

I still do on a semi hermetic. It works perfect on reciprocating, hermetic compressors. You know you do have to be careful, because you can't just condemn it just because it rises a little bit but you'll be able to tell if you haven't come across one. Yet you'll know when you come across a bad suction valve, because when you pump it to negative or damn near negative, and let it go basically let the pressure control go.

If you had a very bad suction valve, you'd be able to grab your suction line right. There and it would be red hot, because the discharge gas would be bypassing inside the warm discharge. Gas that was just from a compressor that was just running would bypass the inside of the valves and come out here. So essentially that's what I was just checking.

So at this point now it looks okay, I'm going to go ahead and pull the coils apartment decided to wait to see what the temperature this quote, these temperature controller turns back on at. But while I was doing that, I noticed this, so this is missing. That's a sharp stainless steel so I'll bring that up to the customer to because someone could cut their hands we'll look at all of them. That way, when we give them a quote to repair wherever this leak is, we can give them a big picture on how bad everything is in the box and so we're gon na clean or not clean, we're gon na I'd clean it on the mine.

Because of this, the way these boxes are manufactured, it's almost impossible for the customer to be able to get in here without taking the box apart themselves. It's kind of ridiculous, it's nasty though, but I'm gon na pull these coils apart and look for leaks and both of them I mean they're, really bad shape as dream pens, busted and falling down. So I have a feeling we'll pull it apart right now, but I have a feeling it's gon na be two new coils for this guy, but once I get it apart check this out, I couldn't find a leak, so I equalized the high side and the low Side pressures pissing out of there now it's leaking in that coil all over the place. Look at that man is just pissin out of the coil.

It's bad stay bike. Maybe it's coming from the txp! It looks like it's coming from the coil I'll get in there. A little bit and see what I can do, but don't look like I could do much and here's a leak, detector fluid. I really like the big blue.

I like it in a spray bottle, put on the slight stream and it really picks up the leaks very well by my favorite leak detector. They do make other kinds, and I mean they work, but I have better luck with this one. Getting the micro leaks for sure this guy is pissing out on the powerhead, so this whole coil is trashed. I call the way in there, but what I'm gon na do for now, because by the time I get this approved and get this coil replaced it'll be about a week or two and they meet this box.

They can't go without a week. This is their main region, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to pump it down real, quick change. The power head on this guy put a power head on there temporarily get them operational and then we'll come back. You actually look right here.

I love that big blue, that's actually showing micro leaks but um yeah that that big blue is is amazing. It really does show you all your problems and see the cool thing about. It is like normal, each detector fluid it doesn't show that guy yet see. It's not bubbling, but you let it sit on there for 10 minutes and you come back and it'll show all the micro bubbles.

That's the secret of big blue. That stuff is awesome and I've tried the other brands that the supply houses carry. Everybody has like a knockoff, but there's something about the big blue. That just seems to work better for some reason, so give it a minute see it's not even showing up yet so any other fluid.

It would take a minute. I wouldn't even show it. You know and I'll be honest with you, my electronic leak detector didn't even pick that up either. I have a really good eye trusted very well, it's the detect, select, it does a great job, but the big blue will show leaks that nothing won't show.

I know you guys will tell me to get to H 10, but I've never found a need for that, because I can do everything with just my normal leak detector and some big blue all right. So I'm gon na get power. Okay, so this is gon na. Be tricky this unit doesn't have a receiver with a valve on it for me to pump it down, so I'm actually holding back my pressure at that solenoid valve right there.

Okay, this is not I do. This is a quick fix. You got to be careful about this. They usually don't trust Ave.

A solenoid valve is my pump down method, but I have no other choice. I mean I could recover the gas, but it just seems a little excessive for this. So what I did was I pumped it down to about 10 psi when I say pumped it down, turned off the temperature controller. There's a solenoid in each coil, both solenoid valve, shut down the pressures in the system dropped.

I let the suction side drop to about 10 psi. Then I shut the system off. It. Slowly rose to 21 shut it off, and now I'm gon na bust that power head off.

While it still has a little bit of pressure. Okay, so I changed this valve power head, I should say and like I said, I shut it down at the solenoid valves and this is only an emergency repair, because when I come out and change these coils, I'm gon na recover the gas dispose of it. Put new refrigerant in there change the dryer today. This is just a quick fix and in no way do I suggest doing what I'm doing right now permanently, but I'm not even gon na change the dryer today and what I did like I said I pumped it down with those valves lowered the pressure in the System down to about 15 psi hold the power head off wall pressure was, you know, still in there and it dropped the pressures.

