Video is brought to you by sportlin quality integrity and tradition well this is not not good customer says main breakers tripping they tried resetting it trips again this is one of their acs. They also i'll talk about this when i get on the roof. They also have another ac down already because of a bad electrical feed. So let's go up top and see what's going on with this other one all right.

This location has three ac's i believe that is a kitchen. This is a dining room and this is a bar now this one right here. I already diagnosed that it had a bad electrical feed. If you come up here.

The wires burnt and the electrician was in here he left all this stuff off. I had it all covered up. But the wires burnt all the way down in there. And it goes all the way down into the conduit so they need to replace the entire electrical feed.

I think there might be more damage than this though because i was just talking with the manager. This was like three weeks ago that i diagnosed this so i was like what the heck. But then i talked to the manager. And he says the electricians came out and they said they had to shut off power to the entire building to fix.

It which doesn't make sense to me unless. There's a damaged bus bar or something um. Because that's the only reason. Why they would have to shut off power to the entire building to fix this issue because realistically if there was no damage.

They should just be able to shut off the main breaker. Which is already shut off pull a new feed all the way up to here and then be done with it. But they're saying they have to shut off the power to the main building. So i haven't opened up the breaker panel.

But i don't know so this ac has been down for three weeks. Which is crazy because this is out in the southern california desert. They only have three ac's two for the dining room in the meantime. They said their other ac went down and the main breaker that i showed you guys is tripped now.

So that's not good that should be this unit right here all right. We have no power. So this is the right ac okay. This is incoming.

This is load so no power at this guy so i shut off this safety switch right here all right and we're going to test for shorts to ground on the unit. And see if we can figure out why the main breaker. It's a 100 amp breaker. It's trippy nothing too crazy going on in here.

I don't see a blown apart vfd alright. We're looking for direct shorts to ground. I've got my meter set on tone. So it beeps if we get a direct path okay so we're gonna start at our main.

Nothing nothing nothing. So that's on the line side of the contactors. Let's go to the load side of the contactors nothing just moving my way across this is the first stage nothing second stage moving my way across nothing. So let's go over here to the third stage.

Nothing nothing. There it is third stage load line three is directly shorted. So very carefully we want to pull this plug off right here. But we want to be careful.

Because you don't want it to blow off in your face. Okay. It looks to be a little bit of oil. No that's like a dielectric grease.

I think so we disconnected that now let's check nothing no direct short to ground okay. So this compressor is dead. Let's see if we can get the rest of the unit running um. So we're going to turn on i got to go downstairs.

Reset. The main breaker. We'll come up here turn it on and see if the unit will start up all right power is restored let's check to see if it's actual correct power meter right there i'm going to try to one hand this. 211 211 211.

212. So we have proper power. So uh let's turn this guy on and hope nothing blows up right. I'm going to put this panel back on because i don't want to get surprised okay.

Before we turn power on let's open up the indoor blower section. Make sure nothing funky is going on in here. Now belts a hair on the loose side. I need to tighten that up before i leave probably tighten it up first let me do that real quick all right pulled the blower assembly out tightened.

It up nice and good like it should be tighten everything good. Let's have a look at the filter. See how dirty they are it's all sand. Yeah.

They're not too bad actually they've been recently changed. So all right so we should be good on that we're going to blast this building with sand. But there's no customers in there. There's so much sand flying around that when you turn it on it just stirs everything up and especially since i tighten this guy.

So okay. We're gonna push this back in and then uh turn on the main power. All right here's the moment of truth. It's gonna be a second before the unit stages up one two and then the third won't pull in because i have it disconnected vfd is speeding up 38 hertz that flashing isn't happening for me.

So. It's only calling for y1 at the moment. We're disconnected on that guy we're going to let it run for a few minutes and then uh we need to see what killed that compressor could just be the heat. Because it's been well over 120 out here recently so this thing is uh.

What is that seven years old yeah installed in 2015. So it seems about seven years old running in these crazy coachella valley. Summers um. Where you know normally on the ground it gets to about 115 116.

