This video is brought to you by sportlin quality, integrity and tradition. All right, i am back here today, um, we had originally come out here. I had another service technician out here and the dining room ac wasn't working and he came up onto the roof and had no power. I was not the diagnosing tech and uh.

He turned off. The disconnect switch went downstairs found that the breaker was tripped down at the panel. It's key that he turned off the disconnect switch because you never want to reset a breaker if you can and energize the load from downstairs. So you turn it off up here.

Go downstairs reset it and then come up here, look into it before you turn it back on. You know you always want to check everything to ground and all that good stuff. So with that being said, when you went downstairs to reset the breaker, the breaker wouldn't reset, the breaker was bad, so we had them call an electrician. Now that was a process, because it's like three weeks ago, i don't know whatever, but they just got the uh breaker replaced yesterday.

So supposedly we have three-phase power energized up here now, but i still have it off or we still have it off at the disconnect switch right here. So we need to figure out what caused the breaker to trip some context. We were having an electrical storm that day we had thunderstorms and everything. We had a couple: restaurants in this area that just had nuisance electrical problems.

I recently just made a video about a exhaust fan that was tripped because of a 24 volt fuse. That was that same day that uh this problem surfaced too, so it could just be a nuisance problem from that weird electrical storm we had going on or we could have something else bigger. So we need to look into that again before we energize power. So the first thing we're going to do is check to see if power is properly restored and then we're going to just go through and check all the components.

If we don't find anything wrong, then we'll energize the unit and troubleshoot it from there all right. So i'm going to check this guy line 1 to 2. 201.. 1 to 3.

201. 2. 3. 200 right around 201.

So we have proper power coming up to the unit. Now we need to check the other side to make sure that there's nothing that could have caused the breaker to trip all right. So now that we have proper voltage at the breaker, we're checking uh resistance to ground and then we're also doing a mega ohm test. I'm just curious, so i'm i'm just writing down the readings of the mega ohm test just to see where we're at so each winding to ground, i'm at 550 meg ohms we're going to test the other one too, just to make sure now.

This is just a baseline because this unit's been off for a long time, keep in mind that when you're taking an insulation test or mega ohm reading um, if the compressor has been running the temperature of the ambient everything affects the insulation resistant or the the reading. Okay, so um, if you've seen one compressor running and then one compressor has been down for a long time, you're going to see a big discrepancy between the two so keep that in mind, but we just tested this one um, i don't insulation testing is new to Me, okay, i've read about it a lot, i'm more or less doing this just out of curiosity, but i will tell you that you don't want to just assume unless you have a crazy low number that you have a bad compressor because of an insulation test. Reading you always want to look further because moisture in the system different things like that temperature, all that can affect the reading. Okay, so keep that in mind, but we're just going through everything we're going to check all the motors spin them all that good stuff.

I'm just more concerned about the compressors right now, so we're going to check the other one. All right i haven't tested this one yet, and i don't think this is the cause of the tripped breaker, but look closely at that wire right there and it's definitely had some overheating going on the other ones. Don't look as bad at the connection point but that one's definitely had something going on there. So we're gon na look into repairing that if i can um yeah.

I don't know if i have a terminal kit for this guy we'll have to see, but you definitely had some overheating, which can oh yeah look at look at. That's why it's overheating. Look at how loose that is, you've got a loose loose terminal it. It's super loose, the other ones.

They don't come off this one right here boom that would cause a breaker to trip. Definitely so that could be part of the reason, we'll fix that and then keep going all right, so different probes apply to different situations. On the other one, i was using just the normal needle probe on this one. It's going to be easier because trying to hold the probe on there when you're doing the insulation test isn't very accurate.

So you get a consistent reading this way. Um we've checked two of the terminals: they're 550 mega ohms same as the other one we're going to check the last one right now. So i like how on this, this is the uh fluke 1587. So on this one it saves your last reading.

So you just hold down insulation test. It gives it a second and then it'll give you your reading. It tells you the voltage at which it's testing 527 and we're getting 550, so we're getting an even 550 mega ohms on all comp on both compressors uh. Each winding so that looks good to me, don't see any issues there now the cool thing or the important thing to understand again about insulation tests.

