This video is brought to you by sportlin quality, integrity and tradition. We've got a manitowoc ice machine that is not working. We're gon na get this cover, pulled off and uh see what we can figure out. We've got an error message on here.

Let's see so triangles pointing right here hit the left triangle, it's going to say long harvest and then, if you click on it, it'll give you all the issues that could potentially cause a long harvest. I'm going to go ahead and clear the alert and uh we're going to have a look. This machine looks like someone didn't know how to put it back together. Panels are like falling off.

We'll definitely have to fix that. I don't know what the deal is with this. This isn't that old of a machine. I don't know why all the screws are missing out of the panels too.

This should be there huh, okay, very common on these - is for them to lose the magnets, but that wouldn't give us the error that we're looking at right now, all right! Well, we're gon na go ahead and start it up go into service, real-time data time and temp. Okay, that's a good sign, see how all the temperature sensors are about the same. It means that we likely don't have any bad temp sensors, which are a common failure. Point on these guys, so all right well we're just going to watch it.

Make nice see what happens. Do a visual machine, look relatively clean, don't see any major issues with that. Okay, like i said, we're just going to watch it and see if we notice anything funky still waiting, so the sequence of operation is um, the machine starts up in a uh, a pre-chill where there's no water running across the evaporator. It chills the evaporator.

So that way, when the warm ish water - that's like 70 degrees starts running across, it tries to prevent some of the slushing up. That can happen. Older machines had a lot of slush issues. This one it helps.

You know there's still a little bit sometimes, but it helps so after the pre-chill after the evaporator gets to a certain temperature for a certain amount of time. It goes into a freeze mode where it turns the water pump on and the water pump is going to run across the evaporators, and the the logic board within here within here is going to um look at the ice thickness probe, which is a microphone okay notice. These frequency readings right here this microphone, is looking for the sound of the water bouncing off the ice cubes. It's not looking for the ice to touch it or anything like that.

It's just looking for the sound of the water. It's a certain frequency when it bounces off the ice cube and if it's set appropriately you're going to see the the frequency go up notice that they have a double frequency reading for redundancy that way they don't get false negatives or false positives or whatever. You want to call it so right now, it's just a waiting game to see how fast it makes ice. The evaporator is getting cold and we're just looking to see if it terminates the freeze cycle and goes into a harvest cycle when the ice is the appropriate thickness.

So ice machines um, it's a waiting game, essentially get your ladder. Get your notepad try to stay busy that way, it doesn't look like you're just standing there all right, so the machine went into a harvest and uh the ice. It looks to be the right thickness again, i'm just observing the first batch and it looks good. So, let's see if the ice actually falls off the evaporators, it doesn't look bad at all.

It might be a hair on the inside, but again we're going to wait and see what happens. So, while we're waiting for that, let's look at our evaporator temperatures. We're coming up a little bit, so what you're hearing right now is the air pump. This air pump is trying to break the vacuum, there's one for each side, and it's essentially just there goes.

If you guys can see it happening, it's breaking the vacuum behind letting a little bit of air so that way, that ice will slide off. There goes one side full sheet. That's good! Let's see this side come on, looks like this side is struggling to come off. That's not good that should have already fallen off by now and it's looking kind of thin kind of like it's melting.

The ice, interesting yeah! There's something going on here as to why that side is not falling off and that would cause a long harvest, which is what it was doing. So we're just gon na wait again we're observing i'm not doing anything this batch and then we'll gauge up and check the system out. So i think that the cool vapor valve, which is the harvest valve over here, i believe the cool vapor valve energized, because if it didn't, we wouldn't see any movement in the ice like. I did see it's interesting, but it is not harvesting and the machine is looking for this side to harvest uh.

It's waiting for the magnet right here to lose connection with the magnetic switch and then that's what tells the machine that the ice fell off the evaporator. So we're not harvesting that side. That is a problem. It's interesting! Okay, we're gon na go ahead and uh stop this batch we're clearly not gon na harvest and uh we're gon na get this ice to fall off.

We're gon na put some gauges on it. We're gon na start over, but before i do that, i'm going to inspect that evaporator to make sure there's nothing funky going on calcium, build up or anything. I don't think there is because it looks pretty clean but we'll see. Okay, the evaporator doesn't look dirty, don't see any problems with that.

