So there we go see now we have current on the compressor seven amps we're looking like, we should be okay and we're watching we have suction pressure, is really high, because it's system stabilizing out, we have head pressure going through the roof right now. Okay, now, my original guess on this system was that, because of the plugged up filter, we were going off on high head pressure and yeah. We're definitely got too much going on. So let's pull the filter off.

Now we probably still put too much gas in there. Should never hit 600 psi on a system like that, so uh yeah, that's a problem. This video is brought to you by sportlin quality, integrity and tradition. All right today, we've got to complain about a glycol unit, not working so the beer is pouring warm and it's up in this scuttle access.

So we're gon na get up here and see what we can find all right, we're up in here and uh. We got two units, so they said one's at 70, so i'm assuming this one's fine but we'll still double check all right. So we have two glycol units here. The point of the glycol units is to cool the beer lines from the beer walking to the taps.

Usually it's a couple hundred feet sometimes longer so we have two units here. This one according to the thermostat, is at 31 degrees and then this one according to the thermostats at 72.. So the odds are this is our problem. Now condenser fan motor is running, but it's cold, air, compressors, red hot uh, there's a ground wire just sitting right there, that's nice um! So we need to uh figure this one out, see if the compressor's running and troubleshoot it from that point forward all right.

So this is strange, but when i first got here, it's doing it again: okay, condenser is not rejecting heat. It's like cold, okay, but then, just before i turn the camera on all of a sudden, it was hot. So that's interesting. It felt like it's rejecting heat for a minute, but then now it's not because it's just room temperature or you know 70 80 degree air blowing out and for a minute it was over, probably 100 degrees.

And again my compressor is red, hot red hot. So at this point we need to figure out why, what's going on here, um i'd say we probably need to apply service gauges. So we can see if there's refrigerant in the system and kind of go from there, and it's also interesting because my temperature dropped like a degree or two um. So as far as these units go, i kind of already said this is a glycol unit.

It's meant to grab the or cool the beer lines from the beer walk into the taps. Okay, so you can see the lines coming out right here and then they're going into the beer walking and then they're wrapping around all the tap lines going underground to the bar, where the tap heads are. They have circulator pumps up here that circulates the glycol through they have like pex, piping or poly, whatever some kind of rubber plastic piping in there um, but they have glycol pumps that circulate the fluid. So those have to be working.

There's a giant sump on this one. It's full of this whole thing is full of glycol and there's an evaporator in there and you've got a compressor. Condenser metering device is a capillary tube. It says it's r22, so it's just a basic refrigeration system with pumps and actually we have three pumps.

So so here we go again, but this time we actually heard the compressor start. You heard it turn on. So i think our problem is. Is that our compressor is turning on and off, but why we don't know so at this point like i said, we need to put service gauges on there to better understand, what's going on with the system all right, so we are, our compressor has 202 volts and, As far as the current goes, it's about 3 amps of current all right, um, okay, that's good on voltage! So we know the compressor is running now.

What about our pressures? Look at this we're running in a vacuum. What the heck is pulling it! This thing's running in a vacuum right now on the low side, it's actually pulling it into a vacuum, so go ahead and shut the system off. This thing is uh. Looking like we're low on refrigerant is what i'm thinking because it was running, but it wasn't extremely high pressures and then all of a sudden it pulled into a vacuum and started running in a vacuum on the low side, that's kind of crazy with refrigerant in there.

That's not good um, so yeah. We need to look into this guy. Let's go ahead and take this high side port. We already purged everything so we're gon na take the high side porsi there you go and we'll equalize out the pressures.

Okay. Now this is a capillary tube system and this is a system where the entire evaporator is encapsulated in fluid. So whenever this happens, one would think that if that fluid mixed with the refrigerant that it would short the system out, but you always want to check so the square, see if you're getting any liquids coming out the no and i don't feel any liquid. So i don't think the system is full of of water or moisture or anything like that um.