Is you really want to pay attention to the data and save everything? So we have the voltage at which we're testing at we have the resistance or the insulation test reading, and then we also need to write the ambient temperature outside and note that the compressors have both been off for an extended period of time. You want to write that down because you can have a if we let these things run for an hour, we'll get a different reading on them, because once everything starts warming up, the oil starts moving around you'll get a different uh reading, like i said so. All right, i had a lead repair kit comes with new flag terminals and splice connectors with heat shrink. Butt connectors um keep a lighter.

I don't have a lighter in my van, so i had to use my map gas torch, um, my heat producing device, but uh. You know a little bit of burning. That's fine! It's not really hurting too much! So we'll tape that up um. I would love to get an actual flag tool for doing the flag connections, but i have yet to been able to see one at any of my local supply houses or anything i'm the kind of person that likes to hold things.

I guess i'm probably going to have to order one from the internet. It's just kind of weird not being able to see something before you buy it, but uh. If any of you guys have ideas or have a flag connector that crimp crimper tool that you like. Let me know, because i'm always looking for one, if you guys don't already know the standard crimping tool, isn't the right one to do these flag terminals, it's actually a different type of a crimp.

So but i'm going to tape these up with electrical tape. Get this put back in and then we're going to further uh finish diagnosing the unit you want to kind of you know just investigate the wiring. It's not perfect, but i'm you know it's kind of hard to predict everything. That's what testing for continuity and stuff will do, but i'm not seeing any rub outs that i can tell unit's definitely old.

The contactors are not in the greatest of shape. It's going to be hard on camera to show this, but there's quite a bit of pitting going on inside the contact point, so we're probably going to go ahead and replace some contactors on these guys too. This one looks like it's been overheating. You see how one side is still brass and one side is kind of a dark red color, so that's potential potentially problematic.

So this is the kind of stuff we want to look for we're just looking for anything that could have tripped. The breaker definitely be checking the capacitors back there in the corner too. All right, i want to change those contactors, but i want to make sure the compressors run, because just because electrically they looked okay, they could be locked up too again. We don't know what caused this breaker to trip so before we replace the contactors we're going to test continuity to ground on the rest of the unit, really quick, just real, quick and then we're going to bump start.

The compressors make sure they run blower, motor and condenser fan motors, and then once we know, everything runs then we'll dive in deeper and start changing, contactors and stuff. But i hate to throw a bunch of parts at it. If there's going to be, you know locked up compressors or something right, you don't want to waste money. So we've got this guy hooked up to ground, we're just going to make sure we get tone.

We do we get tone and we get resistance. At the same time, so we're testing the load on every contactor to ground, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing! We'll check the line side. We've got no resistance to ground whatsoever. Okay, we'll check the main over here.

Nothing condenser fan motor contactor, nothing all right, it's that time. So we're gon na go ahead and uh fire on the disconnect power's on we're going to come over here. We're going to put the unit into test mode right here. Give it a second your test mode.

If you want to know how it works, there's a little thing right here, pull that off. There goes the indoor blower motor should be economizer. If i remember right as the next function, you leave it on for a couple seconds and take it off. Then it should be a compressor come on baby supposed to like put it on for two seconds.

Take it off, i'm missing something here, i'm probably messing it up should show it's usually an led light to indicate we're in test mode. There goes one. We know one compressor works, let's go ahead and turn on the next one. That's circuit one circa two should be next.

Condenser fan motors are working. Okay, cfm's are running so we're just waiting for our second stage. Compressor there. It goes okay, so everything works.

At this point now, we need to go ahead and uh put refrigerant gauges on the unit, fully diagnose everything and i'm going to go ahead and change those contactors. But i'm going to change the contactors first. Now that we know both compressors work and the blower motor and everything runs okay, one capacitor is read in 24.84 and it's a 25. So that's fine.

I need to disconnect and do the other one real, quick. The other capacitor is right at the threshold of being too low, um 23.5 would be the six percent, the capacitor says, plus or minus six percent, and it's a 25 microfarad capacitor, so we're right at so we're allowed to run 23.5 or right at 23.8 um. I'm probably going to go ahead and change the capacitors to just to be safe. All right, i got the capacitors changed.