The machine overall is decent, the thickness might be a little bit thin, but it's not bad um. We're gon na go ahead and gauge up on this guy and watch this guy through a cycle. Make sure we don't have any refrigeration issues here. I did confirm that the air pump is working, even though it's kind of loud i opened it up and made sure that it was actually pumping air and it is so we're going to start another cycle.

I got my tech specs book. This is the indigo series, quiet, cube, machine technicians, handbook, get it from the distributor or you can download it at maniwalkeis.com. I found my 1800 series machine. The condensed unit model number matches up, so here's all the information i took my outdoor ambient temperature 70 degrees, my water temperature 65 degrees.

As soon as we go into the freeze mode service, real-time data, time and time as soon as we go into the freeze mode. I'm going to start my stopwatch and we're going to time the cycle and then write down the pressures about every two minutes. That's interesting! So it's harvesting right now we got all of our numbers written down, but after the right side drops, the air pump turned off for the left side. It's kind of weird, let's see something here, and the air pump is still running for the right side.

There's something funky here: there's a wiring issue, so the air pump is still running for the right side, but the ice dropped off the right side and it's not running for the left side anymore, so something's wonky. Here i wonder if the vapor valve the vapor valves back here, i wonder if we got vapor valves mixed up or something that's interesting, huh we're gon na check voltages. So we got no voltage on the left, harvest valve or cool vapor valve. Let's check the right and i can clearly tell that this one is still energized.

I can feel it. I can't turn it around without unplugging it, but there's something wonky going on here, because this harvest valve shouldn't be energized. This air pump should not be energized; it should be on the opposite side. So what is going on here? I figured it out check it out.

Look at the led lights, i'm moving the left side. The left side is actuating the right side and the right side is actuating the left side, so our switches are crossed like right here. Okay, now, here's what's dumbfounding this machine. These are oem zip ties.

These curtain switches have never been replaced. These are oem. I can tell by the zip tie so nobody's ever changed these unless someone flopped the plugs right here, but this machine's been here for over three years. So why now that's interesting, huh, all right! We're going to switch these around so now when i actuate the left, the left turns off when i actuate the right.

The right turns off and remember these are the switches there's a magnetic switch right back behind here. If i can get this out so there's a magnetic switch right here. It's nice and dirty the cleaners aren't cleaning in there. But when and there's a magnet in this curtain and when you open that it tells the board that the curtain or the damper is open.

So that's how the machine knows when ice falls off. Okay, we're gon na try this cycle again and see what happens. Another thing i'm noticing too is is they're missing a screw, and you can see that the the spray rail is not pushed all the way in um, so the cleaning people that clean these machines aren't putting them back together. Right, that's going to not let even water flow across this grid, not the end of the world, but certainly not correct, so we'll make sure.

I think i have one of those they're little stainless steel thumb screws we'll put that in there before we leave um yeah. That's better: okay, we're ready to give this guy another shot and see what happens we're almost there we're doing really good. I haven't compared into the book yet looks like we just harvested, so i'm gon na hit lap all right and we're going to uh write our pressures down as it's harvesting. We want to do it like quite often every 30 seconds or something, let's see the right side's about to harvest and the left side continuing to harvest.

Let's see if the left side actually drops the ice off, so you can see the vacuum breaking it's taking a little long, but there it goes. It's moving. So we're good. Now, i'm helping all right.

Okay, then we're gon na hit lap and then stop okay. So we have our total cycle. Time of our total freeze. Time is 10 minutes, 32 seconds harvest time.

A minute. 19 total cycle 1153 we're gon na write that down all right. So, according to the book at uh 70 degrees, we should be 215 to 260 and 50 to 33.. We'll write on the money within that and right on the money within that and then for the harvest.

We should be 140 to 155 and 65 to 90.. We're right on the money and right on the monday, so pressures look good, here's what i think happened um. I think that they had a cleaning on the machine and the thickness probe got pushed out of whack. I think that the curtains have been switched for a long time, but the machine will actually work that way because they, typically when the ice is a little bit thicker.