So the next thing we need to check, so we equalize out the pressures. We also need to uh uh verify that we don't have any visible leaks, and we also need to verify that we actually are actuating our ports. Well, no, we know we are because we pulled into a vacuum on this one, and we have pressure on this one before i equalize them. So so we know that the ports are open and everything.

So that's interesting, so we need to figure out if this thing and where this thing has a refrigerant leak at all right, we turned everything off now. The compressor still could turn on because it looks like this compressor switch is not operational but um. It's satisfied at the moment we do have an exhaust fan up there. You always do be aware of your surroundings that exhaust fan has to run or this room overheats, so we're just kind of listening to see if we can hear any refrigerant leaks.

If there's anything obvious going on here, i don't hear anything at the moment see about around this compressor. Rotolox stub tube, nothing capillary tube. It's always possible that we have a restricted, capillary tube too. We haven't really diagnosed too far.

Um i mean that's looking pretty good. I don't see anything jumping out at me as far as leaks go you have up here. One would think we would know if we had a leak. That's the reservoir up there, but you always want to investigate that too.

So we'll get this top pulled off and we'll get a visual in there looking in this reservoir, because it's off we're looking for any bubbles, do we see any bubbles and i don't see any um, i mean there's like scum or something whatever that is, but i'm Looking at everything, i don't see any bubbles as of yet so i don't think if there is a leak. It's in here. I think if there is one it's going to be down here, possibly but it's hard to say, um, let's simulate, what's going on here, one more time we're going to turn the system on one more time and see if it does the same thing again. So when we try to build head pressure, what happens uh everything's safe now the uh pumps aren't on so, but i mean for testing purposes.

This should be fine. Okay, compressors running starts at about seven amps drops down suction pressure's, dropping dropping dropping too low. This is our capillary tube right here. I'm feeling it because if there's a massive restriction in the capillary tube, sometimes you can actually feel it, but i don't feel any really cold spots.

We're definitely pulling into a vacuum so yeah, okay, what we're gon na do is uh, get a little refrigerant, add a little refrigerant to the system, see if we can get this pressures to build back up and then we're going to grab a leak. Detector too, either way we have to get this going today. So uh, you know what do i see oil right here? Oh no! It's just a shiny, brace joint that that looked oily for a second, but it's not okay, so yeah we're gon na go grab the leak detector in some refrigerant all right before we attempt to add any refrigerant, we're just doing a quick leak search. I just kind of already went over the common places, nothing's popping out at me back in here.

Nothing go over to where these service valves are nothing. It's always a possibility. This cap was a little bit loose right here and this one always actively has pressure so and see how it's kind of picking out something there. So it's possible that it's been leaking out slowly through that port right there, it's hard to say, though um come up here, just quick without dipping my probe in the fluid nothing's jumping out at me.

So, okay! So at this point, we're going to try adding a little refrigerant, see how it reacts do another one more visual inspection up here to see. If we see any bubbles, real, quick and if we don't, then we'll start putting some gas in it. So, maybe just maybe right right there, if i could do this without getting my phone wet, there's bubbles just around that refrigeration line where it enters, but it could also be that that's where it vibrates too. So what i'm going to do is kind of give a press down on it, submerge that a little bit more in the glycol, fluid and see if the bubbles get worse or if they go away, looks like they kind of went away yeah.

I don't know that. That's a leak or not. Now i got the stuff all over my hands. It's propylene glycol, so it's not going to kill me, but definitely i think i have a cut too yeah that happens to me a lot.

I have a cut somewhere because i've got red. All over my hand, go figure all right. We turned all the pumps back on they're running, actually they're, not this one's locked up. Ah this one's going bad, i just hit it and it started.

These ones are running. Oh, is this one yeah? I think they might have a couple bad pumps, too, um, okay, so power's going on we've already purged our lines, so we can just add refrigerant into the low side once it starts up. We're just going to add a little bit of refrigerant see how it reacts. Now i did a couple things to before i added refrigerant.