But up here on the roof with these uh rubber pto roofs and everything it's five to ten degrees hotter on the roof on average. So so all six of the condenser fan motors are running now i know they look slow to you all. But they're running at full speed and everything's good so i don't see any problems. There.

So i'm thinking that just uh over time that compressor just overheated is my thought condenser let's let a look at the condenser and see how clean it is so it goes like this it goes first stage on the top second stage. Here and then third stage. Here assuming. This is oh this is micro channel.

So it might be a little different. But that's probably how it goes i mean it doesn't look that bad certainly could be cleaned. But i don't see a reason for it to uh yeah. I could see through it just fine.

So i don't see an issue there all right well. I'm gonna let this run for a few minutes. They actually have another ac down that's been down for a long time and they haven't sent me a work order for it and it's this little five ton. It's a split system that they added many years ago.

Just to try to help out a problem area in the dining room. And because they're down in ac. I'm surprised they can even keep the doors open still because with that bar ac being down. I mean.

That's a 15 ton unit. That's crazy that they can even operate without 15 tons in their building. So um. I'm gonna look into this guy if i remember right for some reason.

I'm thinking i might have a bad capacitor or something let me open it up. I've been waiting for them to send a work order for it. But i don't think you know for whatever reason they haven't but i'm gonna go ahead and jump into this while i'm letting this bring the building down to temperature. I can't remember what's wrong with this.

It has a turbo capacitor in it so i don't think. It's gonna be bad. But look at all this sand. It's all in that contactor too.

It's going to be hard for you guys to see it. But that contactor is burnt. I mean not burnt. But it's really in bad shape um.

Let's see what's going on in here. I know this ac has been down for a long time. But i can't remember definitively. What is wrong with it if it's a fuse issue or possible.

I guess we're going to start from the basics. Let's go ahead and pull this disconnect switch and see oh real quick. Too. Before uh.

Before. I go. Further. And forget to show.

Y'all. Um. I went ahead. This guy still has gas in it.

Okay. So. The contactor actually pulled in i haven't taped it off yet i'll tape it off before i leave. But i confirmed that we're getting proper power coming out of it three phase.

So i don't think the contact is necessarily the issue so that's one thing too i wanted to point out. But so far this thing's working uh as far as the building goes. 88 return 70 degree supply. So it's kicking butt.

We're on full speed on the vfd. So yeah all right well let's get back to this guy. I'm gonna start by checking power. See if we have power if i need to go reset a breaker.

So i pulled the fuse block. Because i do have power 212 volts going to it so we're gonna check the fuses. So if i go right here. The fuses are good that one's good and that one's good so.

The fuses are good why is this guy not working. I wonder if we go right here. We've got 212 volts coming in but we're not pulling in on our coil voltage for some reason. So i need to get in here and test to see if we've got 24 volts telling the contactor to pull in and we do not have 24 volts at this contactor.

So we need to go downstairs. Now be very cautious about doing this i'm going to push this contactor in you don't want to push contactors in unless you know what you're doing because you can cause damage. It runs. So we know that the compressor runs and the condenser fan motor runs.

But why are we not getting a call for cooling up here. So we need to go downstairs and start at the thermostat and figure out if something's going on there. So this thermostat doesn't have a display well this is just a user interface i need to go to uh the um air handler and see what's going on up. There actually i can start at the actual thermostat.

Which is in the attic. All right i got up into their air handler again this is up in their attic. This is a little five ton that was added many many years ago. We've got a disconnect switch.

I got to climb up a little bit further to get over here it doesn't sound like it's running. I don't think so we're gonna get into the control section. This is where the transformer should be there at one point was a wet switch in here. But i don't see it anymore so i don't think the wet switch is being used or someone disconnected it so we'll see so check this out you got to be smarter than the average bear pay attention to your surroundings.

This ac. Was added. After the fact the building already had an air conditioning system. But it was added to supplement what they had for a problem area in the restaurant.

