This video is brought to you by sportlin quality, integrity and tradition. We have a waitress region, not working. This is a three-door with dressings all up on the top they're complaining that the temps aren't right. So what i did was actually put probes in there.

So i've got a return and supply on each side, return and supply. That way we can see if the evaporator coils are working. Now it just turned on right now. I have not gone on the roof as of yet so we're going to get some temps on these to see what they're doing all right we are running.

We've got 34 31 there's a little bit of a discrepancy there, but we're going to give it a few minutes, but return air is the same 37 on each return, air and then 30 33. I think the coils are working, but we need to see what it turns on and turns off at, so we just need to give it a few minutes and watch it and see what's going on. I think both txvs are working so at this point, what i'm doing is i'm watching the unit as it's naturally cycling, i'm using my wireless probes and i'm watching that the temperature controller, even though it's set in the 30s, is coming all the way up to 43 Degrees before all of a sudden it kicks in so we've got a bad control all right, so this guy's clearly coming way too high up in temp we're getting way into the 40s, but the temperature controllers set for almost 30 degrees. So we've got a failed temperature controller on this, and this happens over time.

They drift as they start to go bad now, technically, you could probably turn it a little bit colder and it might get them a little bit more time, but in reality it's inevitable that that control is going to fail more than likely it's slowly, losing its gas Charge, that's in the sensing bulb and it's just kind of a slow process, so we're going to go and replace that control and we'll probably go ahead and put in a digital control that has built-in defrost. This thing comes in really handy when you want to bring stuff into the restaurant. If you don't have a cart, if you want to take stuff on the roof, i've loaded this thing with tons of stuff. So it's really nice.

It is the veto ctxl and uh. It just seems to take a licking and keep on ticking kind of you know what i mean burn. I predict that uh new evaporator coils are going to be in their future. Now this one, the txv just, looks like it's trashed, but i guarantee, even though that coil has a coating that in the sides it's deteriorating, i wouldn't be surprised if it's not leaking, but yeah we're going to remove that temp control put in a digital.

So it's just a process of finding the wiring and figuring that out now that one is only breaking one leg of power. We are going to have to run a neutral and a power and then a switched leg so we'll have to redo some of the electrical. But it shouldn't be too hard. It was just easier to just unwire everything and start over.

I pulled out the solenoid coil, because when i installed these, i used it as a junction box, so we're going with a four wire cord. We just taped off the ground wire because there's nowhere for a ground on these things, anyways um, so that way we've got four wire putting this together and then we'll have to figure out the rest once we get it mounted and i'm trying to utilize there, because I don't have any of this four wire cord, but this was on the old control and there was excess in there. So i think i can utilize. What's left stainless steel can be tricky.

Sometimes a tech screw will go through it. Sometimes it won't. So it's easiest to just drill it with an eighth inch drill bit and then put a tech screw in also, though, look at this wall, the whole thing's freaking moving the whole structure of this box. It's sad because anything they replace this with will not cool as efficient, but the whole integrity of the box is falling apart.

I'm not completely in love with it, but it's functional and it'll work. It's all zip tied up nothing's going to rub out made sure of that we're good. I still got to secure the sensing bulb and that extra cord, when i originally uh, installed these coils a couple years back. I prepped them at the shop.

So there's a solenoid valve in each coil, but one single temperature controller and then the wires run in that calm, conduit right there. So i had to set it up with uh power coming into here, going to each solenoid valve and then also a dedicated independent power. Going to the uh fan motors too, so it looks like it clicked on so we're gon na put the cover back on secure that wire and then check the temp splits again and then go up on the roof and look at the condensing unit. All right.

The cover is put back on temperature controller's mounted sensing bolts mounted all the way underneath the coil off the back wall, so nice and secure so we're gon na set this up, put the probes back in and then, like, i said, jump onto the roof and check The operation up there all right this condensing unit controls their bar and their waitress region. Okay, we've got a clear sight. Glass honestly, i don't really see any reason to put service gauges on this guy. If we've got a clear sight, glass, hot discharge, cool suction, don't see the need, so we're going to jump over and look at the defrost clock.

It's a shame because, in my opinion, these were the best condensing units ever built and they don't make this style anymore. Um they uh they, they totally changed their footprint to come see. Did these things were dang near bulletproof, they had all the right components in them: factory installed: suction filter, dryers, liquid dryers, head pressure, control valves pressure, ports for the head pressure control valve. Like everything about these things was awesome, accumulators factory installed, i loved these things and unfortunately they changed them.

So it is what it is. It's a dying thing. You know the quality that these things were, but anyways um. This unit has got a defrost clock and again it controls the bar and the waitress region.