I grabbed the dryer, while i was running to make sure it didn't, have a massive restriction across it, so i'm using some vitals, i'm not just adding gas willy-nilly kind of a thing. Okay, we're just gon na add a little bit of refrigerant and just kind of see how the system reacts so we're just adding a little bit of refrigerant, um general rule of thumb. It's a capillary tube system. I would say my condensing temp should be about 25 degrees over ambient.

So i'd say it's about 80 up here, right now, so 90 100, maybe 105 condensing temp we're just slowly adding a little bit of refrigerant we're building head pressure. So that's a good sign. We're just kind of watching seeing how it reacts current draws coming up. I can hear the sound of the compressor changing, so you got to listen as you're, adding refrigerant it was starting to kind of flood back the tone of it.

I don't know man this pressure's, not building. Let's see it doesn't feel like a plugged up cap tube and again very carefully with the condenser fan motor running when i grab this dryer make sure it's not cold, it's not hot on either side. So it's not like a restriction, we're just watching. Are we gon na pull into a vacuum again or is it just still low on refrigerant we might have a restricted, capillary tube, but it's r22.

So it's very rare huh. It's interesting. I've added a couple ounces and this thing just immediately pulls into a vacuum. So yeah we've got a restricted, something a restriction in the system where it is, i don't know, um we'll get some it's more than likely going to be in the capillary tube, possibly in the dryer.

It's interesting because it's really screaming restriction on here. Um. It's not uh, look at how fast it i mean it's been off for five minutes and it's not equalizing very fast from high side to low side. So it is screaming a restriction on this guy, so we're gon na get some actual clamps on there and measure the temperature difference and it's slowly equalizing all right.

So i've got temperature clamps across the dryer, we're going to turn it on now and see what happens? Let's watch the temperature difference. If there is one at all, there's barely anything 76.3 to 77.1. I don't think, there's a restriction there. It's got to be in the capillary too, but it's interesting because usually you can feel it usually.

You can feel the cap tube. Get super cold finally, to stick my hand up here, because the other end of the calf tube is right there, so it could be there too all right! This makes more sense. I was really confused, but we accidentally front seated that valve i'm sitting here going. Why it's not making sense to me what's going on here, but that's what it is we front seated that valve so essentially we're not letting the refrigerant flow anymore, because i was tripping like why isn't my discharge getting hot? It wasn't getting hot at all, so we're gon na uh open that back up and then finish going through the system.

So you got ta trust your gut and you got ta know what's going on here now. If i'd have probed up, you know, maybe i'd have seen it or something like that. But mistakes happen it does so you have to use your instincts and, like it just wasn't making sense to me what was going on here, because usually you can feel a restriction. If there is one you know, and it's like there was nothing, so it didn't make sense and then my discharge wasn't getting hot at all, but we were building head, so it was just confusing.

So there's also the possibility that now we put too much gas in it. So we have to keep that in mind. Um we're going to turn it back on we're. Everything's back on pumps are running now.

We're gon na get a much more accurate pressure reading. So there we go see now we have current on the compressor seven amps we're looking like, we should be okay and we're watching we have suction pressure, is really high, because it's system stabilizing out, we have head pressure going through the roof right now. Okay, now, my original guess on this system was that, because of the plugged up filter, we were going off on high head pressure and yeah. We're definitely got too much going on.

So let's pull the filter off. Now we probably still put too much gas in there. Oh should never hit 600 psi on a system like that, so uh yeah, that's a problem. Um we're gon na go and let some of the gas out we'll grab a recovery, cylinder, dump it into a recovery cylinder and then check the charge accordingly and see where we're at you know.

Mistakes do happen. Um i had let my apprentice put everything on and i didn't double check it, so it falls back on me, but it's okay. I mean we realized before we went too far. Essentially, okay, so he's grabbing the recovery cylinder.