I went ahead and changed the condenser fan motor relay too um working on the contactors and these lugs wouldn't come loose. They were really difficult. Uh get a screwdriver that you don't like. I have my fancy insulated one.

I didn't want to break that one. So i grabbed one of these and put heavy pressure on it and then used my uh canipix pliers right there. While i was pushing really hard and i was able to very carefully break them free but again it was a screwdriver that i didn't care if it got jacked up or something so um, just a little bit at a time got the contactors all changed out. Nice and neat, if you look up into here, you can see what we were dealing with.

Look at look at how bad and pitted out those were look at the points look in there and then it's hard to see. But it's it's really jacked up inside too and the same thing on this one really really messed up in there, so um whenever and these are all original contactors too, i can tell so in that situation. Once i see one, that's really bad! You see two! That's really bad, it's pretty safe to say the others are too, and that proves my point and it's pretty safe to say this one's probably going to have some corrosion inside too or some pitting, but this one's sealed. So it's not going to be as bad, but we're changing it out of precaution too.

Yeah we're gon na open this up check the belt, and then we got ta probe up on it and turn the unit on and watch the pressures and see how it's uh functioning uh came in here to the belt. It's looking pretty good. I tightened it up. Just a little bit this one, you just loosen the inside nut, tighten on the idler pulley on the outside nut and it grabs these little gear thing with a little sprocket grabs those tightens it, and then you tighten down this nut.

So this guy's good got a spare belt in here. Looking good, all right, we're getting ready to probe up using the job link probes, we've got a discharge, clamp discharging suction. I like this big uh, the jl3 lc large pipe clamp because it fits around that what is that like inch and 3 8 - i think suction. So that's nice! Having that, i just keep a variety of clamps in here.

That's my normal suction clamp and then i got a couple other big ones and more pressure, probes and stuff in here, and then we have a liquid line clamp. So this is a fixed, orifice metering device that has the accurate style header. So we're going to check the charge and you use target superheat on this one. That's based off of indoor conditions, outdoor conditions and it's going to fluctuate.

It's not just the set number all the time, depending on the load. It's gon na change, so we're gon na go ahead and turn this guy on uh. When we're diagnosing two, you want both stages running in a perfect world. You want the evaporator coil, completely loaded from top to bottom with moisture, so we want to let it run for five ten minutes and then we'll see where everything's going all right, i'm using the app measure, quick with the field piece job link probes.

This is the first stage, compressor we're looking good evaporator pressure or temperature looks good. Condensing temperature looks good we're right within what measure quick says. We should be super heat's pretty much on point says: the target is 12 degrees, we're reading about 14 right now it's been running for about 10 minutes. Let's scroll on over.

I bet you we're going to see a little bit low, airflow approach. Temperature looks good, ah airflow's, not too bad temperature. Splits right on point. Yeah first stage is looking good we're going to go ahead and jump on over to second stage and have a look.

The reason why i thought. Maybe we were going to see an airflow issue. Is the evaporator is a little bit dirty we're going to probably have to schedule a thorough cleaning on this guy? It's not horrible, but it's got a bunch of dust on it, and i'd also like to split this condenser, because this is a double road condenser. It's not something i can do today, but i'm pretty confident it's going to be dirty inside too, but obviously not bad enough to where it's affecting our temperatures or anything or our pressure, so not too bad, but all right, we're gon na jump onto the second stage.

Second stage, you know a little bit high on the pressures, but it's still on the money where it's supposed to be super heat, yeah just a little bit on the high side, but i'm not scared of anything i'm seeing here. This is looking pretty darn good um. So pressures, look fine, don't see any issues with that. The next thing we're going to do is just test current on all the motors, the compressor and the indoor blower motor, we'll test that real, quick, um and yeah.

That's pretty much it. So, let's get on the the um testing current right now so rla on the first stage is 33 amps we're slowly climbing, but i've also got the door open. So that's not bad! Second compressor, i believe, is in the 20s i'll uh. Look at that one! Real quick, let's see, second compressor - is allowed to run 20.7 and then indoor blower motor, i think it has.

The five horsepower is allowed to run 16.7 so we're under the 20 amps. Let's see if i can get on this. Oh yeah we're good on the indoor blower motor too, so oh connects or fan motors last one uh condenser fan motor right here, 3.8 and then right here, 3.3. So condenser fan motors 3.8 3.3.