When that happened this was capped off because there used to be a duct run that sat right down. There that's the ac. I just fixed so i pulled the cap off temporarily and i now have 65 degree air blowing on me while i'm sweating my butt off in the attic. So i'll put it back before i leave.

And i'll put the screws back in it but work harder. I mean work smarter not harder right it doesn't look the greatest but looking right here that fuse is blown. You can actually see it and if you measure across the fuse. We should have 24 volts because it's blown get my hands to stop shaking yep so that control fuse is blown.

So i'm gonna go grab some fuses and we'll try to figure out what caused it i did not have a fuse. I will go get some but in the meantime. I had a 5 amp popper that i could put on there so this guy will let you know you know it has a circuit breaker on it so it's good for troubleshooting. So i don't even know if there's going to be a problem.

We'll see i disconnected it at the disconnect. So we can go and turn that on see what happens here there it goes. I just heard it turn on and it's moving air so we're gonna watch it for a few minutes and see what it does well it's been running for about 10 minutes. Nothing yet.

I took the uh control wiring in here and just kind of moved it around to see if there's any shorts moving the thermostat wire to see if there's any shorts. I'm not going to spend all day dealing with this because i got a million service calls today but of course. I'm going to focus on this one. I'm a little confused too why is there not an access panel.

Where the heat strip should go like i realize this panel will seal it off. But don't you think it'd be smart to put an access panel. There i guess the cool layer will help to cool this area. But it seems like there's going to be massive air leakage coming through here.

I feel like there should be a panel there am. I crazy in thinking that um. Because yeah. This is just a fan coil unit straight cool so you know that's the opportunity for heat strips.

If you were using it on a heat pump condenser huh all right well we're gonna go up top. See what's going on up. There. I'm gonna put this panel on now as i'm going down look at that filter that's not right.

What the heck someone couldn't find the right size or something to measure that make sure we get that written down. What size belongs here um. I went ahead and capped this back off because now that i got the unit running. I'm getting air from that cavity and i'm actually going to leave it off because i still got to get fuses for it so just grab.

My tools and we'll go up top all right i come up here. I went ahead and put some gauges on this guy. It's not looking bad. It is 410a.

So let me change that to 410a there you go our saturation temperature on the high side is a little bit low. But i actually found the problem so look right here that wire's bare that's the low voltage wire right. There it's rubbing up against the side panel because this connector bent. And it's arcing and that's why the fuse blew.

So we'll repair that section right there and then we'll watch this guy run for a little bit longer. I'm also going to change this contactor because see it's hard for you guys to see because of the sunlight. But it's really like burnt look at that really bad so we're gonna change that contactor too for some reason. I thought i remembered like the breaker downstairs was tripping like the main breaker or something for this guy.

And i bet you that contactor is the problem. I want to see this saturation temperature come up. Though that's a little bit low for it being 95 degrees outside. I mean it's not horrible.

But it's not not great by any means. I'm trying to make sure i get a better air temperature. So we'll watch it a little bit longer all right i had to run to the supply house to get some fuses. So went ahead and replaced that fuse right there with the five amp and then left uh four more because it came in a five pack.

So i'll leave the whole thing here that way the next guy has fuses if we ever have problems again. We're gonna wrap this up and then head up top and change the contactor and then top off the charge. This unit also needs to be cleaned. I went ahead and fixed the filter situation the filter that was here was not perfect.

But it just needed to be cut. So i cut the top portion off and was able to get the filter panel back on so we'll talk about getting custom filters ordered for this place. And i'll have a discussion with the person that did the pm last because they need to be smarter than their freaking. They were so that's all i'm gonna say about that um.

So yeah. I'm gonna put this on and then we'll get back up top. I uh installed a new contactor that's good i went ahead and pulled the capacitor so we can test it 68 microfarads and it's supposed to be 70 that's fine uh. I don't know what i can't see the plus or minus tolerance on this.