This is our 22, so we don't need to get the recovery machine out i'll, be able to field, adjust the charge and get it where i think it needs to be just by dumping gas into the recovery cylinder more than likely, because i i don't think i Put more than you know a couple ounces, or so in this system um, so uh yeah, we'll just do that and then we'll you know finish diagnosing from there all right there we go so turn it on. I add it just by actuating here just watching the system pressures. My head pressure should be it's about 80 degrees, 98. So we'll go for about 105, condensing temp! That's what we're gon na aim for it might even be bigger than we thought it might not be a dirty condenser because look at my suction pressure, but granted it is also hot.

So, let's give it some time see how it reacts. Yeah, it's coming down. It's dropping we're just under a heavy load right now, going to give it some time let it run, but the current's running really high too all right. I went ahead and probed up with my smart uh.

The joblink probes probably should have done that in the beginning, but i figured that it was going to be something really obvious, so i think we're about where we need to be now granted. We have really high superheat really high, because we're still really high in you know temperature. So it's going to take some time to get that down, but i think that we're about where things should be sub coins looking really high but uh. So at this point i want to try to figure out what the initial problem was, because we kind of got confused with that valve actuation.

We don't know where the problem was so we're going to go ahead now that i think we're about where we should be for pressures we're going to put this filter back on and see what it does to our system and see. You know how our compressor reacts to that too, and then just give it some time. So i wanted to do an experiment. I sent my apprentice down and i had them close the hatch and uh.

I want to see how hot it gets with that dirty filter. On there now, the dirty filter did drive up my head pressure by the way too, but i want to see how hot it gets up in this area right here. So right now it's 80 degrees, so we're gon na give it some time we're gon na give it some time to let the the temperature build up in here, and i want to see how hot we can get it up here in here all right. So i have a few hunches here number one.

This light was on okay and this is a really hot light. So it's just sitting here heating up this room um we had a somewhat dirty filter, it's not the end of the world, but it's somewhat dirty, but once between closing that hatch, they do have uh an air intake over here. But it's like very little i'll come over here and show you and it goes into their server tower right there. So the way that this works is they.

They have a server room right below here, just a tiny one for a rack and they draw the air through the door vents across the server tower in through here and then out through this exhaust fan. The exhaust fan is clearly running, but with this flood light on this shouldn't be in here, but this thing is generating some serious heat. I can't even touch it. It's so hot now it was on when i came up here, so they should be shutting that off right there or even putting a motion sensor or something in here um.

So but you can clearly see that our head pressure's, climbing our current, is climbing. The compressor eventually is going to overheat. It's it's red hot right now and look at our compressor, superheat 80 degrees superheat. It can't breathe.

So, let's pull this filter off and you're going to see a little significant drop in pressures, but i still uh think that it's going to get too warm up in here. I will also say that they just replaced this door and it's been missing for a long time, uh in a perfect world, i'd like them to put a mini split up here, but they only have done that in a few locations. I suspect that they just had this door installed and that made a difference too, so we're slowly starting to drop a little bit, but i still want to just let it i want to see how hot it can get up in this room. So the more i think about it, i didn't have this unit running either so once i turn that unit on it starts getting even hotter up here and then that that panel was right, there see right there.

I took it off because it actually had hinges and put it up here, because that needs to stay off and they just had this replaced not too long ago, because the old one was missing, but it's actually helping because they need to put in a mini split Up here i'll talk to them, but i don't know they're going to. Let me do it, but they also need to replace this unit, but we're still letting it come down to temp to make sure it works um, but their kitchen ac is not working 100 either. Uh yeah and see it's it's pulling 85 degree air across that thing. So it's warming up too now that i turn this guy on for sure, yeah and uh.

Once i turn this unit on it's generating some serious heat and then uh, my temperature is even climbing higher with the panel off. I have the door off at the moment, so it's almost 90 degrees, so imagine closing that door, leaving this light on it'll get well. Above 100 up here and i believe and then with a slightly dirty filter, i believe it was all adding to this problem and then, like i said, their kitchen ac, actually has a restricted metering device. It's a carrier, fixed orifice, uh metering device.

You know the accurate headers and uh, so it's only got a 10 degree td across it, because one of them is like completely restricted, so it's kind of all adding up, and then you have a really old glycol unit. You know so just like a multi-faceted problem here. Another thing i was realizing too is looking at this condenser. It's actually pretty dirty inside, and this is one of those things where they just started doing pms we've.

