This video is brought to you by sportlin quality, integrity and tradition. Today's complaint is a beer walk-in, that's not working properly. The manager just sent the work order through this morning and he said that it's about 40 something degrees in there and the evaporator fan motors are not running so this system uh, if it's like this customers, other systems, they're going to be electric heat on the evaporator Coils and the uh defrost is going to control the fans basically. So when i walked in this morning there was no evaporator fan motors running it's nice and warm inside the box.

Nothing's happening. I come up here, nothing's happening, so we need to go ahead and open up this condensing unit and uh figure out. What's up so this is our evaporator uh. These are just booster fans, for the keg towers got like a what i thought was a shock, but it might have just been a pokey edge, um yeah, so we got nothing going on in here.

So you definitely see some corrosion on the pipes, the green stuff right there, but i mean nothing's jumping out at me. Nothing too scary in the electrical other than just being kind of a rat's nest. So, let's jump back up onto the roof, get the cover to the condensing unit off and right off the bat there's an oil stain right here. That could be something, but let's go ahead and start with voltage over here.

We've got our disconnect switch right here. Power comes in comes out of the disconnect goes into the contactor. Don't really need to open that up as of yet because i can just simply check power right here. One lit or one phase, two phases three phases, so we have two twelve three phase, essentially or 208 three phase, so we have power coming in um.

The manager was up here trying to change fuses, so we got to make sure because he said he grabbed him from another unit. They got to make sure that they're, actually the right size fuses, so we'll check into that um as far as here. This is what i thought it was. The unit has electric defrost, so we need to go ahead and check to see if the time clock, because this essentially controls everything.

So that's incoming power into the time clock. That's the defrost circuit, zero volts and that's the refrigeration circuit, so we're sending power down to the evaporator coil to the temp control, the temp control controls, the liquid line solenoid valve and then that should allow the refrigerant to flow back up and actuate. The low pressure control to turn the system on so let's go ahead and start at the low pressure control. Now all right, we've got our low pressure control right here and i'm going to go ahead and jump or read across the terminals.

So the low pressure control is reading voltage across the terminals. That means that the low pressure control is open, meaning that the system is low on root wall should be low on refrigerant. For some reason, the low pressure control is open. So at this point we need to go ahead and apply service gauges to see if it actually is low on refrigerant all right, low pressure, control capillary comes right over to here connects to here senses the low pressure in the system.

I've got my service gauges on the liquid and the suction port, and we do have pressure in the system, but we are what looks to be pumped down on the low side, because it's not turning on um. It is not 448a by the way it's r404 um. So we've got 138 psi on the high side and about 19 psi on the low side. So this system is not turning on for some reason: um, let's see i'm gon na have to get in here and see.

Well, we know the low pressure control is open. So it's got to be set uh higher than 19 psi, but i'm going to open that up and just look at the dial and make sure that it's uh reading accurate. Yes, so the cut in pressure is about 30. Psi is what it looks like.

It seems. The hair on the high side, but i'm not going to change it, i'm going to leave it where it is so our low pressure control is holding the system from turning on because the system pressure is too low. At this point, because i told you power three-phase comes up here - runs into the defrost clock comes out of the defrost clock and the defrost clock sends power down to the thermostat and the solenoid valve downstairs. We need to go ahead and go downstairs and test that thermostat down there to see if the thermostat itself is calling and opening up the liquid line solenoid valve.

So this is my evaporator right here and we're going to go to terminal 3 and n, which is incoming power and we've got no voltage, but we've got power to ground from end to ground. So it's almost like we're missing a leg. Let's go back here. We've got a power switch right here.

Let's turn that guy on, let's see what that does nothing, and that looks like it turned it off, so we don't have 208 single phase coming down to the coil. Why? I think we need to open up this power switch. I think our problem might exist in there because if it's got power on the roof, but it doesn't have power down here, that's than likely be our problem. Well, that switch looks very suspect.

It does look uh very healthy right. I went ahead and shut off power, so i've got no power from the main breaker, because it's the three-phase breaker in the panel that sends power up to the roof, and then it sends power down here from the defrost clock. So i shut off the three-phase breaker. We're gon na get that switch, pulled out and test that switch, can't really get it on camera, but i test across the bottom of the switch, which is incoming power.

We have 208 volts or 212. across the top, with the switch in either direction. We get nothing. So we have a bad power switch um.