But even if it was five percent. We're less than five percent. So that's fine on that one so let's go ahead and test the condenser fan motor. One which should be a seven and a half and we're running right at about seven and a half so capacitor is fine those turbo capacitors made by amreb they're usually pretty darn good so i'm gonna put that back in and uh.

We're gonna get ready to fire this guy back up and then i'll adjust the charge. A little bit all right we're back and running um. My jawblink manifold or my uh s. Man 480.

Says about 107 degrees outside. But i put my thermometer over here too and it seems to be pretty accurate. It's creeping up there so um. I want to get my uh.

My sub cooling. A little bit higher on this guy and they've got a charging chart right here so we'll go by that. But i'm going to add a little refrigerant um. Just to get it going now i want to come through.

I'm not going to find a leak today or anything like that but i want to come through and spend some time i want to clean up the evaporator because it's a little dirty. But again today is triage mode. We're just getting stuff running it's kind of crazy so we'll definitely come back. And do some more permanent repairs.

I just went ahead and taped up the wires that were rubbed out right. There eventually we'll pull a new feed back to the lb right there. But again. I'm not going to deal with that right now okay.

We take the required sub cooling for the manufacturer. Which is 13 degrees right there. But that's not necessarily how we're gonna do it so we get relatively close we're at about 10 degrees sub cooling at the moment 410 psi so find 410 psi at the service valve so we're right between 406 and 416 we find our required sub coin of 13 degrees. We have 12 and 14.

So we follow this down right. There it says approximately 109 ish degrees liquid line temp. We're at about 107. I'm not going to put any more gas in there we got about 10 degrees sub cooling.

That's all we're going to do on this guy superheat's about 10 degrees uh. It's a little bit low. But again i know the evaporator kind of needs to be cleaned. We're rejecting heat everything's fine we're going to leave it at that for now we're definitely going to come back and do some la or some maintenance on this guy.

But today is not the day. So this is just uh triage like i said get it up and running. I'm not a fan of those aftermarket condenser fan motors with the wires sticking out the top that eventually is gonna short. It drives me nuts.

But all right that's it on this one so we got this running um. We'll go look at the other ac. And see how it's doing all right this guy is running its little heart away disconnected this taped it up i did put my gauges on it it does have plenty of gas in it. But the refrigerant could potentially be contaminated because it's a direct short to ground the refrigerant itself.

Doesn't smell burnt you only ask what is burnt refrigerant smell. Like well trust. Me. Once you smell it you'll never be able to unsmell.

It it's a horrible smell that just smells like normal refrigerant um. So that's a good sign because that means that the contamination may not be that bad okay. But we still don't know if there's other issues. So we have to change the compressor unfortunately before we can diagnose any further.

But we'll be sure when we change the compressor to pour it out check the oil um and go from there we'll check the crankcase heater and all that good stuff so we're gonna order just for giggles because this is super out in the boonies. We're gonna order a compressor crank case heater suction line filter dryer liquid line filter dryer and i'll probably bring a txb with me too when it comes to these big package units. You can't pump the system down to change the txv when you have a direct short oftentimes. You don't know what caused it so changing the txv is kind of good insurance and we'll also change the uh contactor too i'm not always in a habit of just changing a bunch of parts.

But when it comes to direct shorts on acs yeah you're better off just changing the whole thing. Now. It's possible that if there is a problem with the txv. It's probably just a powerhead or if it did burn the refrigerant and there is contamination.

It could be contaminating the screen on that txv too so there's no removable screen. So it's just one of those things. It's just cheap insurance. So we'll go ahead and order all those parts.

We'll schedule to do this. There's no way i'm changing that compressor in this 110 115 degree heat. It may even push higher than that today um. I'll get here like four in the morning and start changing this thing that way we're out of here before it gets too hot.

I'll just throw my ladder up on the building and go to town so i'm going to close this up. We got the other five ton unit. Which feeds this dining room. Too they're still down another ac.