I think we've only done one or two, maybe one and you know. Obviously we can't get to everything when we do it, we've been focusing on the roof but um for the longest time these units ran without pms, so these condensers got completely impacted. But if you look at it i mean you can't clean it with water, because it's not a yeah. This is kind of one of those things you know not doing pms it catches up with you that condenser needs to be thoroughly washed.

I'm gon na try to blow it out with my blower, but i have a feeling: it's impacted with dirt, see how bad this gets. Nothing's even i mean there's a little bit. You can see it in the air, but it's not bad, because it's it's like a grease. Almost it's thick in there.

So there's not a whole lot. We can do about it. It's really taking a while mind you this glycol this thing's been down for a day. They didn't make me come out on overtime.

This is monday now and also look at this someone pinched the wires in that control, but uh, it's 51 degrees. According to this uh sensor, whether or not that's accurate and uh we're looking better, we still have really high super heat, though so we got to get that suction line temperature down, but it's got to get that fluid temperature down um. As far as compressor current we're. Looking good too we're dropping down 4.74, we got our condenser temperature to drop down significantly so now we're right at just about a 30 degree, condenser td, so that's better than it was so it's just taking some time all right.

We are looking much better um i'd like to see my evaporator temperature a little bit higher, but it's not the end of the world. It's like my liquid line. Temperature clamp had come off um, but it's doing pretty good guys. We have a 25 degree condensing temp over ambient, which is pretty good for a capillary tube system.

Um, it's cooling off up in here 76 degrees. Now that we've had some time - and this is coming up - this thing's coming down - it's about 48 degrees. It's going to take a long time still another hour or two probably um, but last thing i want to check. We haven't shut off on thermal overload.

The compressor is still extremely hot, though um, i'm afraid to shut it off. To be honest with you, because it's gon na you know be pretty hot, but i would like to test the starting components too. So i think we are going to shut it off we're just going to let it cool down a little bit test, the starting components. Just for giggles to make sure all is good with those um again, i'm pretty confident the problem was you know that mixture of everything really so all right, we're about 96 microfarads and it's an 88 to 106 start capacitor.

So that's good and then we'll test the run cap. Real, quick! Well, that's interesting! This is a 15 microfarad capacitor and we're not measuring yet so we have a bad run capacitor on this guy, which could be adding the problems too. All right, i ran we're still coming down to temp, it's still 44.. I ran and got uh starting components.

I've had it running this whole time, but we're gon na put the starting components on this guy um. When i change start components, i change them as a set, all three of them, so yeah. That's where we're going all right, we're back on and running still coming down in temp um they're gon na have to uh. I'm gon na really strongly urge them to consider replacement of this unit.

It is really getting worn out the suction line's finally starting to cool off, but it's just you know that fluid has just been so high in temp for so long um. It's going to take a while to bring that whole bath down, but crazy, all right! Well, that's it! For now we'll uh we'll follow up with them. It shows you how easy one simple mistake can make everything just snowball can make you go down a rabbit, hole, nobody's perfect. Everybody makes mistakes.

This was a great learning moment for my apprentice and when i told him what happened he's like, oh, i immediately knew and he you know it's it's not that he doesn't know like you know it's just he made a mistake, that's it! It's no big deal guys. People make mistakes, it's what you do to remedy them right and it's how you take care of the customer. So there was no permanent damage here. Okay, so as best as i can tell, the original problem was that room was overheating because, like i mentioned, there's just an epic firestorm here, okay, we had a dirty filter.

The condenser was dirty, someone left the light on in that room. They just replaced that door and their kitchen air conditioner not was not working, so this unit's located in the kitchen, the kitchen ac cools the area down below this and that air is drawn across the server tower into this room and then up onto the roof. Okay, so when the kitchen ac is not working 100, you know the kitchen's, not as cool as it should be. I actually got a service call or that same day they asked me to look at their kitchen, okay, because they said it was like above 80 degrees.