They typically drop pretty close to each other. So i'm going to adjust the ice thickness probe. Just a little bit thicker this time because i'd like to see it just a hair thicker and we're going to go ahead and replace that stainless steel screw i'm going to go pick up a new air pump for them, because this one is on the way out. Um and i'm going to let it operate while i'm doing so and then, but i'm sure this is going to fix the problem.

Okay, it's been running for a couple hours. While i went and got the parts put, the new air pump in super quiet running like it should be no problems there. Um we've made a good deal of ice since i've been gone. So it's doing.

Okay and let's just watch these last two fall off and then we'll be out of here um. I went ahead and wiped down this side of the machine over here because it was a little dirty, but the machine inside is pretty clean. So looks like the right side is going to dump first and that's pretty common on these mantis blocks. I see that quite often um nice good thickness.

I can tell by the sound and then this side's about to fall off right here and we are doing good. We're going to call this one done when it comes to these ice machines having the manufacturer's literature really helps you out in understanding the sequence of operation, i'm pretty familiar with these uh quietcube manitowoc machines, all the way back to the s model and the q model. Actually, to take that back, that's the early 2000s mid-2000s was the q model. They've they've evolved from the q model.

There's things that i like about the new ones. There's things that i don't like about the new ones. There was some simplicity to the q model, but you know i mean everything's going to change eventually, so understanding that sequence of operation really does help you to get through how these ice machines work. If you want to find out more look on youtube.

A lot of these manufacturers have youtube videos out. They also have service training coming up right now, if you find your local manitowoc ice machine distributor, they're, doing like online uh service seminars right now, because they're not doing in person training, at least in my area. So it's probably a lot easier to get online and watch one of their service classes. It just basically walks you, through the troubleshooting and when you sign up for the service class they'll, go ahead and send you like one of those books that you saw me reading and they'll.

Send you the workbook on how to troubleshoot their machines and things so things that uh? If you want to learn more about them, you guys just got to dig into it. Okay same thing goes for hoshizaki ice machine, manitowoc, um, isomatics, scotsman, full, it vote all of them. They all have some sort of service, training or online materials that you can get so look into it. I encourage you guys.

Okay, i wouldn't suggest learning as you go on these ice machines, because you're going to end up finding you're going to spend a crap ton of time being confused. It's it's best to try to read up on them before you go out that way. You understand sequence of operation. I learned the hard way you know by just kind of jumping into these things, and it took a long time.

I i was actually just reflecting on this. I can remember back to the q model machine and how much time i spent on those machines you know, but that time that i spent on them gave me the foundation today to where i can walk up and be like oh yeah. This is what's supposed to happen, you know, and so forth. So i mean, i guess, there's good and bad to it.

So, but just understanding the sequence of operation really really goes a long way. Now, in this situation i went ahead and changed the uh, the the curtain switches around. I don't know how those things got flip-flopped i i guess i don't know it's kind of weird, like the cleaning people don't get into the circuit board, so i can't see why they would have gotten into that, and we haven't even worked on this machine in, like Four months uh four months ago, we did something on it and it just blows my mind that it could have ran like even if we switched it would have been four months ago so and they only have one single machine. So it's not like it's been down for a while.

I don't know i have no idea. Sometimes you don't you're not going to make sense of these things, but i flip flopped, the curtain switches. I thickened up the ice thickness probe and then went ahead and preemptively changed that um air pump. The harvest assist air pump because it was clearly going bad um.

There was something you guys heard the sound and then at the very last clip you couldn't even hear the air pump running, because you know it was working like it was supposed to be so um really appreciate you guys making it to the end. Do me a favor if you haven't already check out my website, hvacr videos.com merch available the sweatshirts available on there uh. The hats are available on. There got one sitting right here.

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Okay, if you guys, are interested in purchasing any tools check out, truetechtools.com use my offer code, big picture to save eight percent on your order on checkout and uh yeah. That's pretty much! It uh live streams monday evening 5 p.m, pacific on youtube, and then i also do a live stream with the hvac overtime crew on friday evenings about 6 05 pm on the hvac overtime, youtube channel, so check that out too. I really really appreciate you and we will catch you on the next one.