But we're just waiting for the electrician to do whatever they got to do boy. It is gonna be insanely hot today it's already like at least 95 degrees. I think the high today is supposed to be 116 and it's always hotter on the roof. So we've got the beginning parts of all the materials that i need to change this compressor.

We'll certainly be grabbing more out of the truck all right. It is windy as heck this morning. I'm hoping it dies down a little bit i brought an easy up. But i can't use it with this much wind right now um.

So we're leaving the machine running. We're going to recover the gas from this guy. I brought an oversized recovery cylinder. Because it's so warm and then i have a water hose that we're going to run over that i'm currently evacuating that we're not going to reuse this gas.

But i'm still going to evacuate all the nitrogen out of that guy because it's right now so all right we're all hooked up i have not purged yet machines plugged in i evacuated this down. I weighed the cylinder. Now i went with a big one because i'm not going to keep the scale under it i know that this can hold the full charge from the one. Compressor but i still wrote the empty weight 27.

Pounds. 85. Ounces. The reason.

Why i'm not going to put the scale under it even though that scale can handle water. I'm going to put a crap ton of water on top of it and i don't want to damage it potentially so what we're going to do is actually open this guy right here. It's purging. All the way to here all right then we open this close that make sure it's good and we're now dumping into that cylinder.

I've got a water hose with my cool presser tool right here. I'm gonna get this hooked up trying to keep my work area somewhat clean. It's kind of hard but we're trying to not go too crazy so we can still function in here right and i'm going to clean up as i go there you go and then we turn this water hose on there we go and then just gonna run water across this guy the whole time we're recovering to try to reduce the tank pressure because it's 410a. So we're going to go ahead and hit start and we are pushing refrigerant through.

We're going to go ahead and open this all the way now unfortunately these guys have high flow schraders. The cormax fittings on here. They are not ideal for evacuation. They are not ideal um well actually really for evacuations recovery.

They're not too bad. But still it's gonna kind of slow our evacuation down um. I thought about cutting them out. But yeah.

That's a lot of work i don't think it's gonna be that big of a deal so i do have a schrader cord depressor. But they aren't 100 leak free so they're not the greatest thing in the world. But we'll see so we're gonna let this recover. We're starting to sand everything up and uh.

We'll get this guy out. I was not able to get a crank case heater or a txv. But crankcase heater is working so that's good and then the txv. I have a power head.

If need be so this guy's kicking butt. It's already down to 28 psi. Um tank pressures only at 332 psi. So that's not bad that water definitely helps to keep it cool um.

Yeah. That thing's hot. But the water is cooling it down. So lower that pressure of the tank speed up the volume of refrigerant that can be pumped into it so or speed up the flow of refrigerant volume all right uh.

We've already got the compressor undone. We're trying to stay busy the entire time. We're moving doing anything we can we got to sand it up for the suction line filter dryer. I'm not going to open this up yet because i'm leaving the other the unit running as long as possible so we're just safely disconnecting this then we'll shut.

The unit down change the dryer you know all that all at once now whenever i do compressor changeouts. I typically bring two people which i do have someone with me. I currently have him running to home depot to grab some buckets that we can measure the oil. I want to know why this compressor went bad so he's grabbing those i'm about done with the recovery.

It's at zero psi so uh. We're about 25 30 minutes into the job. It's currently 94 degrees. Let's uh keep track of that one all right this system takes just a little over six pounds of gas and that's approximately.

What i pulled out of this guy just over six pounds. So refrigerant charge was good so i don't think we had any leaks. So that's one issue checked off my list. We're still trying to get to the root cause of why this compressor failed.

We probably won't know until i take it home and cut it open. But we'll see unsweat the compressor. I took this guy out because we're gonna put a suction line filter dryer there hopefully. There was no oil in this so good sign looking inside nothing crazy we got a dryer right there so we're gonna start sanding that up and getting ready all right.

This is a very good sign this guy takes 42. Ounces of oil. Okay. That is measured in volume.

Okay. I get this. All the time people are like oh. My gosh you can't weigh your oil.