Let me go to the van, i think i might have. This is a two pole switch. Let me go see if i have a two pole switch, this whole switch blew apart and i do have another one. So let me get it swapped out real, quick kind of had a feeling, judging by the amount of water in there, that this conduit was going to be full of water, and it is as i loosen it, it's dripping out.

So i'm going to let that drain and then we'll uh probably try to get in there and get silicone to keep it from getting in the box. It's not going to be perfect. I'm not going to try to reinvent the wheel here. All right i pulled, you know i filled the conduit up here with silicone as best as possible.

I pulled this fitting drained everything filled it with silicone got in here filled that with silicone, we're trying to keep any moisture from you know accumulating in the conduit. It's not going to be perfect, but all right, let's see what happens one two. Three, please don't blow up there. We go solenoid opened now, because this is electric defrost.

It runs just like a freezer coil, so the coil has to get cold enough before it's going to turn on the evaporative fan motors because of the limit switches back in there, those orange snap disc, limit switches coil's got to get to a certain temperature, so we're Going to put that controller back together and then go up onto the roof and check the unit out all right. It's currently 65 degrees outside my system is running now. Uh the system's looking good saturation temperatures look decent, especially for a hot pull down. Um, i've got some soap bubbles - some big blue right here, um on this guy, because i soaked it up before i took the caps off nothing i mean i'm not seeing i don't know i see, but you know i saw bubbles up there, but that wasn't actively Bubbling, i think it was coming from the schrader, but i haven't been able to duplicate it yet but um at anything, we'll dry it off and you know see if it had a gasket on it too.

So i don't know we'll see just keep watching it, but so far system's looking good, i'm gon na, let it run for a little while make sure everything's good um. I will say too that, when it started up without the evaporator fan motors running, we had low head pressure about a hundred and seventy something psi. I think, or something like that and the sight glass was still clear. The head pressure, control valve bypasses, i think at 180.

Psi i'll double check it, but i think it does um so uh. I don't think we had a problem with the refrigerant charge. I think that there might be a small leak right there, but i don't think it's affected it to where it's making the system low on refrigerant. Yet i think it's just been a very, very tiny leak, but again we're going to keep monitoring it all right.

I went ahead and changed the schrader with the core removal tool and then got some new caps for everything. We'll put these brass caps on all the ports, get rid of those plastic ones. I, like the brass ones better and then we'll make sure we torque down on these tops right here too, so we're still waiting for the unit to come down to temp. I was just trying to stay productive, so i changed out that schrader, so everything's, looking good.

The box is just about down to temp, but the super heat is just a hair on the high side, so i'm gon na go ahead and adjust the superheat bring the stem out. It's about six quarter turns let's let it run for a few minutes and see if it uh comes down at all. I'm not looking for a great improvement, but i'd like to just see it a little bit lower. All right looks like it's still kind of opening and closing on the valve, but we're looking pretty good um everything else.

I'm pretty happy with box is literally probably gon na satisfy it's probably set for, like 34 degrees, because this is a beer walking so yeah i'm liking it. Looking good um expansion, knob looks good in here. It's feeding like it's supposed to be feeding. I think everything else is cool all right, everything's back together, i kind of mentioned it.

They take these uh booster fans, because i know people are gon na. Ask these literally just run through and cool the beer lines as they go through the wall, because the taps are right on the other side of the wall. So it's it's kind of like a poor man's glycol unit to chill the beer line. So you've got a one going in there, one going in there and all it's doing is just grabbing the discharge air from the coils so but um all right.

Let's jump on the roof! All right! This guy's looking good we've, been running a clear sight glass, since i got here um being that this is a refrigeration system with a receiver, we're gon na charge to a clear sight, glass and then just watch the system operate as we get lower to box. Set point like we were, then we can check the evaporator superheat and adjust accordingly. If we need to but remember you shouldn't, have it be changing evaporator superheat, often if you're wrenching on that valve a lot either you have some bad probes or there's something going on in the valve. More than likely a problematic, powerhead or or a messed up, strainer or something dirty strainer, but uh, the other things that i noticed um again, this unit is just about to satisfy.

Was i went ahead and changed all the the caps, the brass caps make sure everything's, nice and snug and tight, and this defrost clock is a little hard to turn. But it's maintaining time. So i'm going to go ahead and warn the customer about the defrost clock. Let them know that you know it's it's on its way out, other than that we've got a clean condenser.

I don't see any reason to get hoses up here. I'm gon na start wrapping this one up. So, as i was editing the footage, i realized that i really needed to emphasize something very important with this video number one. I understood the sequence of operation when i walked up to the equipment.