So we can't turn the defrost clock off completely because we need it for the bar region still. Okay, until we eventually convert the bar regions to a control that has self defrost, but what i will say is their waitress region is the most used region here, the bar region, not so much so what i'm gon na do is actually eliminate the defrost during the Day and only have a long defrost in the middle of the night that way uh the um the control. You know that way. It's not fighting itself, because i set that uh temperature controller up for six defrosts a day for 15 minutes each.

So i'd hate. For this to go into a defrost and then that to go into a defrost down there, then that would cause temperature issues. So it's not ideal, but it is what it is right. So i'm going to eliminate the daytime defrost and just do a couple in the middle of the night and make them for a really really long time, all right, big picture stuff here this contactor, i just pulled the cover off to investigate it, because i saw the White residue on the outside the whole inside is completely full of sand and pitted out, so we're going to swap that out too real, quick, again preventive right.

This is big picture diagnosis. As usual. It's kind of the nature of the beast. You see the sand, they have sand everywhere.

I mean look at there's a giant sand dune right there, this stuff just blows so we end up going through condenser fan motors and contactors, pretty often usually once every year, if not every two years, we got ta change. The contactors, if you look at this one, i mean it's inevitable - that one's gon na be full of sand too, but i mean the sand. Is i don't know if you guys? You probably can't see that, but the sand is just coming out of this thing and it's all pitted inside so we'll take it back for an autopsy. I'm gon na turn this guy back on.

You know i was gon na say i love these units. The only thing i would have changed about them was they originally used, ronco pressure controls and that's the only real big quark i have with these units other than that every other component was amazing, so that one's been changed to a pen. I find the johnson controls are much better and they're, not the micro set ones. So basically, i use the controls that have the cut in and cut out pressure, and you don't got to do the math of cut in minus differential, whatever stuff, but um yeah other than that we're good set.

The defrost for about 25 minutes did too long defrost. In the middle of the night, that should be more than sufficient for their bar regions, all right, so here's the contactor after i pulled it apart, and i want to talk about this a little bit but first off, look at all the sand and i've already shook Out a bunch of sand on top of it, but it just still keeps coming out look at the points. Okay, that's the points at which the contact touch right and three of these go on the top. It actually goes something like this and then three of those go on the bottom and then they make their contact.

You know like that boom. Okay. Now i get a lot of questions and people criticizing number one too. Let me preface this with criticism's fine.

I have no problem with it. Um and you know understand something too that you guys don't know everything that we're dealing with. In all the circumstances. Now i try to uh um, explain things, but i i i'm fine with criticism.

It's all good okay, but i get a lot of criticism about why i replace contactors and people saying that you shouldn't replace a contactor until it has a voltage drop. Okay - and i agree with that in a perfect world - i do okay, because, yes, if you pull apart, even a good, properly operating, contactor, you're, gon na see, burning and pitting okay and the question is: when? Is it too much a lot of my customers? And and i make educated decisions based on the circumstances and a lot of my customers, this particular customer in general is out in the middle of nowhere. Okay, and we can't afford they can't afford to have downtime. They don't want their walk-in to go down on a friday night.

Okay, they don't want their region to go down on a friday night. They want it fixed and they don't want down time with. That being said, i communicate with my customers and i let them know what i'm doing, but in this situation, because i know this customer, like i mentioned in the video - and i know that we get this sand from the desert blown around all over the place. We change these preventatively as they're starting to wear, because we have such a high failure rate on them.

Okay, now, certainly we could have gotten a little more life out of this contactor, but how much more? That's the question? We don't know. Okay, so you have to make an educated decision and you have to say all right - this thing's looking pretty bad, judging by all the sand, it's time to replace it, okay, um and and it depends on the customer and what they want to do. So. Obviously, i can't do this for every customer.

You know it just really really depends, but i use my my my experience. I use you know what i see in the unit. You know i saw this white residue on the side. This is the part that you guys see up here.

I saw the white residue coming through. You know i pulled the cover off. I saw that on the back of the black cover you know, and then i quickly looked into the points and yeah they look corroded. They look bad okay, so we have to make those decisions.

You guys can clearly see that it's worn out all right. So that's it! So if i didn't make it clear in the video i used a temperature controller that had built-in defrost it was a ke2 therm. Temp plus defrost controller, so it's meant for air defrost, so it worked perfect. In this situation.

I usually go between two digital controls. I like the ronco, etc series the 111000 or the 140 1000. The 140 1000 is the nema 4x. It's pretty cool um or i go with the uh ke2 temp, plus defrost controller that i used in this video uh.

That's also, i believe, a nema for enclosure too, so it's weatherproof or whatever, but anyways um yeah. I, like uh, you know just kind of going between the two depending on situations you know whatever. If i don't need built-in defrost, then i might go with the ronco. It just depends.

So in this situation i installed the new temp control it. It basically worked perfect right. I put six defrosts in it. Uh 15 minutes a day out there 15 minutes each defrost, so we're good to go and then, like you guys saw i went up to the roof.