And if you look at this thing, it was still off-gassing. So now that I put the powerhead back on, my pressures are increasing because the refrigerants still boiling out of the oil and the compressor okay, so this is just proof of what off-gassing is that not oil is just releasing that refrigerant. So the way that I did this I in no way introduced air or moisture into the system because it was still under pressure, even though my pressures technically came down, it was still off gassing, refrigerant enough to displace any air from getting into that system. Okay and again, this is only a temporary fix.

Normally I would have had it gone recovered. The gas change, the whole TXV, but just look at this thing I mean it's completely corroded, there's no point in trying to weld on that. Txv it's trash and even the copper it's going to weld to is really pitted out. So this is a temporary fix and you know this is this is as good as we can get for now.

This got this operational and now I'm going to get some flack for this, but this is just how it works, sometimes in refrigeration. Sometimes you don't have time or the ability to recover all the gas, especially if you're dealing with some big things. You know you just pump it down. Normally, I would say, pull the vacuum on it.

I kind of can't pull a vacuum on this system, though, because these things never seal correctly, and I would be afraid of pulling refrigerant right through that. So I go. I don't ever trust the cylinder valve as a pump down method now just for changing a mechanical power head. Yes, but if I was gon na braise, I would not trust that valve to shut off the refrigerant you're.

Just asking for a headache like I said because it was a mechanical replacement. I could do this just pumping out at the silhouette. Yes, I was able to get it all back together and somewhat cleaned off. Nothing didn't get in there and scrub just kind of rinse stuff off, so it's going to operate temporarily until we can get them some new coils, I'm going to put the drawers back in about 80 degrees in here current pressures like half-ass decent.

I also took a temperature of the outlet air coming out of each coil to compare to make sure that they're below blowing the same temperature, it's a way to check an expansion valve to see if it's under over feeding and we're good. For now. One thing I failed to mention here: that's why there's a temperature controller right here, I'm a big, oh em, hard person I like putting the factory parts back in because it was designed that way what we had to do on this particular box. Was this condensing unit used to control the cold rail and it used to control the base section? It doesn't anymore.

They have this locations located out in the desert, and the kitchen gets so hot that the coal grill falls off the map when it gets above 80. In here, so what we had to do is remote the cold rail. So if you look at this carefully, we've got refrigeration lines exiting the back of the box over there coming out back behind here, going out to the roof, so that temperature controller is actually just for the cold, rail and the cold. Rail is now independent from the bottom section.

So that's why this temperature controller is right there. The factory control on the bottom section is a constant cut in temperature controller like I've talked about before. So that's self depressing. I'm a big fan of leaving that control in here, instead of putting just a standard, Ronco temp control, so this Ronco control is only controlling the top now okay, so we could do a little recap.

We had a service call on some prep table drawers not working. When I arrived, I found that they were not working. The box was about 50 degrees, the evaporator fan motors were running and the compressor was running, but I noticed that the condenser fan motor was not discharging very warm air, so it wasn't rejecting very much heat. I kind of already knew that it was probably low on refrigerant and I was able to confirm that found that the unit was severely low on refrigerant.

So I went ahead and added refrigerant to get the unit operational then, once I got it to about where I needed it to be, I went ahead and shut everything off and then did a leak check on the system found multiple leaks in both evaporator coils, but One major leak on the left side, evaporator coil at the powerhead on the t. -- xv went ahead and did what I call a hot swap on the power head, replaced it while it was still under pressure. I just pumped it down really low swapped the power head the whole time, while there is still pressure in the system. This is just a temporary fix, but because I'm gon na be coming back, changing both those evaporator coils and replacing the refrigerant.

I didn't change the dryer. I found no need to vacuum the system down again because I did it all under pressure, so the system never ran out of refrigerant, so it was always pushing any moisture and air out of the system, so it wasn't able to get into the system got the Unit operational and went ahead and watch to come down to ten everything else was good. So again I used some shortcuts and you know there's a time in place for those. This is the situation where I felt the need.

The perfect solution would have been to tell the customer to shut the box off until I could get back out and replace the coils, but I realized that's gon na be about a week or so before I get this court approved, maybe two weeks so I had To do something to get them operational and the leak was so big that I couldn't leave it you guys saw it was piss and gas out everywhere. So sometimes you know in the restaurants, in commercial refrigeration, you got ta, you got to get things going. You know, customers sometimes can't wait for parts to be ordered in. Sometimes you got to do what you got to do.

You have to be able to own up to those shortcuts and those things that you do you better make sure that it works. You better make sure that the customer agrees that you're doing a temporary fix. You know I've done temporary fixes and then the customer says. Why didn't you give me the option? I would have said: no, you know so you always got to keep the customer involved.

Let them know what's going on and you know look out for their best interests, so anyways the unit's operational I'm going to submit a quote to replace both those evaporator coils. I'm also going to replace the low-pressure control, because I don't like the way that it's working so we'll replace the low-pressure control and we'll get them back up and running once they approve it and that's it.