There is a difference. But it's not huge guys look at this i got probably close to 40 ounces just under 40 ounces out of this compressor. I don't doubt. There's still a little bit of oil in here and look at this guy.

40. Ounces. Is what it says and that guy weighs about 5 ounces. So it's it's pretty close.

So. Yes. You can weigh the oil give or take. It's not going to be precise.

But you're never going to get all the oil out of this compressor anyways okay so this just satisfies everybody freaking out when i weigh the oil it's not that big of a deal it's close enough for what i'm trying to do so all right so we're good to go uh. We know that lack of oil didn't kill this compressor now granted we're not completely there. But with that much oil. I'm not worried about it there's going to be a little bit in the system.

Now here's the crappy thing is i'm not going to be pulling this system apart completely to purge it and sweep. It i don't think the burn was that bad yes. The oil is black. But i don't think it's going to be through the system really bad i really don't so what i will do as a test because more than likely if it did blow oil into the dirty oil into the system.

It would be in the condenser. So what we will do is we will blow through the high side and see if anything really nasty comes out of right here. Which would be or actually would be right here right so if we'll see if anything really nasty comes over here. If we get a bunch of black stuff out of here.

Then yeah. We're gonna have to take some time unfortunately. There's a micro channel. So if that stuff blew into the micro channel.

They're kind of sol. But all right we're gonna get this guy changed okay we're all brazed in we still got to clean up the heat blocking compound and stuff. But we'll get to that in a little while right now we're focused on getting it put back together. So we can pressure test it and then so we can do an evacuation and once i get pressure in the system.

I'm going to have we're going to start cleaning these condensers too they don't look that bad. But we're cleaning them anyways so uh whenever i do major repairs. I like to change the high flow schraders. These are cormax fittings.

So we're going to go ahead and change those out looking in the line. There's a little bit of stuff in there so i'm gonna grab it out real quick um. But yeah looking good so far so we're gonna get those put. In and get the pressure test running all right we are about an hour and a half into the job.

It's about 95 96 degrees. So we're doing good so far we're kind of in the shade um. We're going to introduce nitrogen into the high side and we're going to test to see if the txv is working properly so once i dump it into the high side. It should immediately come back on the low side.

So let's have a look uh. We got this guy on open this guy. And that's a pretty good sign because the pressure's building on the low side so good stuff. The odds are our txv is not damaged.

So we're gonna go ahead and do a pressure test and we'll start cleaning things up all right so this guy is actually pretty darn dirty if you look at the stuff coming through it's pretty muddy so we're gonna get all the dirt out first and then once we get all the dirt out then we'll apply cleaner. I think what's going on here we're going to have to talk to them about moving these ice machine condensers because my third stage is right here so more than likely. I bet you were going to find out that we had overheat situations in the third stage. And it doesn't help that that condenser is rejecting its heat.

This way now granted a lot of it's probably dissipating. But because that's a good six feet. But still it's not the greatest idea having those condensers reject this way now. It's been like that forever.

But still it's not right you know um. But we'll keep cleaning uh. We've got the evacuation running uh. We're gonna have to change the oil because my oil got really damaged um evacuating that that new recovery cylinder.

But i'm just pulling with the gas ballast open right now we're already at 1 600. Microns. So i'm gonna do an oil change and we'll finish cleaning it up so that's the compressor oil and whenever you put it into a bottle. You want to give it time.

Because you can see the refrigerant still boiling out of it so you put a cap on it it'll pop the top off. But you can see that there's like uh material in here. It's probably like uh nettle or something like that there's thick chunks of something inside that we're currently uh what is it about two hours into the job uh. It's about 105.

The temperature's starting to climb now 106. We're just about done we're currently rinsing and cleaning the condenser right now we're using the refrigeration technology's viper yellow venom pack cleaner um. This stuff right here. You don't ever want to use the blue on micro channel.

Just the yellow because that's micro channel safe so all this stuff came out of that condenser even though it looked clean. It's still just full of sand and the sad thing is we clean it and then three weeks later it's full of sand again just because that's how this place is there's sand everywhere. I mean we're just working up here. And it's in all my tools.