In the kitchen, well, that's a whole nother video for another day um. Actually, i need to quote it right now because i already know what's wrong with it but um you know. So it's it's easy to get caught up in these and you have to be able to quote unquote. Look at the big picture right now.

Of course they need to change this unit bottom line. It's a piece of junk r22 um glycol unit from 2004, okay, they've. Certainly gotten their life out of it. It's very inefficient, um, the suction reed on the uh compressor is well the suction.

The discharge reads: something's going on there, because it's not as efficient as it should be. You guys saw how, when we accidentally put it into a vacuum, it wasn't. It was slowly rising in pressure very slowly, but it was slowly rising, which means the the read inside the compressor valve was or on top of the compressor valve is starting to leak. By is what's happening there, okay, so um.

I believe that it was just a little bit of everything and then we got up there and we started diagnosing. The compressor was going off on thermal overload. We got that to stop. We put our service gauges on it and then we accidentally front seated the suction service valve.

Instead of cracking it or mid seating, it, okay in our situation, back seat closes the port for your service, gauges, mid seat and or cracking the valve. Just opens it enough. So that way, you can see system pressure, but we had accidentally front seated it which is drive the valve stem all the way into the valve and what that actually did was that stopped the flow of refrigerant from the suction line into the compressor. So therefore, the compressor was just pulling on the valve itself, the suction service valve, and it was just running itself into a vacuum um, and you know that's why we were seeing the negative things and i started going down a rabbit, hole thinking that we were low On charge, i was thinking we were low on charge because of the head pressure, and, but you know in hindsight, as i'm editing this video i'm sitting here thinking you know what, if it was low on charge, i don't think it would have pulled that far into A vacuum it'll pull into a vacuum for sure, but i don't quite know if it would have pulled that far into a vacuum.

Okay, um and you know - but you know it like. I said it's easy to kind of, go down a rabbit, hole and start chasing. Your tail and then realizing, oh, shoot, you know so in that situation. Once i figured out what happened it's like okay, we got to correct this and then um.

You know i had to let the refrigerant out. I just grabbed an empty recovery cylinder. It actually had a little bit of r22 in it, but the system pressure was high enough and it's r22. So it's a pure gas, so i was able to dump vapor into the cylinder until i got my operating pressures to where i think they should have been um.

I don't think i needed to recover the charge, i'm pretty capable of charging the system without you know weighing in the charge, but in a perfect world, that's the best bet recover the charge and weigh in the factory charge on these things now um. It's since been about a week since i was out on this service called no more complaints, so i mean it's working, but i did go ahead and let them know like i strongly suggest you guys consider replacing this unit. I honestly don't think they will, because everybody's just trying to still survive right now and make any money that they can. So i think they're going to continue to baby it and it is what it is.

But i pulled that door off and i told them we can't have that door on there until we get the kitchen ac fix and even still that room was never made for two glycol units. Originally it just had the one and then they've added the second one. So they they really need to leave that door off, or maybe i thought about, let or talking to them about letting me cut a vent into that door. But then the problem with that is is that the way that that room is made is uh.

The server room is not going to get the adequate amount of air if we cut a vent in that scuttle access door, because then it's going to be bypassing the server essentially. So it's just a a big epic problem. There, okay, but we just do our best and remember that we own up to our mistakes in this situation there was no damage, nothing to even worry about. We didn't charge the customer for the r22 that we added to it.

It's still sitting in my cylinder. There's nothing wrong with it um you know it just it is what it is, but you just got to try your best and, like i said i was not mad in the slightest at my apprentice, i in fact this was a great learning experience and that's the Way that i see these things, okay, you know we do learn from mistakes. Obviously, i'd rather people learn from my mistakes that i've made in the past than people to you know to to make the same mistakes as myself, and i've done this before early in my career, i've accidentally gotten a valve orientation mixed up and not realized, which way Was open which way was closed? It happens. Okay um, but i you know the best we can do is try to learn from it.

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