You can't forget that this equipment, that condensed unit is a multiplex system right. It runs multiple things, so it's got two bar regions on it and a waitress region. So i can't delete the defrost clock completely so because the bar reaches they're, not a high volume reach in they don't get in and out of them a lot because they just keep kegs in there um. They have actual bottle coolers for the bar reaching for the uh for the beer, bottles and stuff.

So um, the defrost in the middle of the night is going to be sufficient on those things, so that'll be just fine. It works out good and remember like i. I said in the video too big picture stuff right, i'm thinking about the customer, i'm thinking about the headaches that it causes when i have to come out in the middle. You know in the evening and different things like that, so i'm making recommendations to them in their best interest: hey, let's, go ahead and jump on this contactor, it's working, it's functional, but the question is when's it going to cause a problem and when it does cause A problem it could ruin the three-phase compressor that runs this all that stuff.

So we went ahead and preventively replaced the contactor because it was showing signs of wear so got rid of that replaced it and everything else checked out and did you know, turned out. Okay, now i'm not a huge fan of the way that i had to do the wiring, but it's real. It is what it is right. Um, you know in a perfect world, if i had everything that i needed, i could have made it looked a little bit.

Prettier and the point that i made about the fact that i had prepped these coils in the shop when i installed them a couple years ago. The reason why i made that point was because, when i was in the shop i'm i've got the the the evaporator coils. I can take the back off of them and i can get in there and i can really play with the wiring. I use the solenoid valve as a junction box like it was super easy, that's not very practical when the region's installed, it would have taken me another two and a half hours to make it look absolutely perfect.

Inside of there and there's you know, we don't necessarily need to do that. So sometimes it's easier when you've got the coils on a bench and you're prepping them and getting them ready to make it look all pretty. And then, when you install them, you know field repairs, get to be a little bit more difficult, depending on how intricate you had gotten. When you did it, you know on the bench, so i just try my best.

Okay, that is completely functional. It's gon na work. Fine, it's you know, everything's gon na be good, and you know i i'm gon na go ahead and address the comments, because i know i'm gon na get a million of them about. Why did i use wire nuts? Why not use wago connectors all these different things? Guys, the reason why i don't use wago connectors is because they're not readily available.

Okay um. I can't go to home depot and get waygo connectors. I can't go to my refrigeration supply houses and get waygo connectors. I have to search them out or i have to randomly order them off amazon and i don't even know what i'm ordering um.

So it's just one of those things and we're changing. You know to change from wire nuts. First, off wire nuts have worked for my entire career and, yes, occasionally you have a few issues: okay, but using a wire nut, a wire nut will last, i would argue, just as long as a way go. Connector um, if it's not overcrowded.

If there's not too many wires in one wire nut, if you use the right size, if you tape them with electrical tape, and you make sure that you properly twist them so there's an art to use in a wire nut when you put it on there, you Actually want twist in the wire from you twisting the wire nut. You want it to twist the wires okay so and then you want to tug on every wire to make sure that there's no loose wires or anything like that. Okay, i know you know, there's people that love lego, connectors, there's people that hate waygo connectors, i'm partial, i'm i'm fine either way, i just don't have them readily available and it would change the way that we typically do things you're, typically not going to see a Wago or two waygo connectors for the most part in a solenoid valve coil little junction box like on this that'd, be a little bit tight. Okay, maybe you can get them in there, but it's going to be a little tight.

So you know it's just about. What's readily available to me and that's why i don't use them as much if, if i had a big bag of them and i knew which ones to buy - and it was easy and i didn't have to sit down and spend an hour trying to figure it Out then, maybe i would order some, but i just haven't had the time i'm super busy, and so i just use what works and wire nuts have worked for me for many many years. Okay, so i really appreciate you guys making it at the end of the video as usual. It's amazing um.

I put that little clip about the veto bag. I really do like that bag. That's one of my favorite veto purchases in a long time, if you're interested in purchasing that bag go to truetechtools.com, they have all kinds of veto stuff, that's actually where i ordered that from you can use my offer code, big picture. One word: you'll get an eight percent discount.

I do get a small commission when you use that offer code uh, you can shoot me an email, uh, hvacr videos, gmail.com, and i can generate you an affiliate link. I know guys there's some people out there that are asking me for affiliate links and i haven't had time to send the emails. I understand if you need to go ahead and purchase things i try to get to them, but i'm just busy but yeah i'd shoot me an email, i'll generate an affiliate link or make it easier. All you got to do is click any one of the links in the show notes in my videos, even if it's not the the the tool you're trying to buy just click, one of those links boom.

It's the same thing as me: making an affiliate link just for that particular tool. So you could do that. You can still use the offer code. I get a small commission, it's a great way for you to help out the channel other message.

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