It's everywhere. So evacuation's going really good we're at uh 600 microns right in there so we're uh letting it go down and we're going to start assembling this hopefully we can get it running here pretty quick even if this guy's still evacuating. I want to get the other two compressors running because this is currently their only dining room ac. So all right currently putting the panel back on and uh evacuation.

We're down to 358 microns. So we're going to go ahead and slowly close this guy really should be vacuuming with it in like the mid position. But i think this one has a leak so we're going to slowly close it and close it off and watch the decay test. I'll go ahead and turn the vacuum pump off we're closed off.

We're only doing a one hose pull. So this is a true vacuum. Because we're pulling through the suction side. Luckily because i added the suction line filter dryer.

There was a schrader i could take out so i didn't have to pull through the high flow schraders. Which is cool so now this is a true vacuum. Because this is on the complete opposite end of the system. So we're just putting everything back together um looking pretty darn good.

I already blew out the condenser with my air blower. So yeah hopefully we can start this up soon all right i turned the unit back on this guy's still in decay. We're at about 863 microns. It's slowly rising.

But i'm happy with it it's been in decay for 25 minutes. So i turned it back on to cool down. The dining room. Because they should be getting customers in there eventually.

It is giving me an error that comp number three has a low pressure situation. That's to be expected. Because yeah. Um.

Let's see return air temp. Is 95. Degrees. Discharge air temp is 72.

It gets hot in that dining room. So we're going to let this run for a little bit cool down the dining room. Then we'll shut it off again. I'm going to change that contactor well we'll inspect it but i'm pretty sure i'm going to change it and then we'll get ready to charge this guy up all right now.

I was only able to do this. But i hooked up to the low side with this valve shut. I evacuated my manifold to my hose. I'm going to have to add a little bit of refrigerant through the low side until i get a positive pressure in the system.

Then i'll be able to take off the micron gauge. But you don't want to do that until you get positive pressure. So we're going to add some gas and then hopefully get this guy getting ready to be started out at this point. We are three hours into the.

Job it's about 107. Outside i think it's about 10 am. We're looking for six pounds 14 ounces. So we're almost there all right.

We are on and running um. This guy. I was able to charge it to about six pounds 14 ounces. Which is what it calls for.

But then i moved the scale around and it dropped down to 612. But i actually put in six pounds 14 ounces. Which is what it required so we're gonna watch this run for a little bit and then i'm actually just going to open that contactor up and see what it looks like if it looks burnt. I'll change it if not i won't we'll see.

But we are running now it sounds good we're just kind of in cleanup mode. Kind of picking up our stuff. All right. This is not looking bad we're running about 46 degrees.

Saturation temperature on the low side 118 saturation there it's about 103 outside. We've got about four degrees sub cooling about 17 degrees superheat does not seem bad to me at all so i'm i'm liking this i'm a happy camper so like i said we're just in cleanup mode. All right because of the pressure port placement. I'm not able to get a pressure drop across the dryer.

But i was able to get a temperature drop. So i wrote it right there stage. Three was 63 degrees on the inlet side and 63 degrees on the outlet side therefore a zero degree temperature drop across suction dryer with my name that way the next guy knows if they see anything more than a zero degree typically if they see more than a three degree temperature drop. It's time to change that dryer again now we didn't get very much contaminants after blowing through the system.

So we should be okay we're going to start putting the doors back on we're not going to do anything else with this unit. We'll probably come back another day and follow up we've got lots more work to do up here like i said in the beginning of this video. I'm still waiting for the electricians to come out and pull a new electrical feed for this one going on three weeks. So this poor restaurant and uh that guy will go back to the shop.

And we'll autopsy that guy all right i am changing that contactor because it is burnt bad. I want to change all the other ones. But i don't have them and to be honest with you i'm reaching my limit of being outside. It's hurting right now.