Let's see what we're allowed to run 5.5, so everything's testing under current, like it, should be we're good to go. So we fixed the problems that we think could have potentially caused the breaker to trip if it wasn't caused by the electrical storm that they had where we had. You know weird power issues so um we replaced some contactors, some capacitors, we fixed a burnt or a loose wire on the compressor terminal that very well all of those things could have led to a breaker tripping other than that. That's it guys we're going to wrap this one up.

This is just one where i don't just come in here and reset a breaker. It's big picture diagnosis right. We look at everything we do our best. Now, i'm not going to give them 100 guarantee that everything's fixed, but i'm going to give them a guarantee that i did my best.

I checked everything that i could from this point forward, we're just going to have to wait and see if we have any other issues. So it's so important to look at the big picture guys i know as corny as it sounds. You don't just want to walk up, i mean this could have been easy. I could have just walked up.

I could have just flipped a breaker, it probably would have ran okay, but we take the time to go through the system to do our best to try to figure out why the potential short is, you know we don't know exactly what happened, but why the potential Short might have tripped a breaker if that's what caused it? Okay, sometimes you have to take an educated guess, but we do our best to find the problem before we try to reset the breaker. Okay, i've told it in the past. I you know it wasn't my fault, but there's things i could have done to have changed it before. I walked up on a system that had uh blown fuses.

I replaced the fuses. I turned the disconnect switch on and i think this was a long time ago. So i think i did it once or twice, but regardless i turned the disconnect switch on and then all of a sudden, the main for the building blew okay or the main for the entire sub panel. That ran half the building blue and when it blew okay.

Because there was still a direct short in the system, i did not check and this was in the past. I did not check for direct shorts to ground. Before i turned the disconnect switched on, then it tripped the main and when the main tripped the main broke. Something internally catastrophic happened within the main breaker and they couldn't reset it, and this was at a fancy golf course.

It was a funky, 480 volt, breaker and long story short. The electrician couldn't replace it until the following monday and it was like a friday afternoon. Okay, so that golf course had to go without half you know whatever that panel controlled air conditioning systems, refrigeration systems - you know for the weekend. Basically, and while it wasn't my fault that the main broke, when it tripped there's things, i could have done to have prevented that situation.

So i learned something from that point and that was probably 15 years ago. You know anytime. I approach a tripped breaker. You always de-energize the load then try to reset the breaker then go back and try to figure out what potentially could have caused that breaker to trip before you reset the system.

Okay, because we're trying to prevent those trips to the circuit breaker. You know because every time something happens, let's just say that you had a direct short and a compressor. Well, there's always the potential that you have a direct short, but it didn't burn the refrigerant. It didn't burn the oil, but if you keep resetting the breaker that electrical short can cause issues with the oil and the refrigerant, so you can save the refrigerant you can.

You know potentially save yourself from having to go through a nasty burnout procedure to clean out a system - it's just so important and for safety reasons too. You always want to go through the system and do your best to try to find things before you reset the breaker, and then you want to do things systematically and think, logically, while you're doing it so in this situation i went through the system. I found a loose wire in the compressor. Okay, i didn't stop there.

I went ahead and repaired that i found that the contactors were pitted out really bad okay, i moved on, but before i replaced all those components, i went ahead and energized the system after i checked to make sure there was no other direct shorts. That way, i didn't waste the customer's money going in and replacing all the contactors to find out. We had two locked up compressors you get where i'm going there. So it's taking the time slowing down and thinking about the process to try to give the customer the best bang for their buck and in the process of doing that, i'm being very um thorough, going through their system again, giving them the best bang for their buck And at the same time, i'm covering my own butt in my diagnoses because i told the customer i did everything that i could you know make sure everything was good.

Then i turned the system on you know. So it's always about taking the time slowing down. Thinking about the the problem and addressing it accordingly, okay, i can't stress that enough. Um, you know, like i said, there's a very good potential that i would have just reset the breaker and it would have ran fine, but maybe it would have tripped again and who knows, maybe even the problems that were there that i fixed might not have even Been the issue that caused the breaker to trip, but i did my best to try to prevent any future problems.