Okay, so my troubleshooting went from there all right. I did skip some steps like, for instance, i didn't pull out a schematic again. I took some shortcuts because i felt comfortable working on this equipment. Of course, had it been something that i wasn't super familiar with, you know hey, i might have dug into a schematic or something like that.

Okay, but this is a basic electric, defrost evaporator coil, just like a walk-in freezer setup. You know you get into some of the newer stuff. You have to be careful with this because you get into some of the newer stuff, like uh heat crafts, intelligent coils and um, the qrc coils. Those are the electronic expansion valves, the smart evaporators they're powered independently from the condensing unit.

So you got to be cautious about that kind of stuff. You can't always assume that you know what's going on and or you have to know like if you start assuming, you know, hey wait, this isn't making sense, let's step back and look at it and dive in from there. Okay, another thing that i really need to touch on was you know: um the charging of the equipment. Okay, the unit has a head pressure control valve again because it has a head pressure.

Control valve i'm going to beat this to death, but i'm going to keep saying it. You have to put the proper flooded charge in the system. Okay, now this is a micro channel, condenser coil. So in this situation, you need to lean on the manufacturer of the equipment, there's no other method to determine the proper flooded charge other than coming out on the coldest day of the year and clearing the sight, glass.

Okay. So if this was a standard tube and fan condenser coil, then we could use the spoiler 90-30-1 method and we could calculate the internal volume of the condenser. We can determine how much we need to flood it and so forth to figure out the flooded charge or the winter charge. Okay, i need to explain something too too many people get caught up on the term winter charge.

Okay, just like too many people get caught up on the term drop in refrigerant, okay, but that's a whole nother conversation for another day winter charge is simply referring to the re. The extra refrigerant the system needs when it goes to flood the condenser, which is typically going to happen in the winter. A winter charge does not imply that you remove refrigerant in the summer and add refrigerant in the winter. That is not how it works.

Okay, if the system is properly designed and set up properly and all the components are properly sized, when you add the flooded charge or the winter charge, it's left in the system for the life of the system. Okay, unless the refrigerant leaks out, because the unit has a liquid line receiver - it's a storage vessel - it holds the excess flooded charge. That is not typically being used during the summer time. Okay, until it's needed, when the ambient temperature drops below the cut in pressure of the head pressure control valve, then it floods, the condenser okay.

So, towards the end of the video i kind of talked about clearing the sight glass and i just wanted to make sure people understand this unit has a head pressure control valve an lac uh. It was a sporlan lac180 valve the easiest head pressure control valve. We can talk about um. I've got one back here, hold on it's just a simple valve guys, so many people are afraid of these things.

This is the easiest thing to understand like there is nothing to these okay and i will fight you on this one, but no i'm just kidding, but i mean the biggest failure on these things. Is people not understanding how they work and or people not following proper refrigeration practices on installation and or replacement of components? Okay, these things typically don't fail unless something gets stuck inside the valve, which is typically because people are not following proper practices, i.e, brazing with nitrogen and or just being downright lazy, and not doing you know the proper evacuations and things like that: okay, not deburring the Pipe um, i you know most of the failures that i've seen on these valves have to do with contaminants sticking inside the valve. I've got some videos where i open these things up and it's like boom a little piece of uh of copper, pipe that you know like someone didn't deburr, fell off and and got stuck in that valve. So it's super simple for it to happen.

Okay, so to recap the call we got called out because the beer walking was too warm. I jumped on the roof. We kind of went through some troubleshooting steps, which led me downstairs to the evaporator coil i tested power. It didn't quite seem right at the evaporator.

I jumped into that power switch once we got into the power switch. We realized that we had a failed power switch now. Is there ever going to be another moisture failure on that switch? It's very likely. Okay, any time you have these switches inside the refrigerated space you're going to have moisture issues, you can do things like putting switch plate gaskets on them and putting silicone in the conduits, but still there's going to be condensation that builds up inside these things.

It's just kind of life i mean, even if you put a nema for enclosure, the gaskets fail and things like that. Okay, there certainly could have been a better switch that we could have put on that, but again not trying to reinvent the wheel. I'm just going back with what was in there, because you know i don't see the need plus. I know the customer doesn't want to pay a bunch of money to have me come out and put a better switch in there and stuff.

So it is what it is. Sometimes you know i'd love to go in there and sell them all these fancy things, and you know the customer's not going to go for that kind of stuff. Sometimes they just want it fixed and they want it operating again. Okay, so i really really appreciate you guys making it to the end of this video.

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