Okay, then we went through the system checked out. The refrigeration circuit made sure they were working fine. They were good. Okay, of course, i'm recommending to the customer that we go ahead and come back split the condenser clean it clean the evaporator and then we'll address the refrigerant pressures even more in depth.

Once we do that, but i wasn't too concerned with anything that i was seeing. Okay, so it's always important that we take that time and be thorough. I really really as usual. I know i say the same stuff all the time, but i appreciate you guys so much it's so humbling to see the support from you guys.

Like i said in the beginning, um the small medium hats are back in stock. I was out of stock with them for about a week or so it's taken a while to get them, but we're back in stock. If you guys were looking for that size go check out the website, hvacrvideos.com um other ways you guys can support the channel. Uh say it all: the time there's gon na be links in the show notes to everything i'm gon na mention you can support the channel via paypal.

You can support the channel via patreon memberships via youtube, channel memberships. If you're interested in purchasing any tools truetechtools.com. I have an offer code, big picture. You can save eight percent as of today it is september 25th of 2021.

It may change tomorrow, but today it's an eight percent discount. If you shoot me an email with what you're going to purchase from true tech tools, i can generate an affiliate link that will get me a little bit of an extra commission, but you still get to save your eight percent. The easiest way, though, like i say all the time, is just simply watch the videos from beginning to end. Let youtube handle all that stuff.

Okay, i appreciate you guys so much and if i can kindly ask you guys, just simply slow down remember just because someone's being a jerk to you doesn't mean you need to be a jerk to them, maybe something's going on in your life. It doesn't justify their actions that they're being a jerk for, but sometimes we just need kindness, okay and even though someone's being rude to you just be polite to them. Back. Okay, just bite your tongue.

You know random acts of kindness, whatever you want to do. Just we need to be more kind, guys, there's, there's too much craziness, there's too much anger, confusion, fear going on right now and uh. Some of those things we can't control, but the one thing we can control is how we go about our daily lives and how we um. You know uh express ourselves to other people right so just simply be kind hold a door open for someone buy a coffee for someone help someone out answer a phone call from one of your fellow service technicians.

I know it's saturday, i know you're not working, but maybe he just needed a helping hand. Maybe he just needed you to walk him through something that he doesn't quite understand and it's something as simple as picking up the phone. You know another thing that i don't think i talk about enough is remember everybody's going through crazy stuff in their head. Everybody has mental issues, mental health stuff.

I deal with it myself. It's a struggle. I'm gon na deal with for the rest of my life. Remember that sometimes people act out in their jerks when they're trying to compensate or trying to mask other things they have going on in your life.

So if you know someone reach out to a friend just make sure you talk to your friends, make sure they're doing. Okay, you know, if you guys, are having issues reach out to someone yourself. Okay, pick up the phone talk to someone, don't let it get you to a dark place, don't let your friends go to the dark place either. Okay, remember communication and kindness.

One of the biggest things that i feel like we're lacking in these days is communication and kindness. People don't talk about their selves, their feelings, their emotions, enough people don't act accordingly. People are rude. People get stuck in traffic.

You know, i told the story a few times the last different videos, but i i still can't forget the day that i was so frustrated. While i was sitting in traffic - and i you know - i was just aggravated because it cost me 45 minutes and then i realized that the traffic that i was sitting in was because they were honoring a fallen soldier that had died in afghanistan. One of the i believe, 13 soldiers and he he was being flown home, but unfortunately he was being flown home in a casket, all right and uh. They shut down the freeway and there was a procession down the freeway and i couldn't help but feel like the biggest jerk in my stomach when i saw what was going on okay, so sometimes we have to understand that there's reasons things are happening, we're a little Inconvenienced but that family didn't get to bring their son home their brother home alive right, so it's so important to slow down and remember that you know everybody's going through something and while it doesn't necessarily justify their actions, remember that okay, maybe they just need a helping Hand, maybe they just need a kind word.

I can't thank you guys enough. You are amazing. Thank you for giving me this platform to be able to ramble on okay um. I am so humbled and uh.

If you guys have any comments, leave them down in the youtube comments feel free to send me an email to hvacr videos, gmail.com uh. If there's anything you want to talk to me about, i try to communicate back with everybody as much as possible. So thank you. So very much and we will catch you on the next one: okay,.