So um. A breeze. Just came through and brought the temperature from 115 down to there's no it's no joke right now i'm hurting so i need to get out of this heat. So we're going to change this contactor and we'll come back for the other ones.

We'll change all three of the wall. The other two all right i couldn't leave well enough alone. I was overheating. So what i did was i stopped.

I took a break for about an hour had lunch went to the supply house got a couple more contactors because i don't feel comfortable leaving here with the shape of that third contactor. The other two were just as bad so now i've replaced all three contactors. I'm starting to wonder if it was an overheat situation for that bad compressor or if it was a single phase situation because once i saw the inside of that third stage contactor. I was like dude.

This thing might have single phase and that might have been what grounded it out so we'll find out maybe when i disassemble it but as of this point. I got the other two contactors put in i'm waiting for the third stage to turn on and then i'm finally gonna be done with this one. I uh cut this compressor open and uh. Very surprised that if you look at the actual scroll plates.

Okay the scroll plates look pretty darn good now um. I don't see any signs of uh. You know galling or anything in there you know um that could be caused by flooded starch which i'm very surprised this is only a 2015 compressor okay you can see right there it's a zp zed paul 61 k5e now you know i've been talking to trevor matthews. When i say zed paul right um.

So i'm i'm very impressed to not see any galling going on up in there okay definitely see that this guy's been getting hot. Though all right let's look right here. Nothing too crazy okay. The old hem coupling.

Did not break and wedge itself against the windings which i've seen several times before no the windings themselves okay were completely destroyed. This was a burn a grounded compressor. The interesting thing. Though is the bottom of the windings don't look bad whatever happened happened only on the top right here okay.

I did not find any metallic objects in the bottom of the compressor. I mean don't see any major major abnormal you know crazy overheat going on definitely see it getting hot. Though but remember this compressor operates in 120 degree ambience on a regular basis. So this guy you know has a shorter life than most okay now let's get down here to the overload the overload itself has some overheat signs okay you can definitely see that it had been uh clicking on and off on overload.

A few times you can see some pitting going on there forgive my dirty fingers there from touching all this stuff uh. The floating seal does not look that bad to me. I've seen a lot worse okay definitely see a little bit of signs of overheat. But nothing crazy okay um.

I believe the muffler plate up here. It doesn't i mean again there's there's overheat right. But it's it wipes off it's not that bad okay um. It really doesn't look too crazy obviously.

This is an electrical failure. Okay um. What exactly caused the electrical failure. I'm still a little curious about i'm through uh.

My buddy. Trevor matthews. We're gonna try to get some answers here um and maybe. We can update later after the video uh maybe we can get this over to copeland and kind of get their opinion on what they think happened i don't think there was any contamination.

I don't see any copper plating. This system had never been worked on it was oem everything from 2015. Okay um. If we come over here.

Though let's look at the other side. The other scroll plate with the top bearing in it okay definitely overheat right like right here. You know that's not really wiping off um in here overheat. But don't see any galling again okay looks clean but come over here these are the points from my contactor okay this one right here was the contactor for that compressor and look at those points.

Would you just look at it um. Those are bad okay very bad now they have a lot of blowing sand at this location uh. It is very very possible that we had sand intermittently getting stuck in the contacts. Hence.

You can see how looks like maybe sand welded to that uh that point okay. But i changed that we didn't have a voltage drop across it i did check it. But i decided to change the contactor once i opened it up and saw the burning okay and then i decided once i saw this one. I said you know what i'm changing the other two.

I didn't even open them on site. I just changed them just out of because i know we go through contactors like crazy. But look at the other ones they're going to be lucky. If they didn't have a failure and or a failure soon on the other ones maybe we saved it before the other ones failed.

This one was the first stage. This one was actually the second stage and the one we changed was the third stage. Another observation is this is the third stage of the the unit. This is the compressor that runs the least the first stage runs more than the third stage.

Usually. I see overheat failures on the first and the second stage before you see it on the third stage again this one happened on the third stage. So i'm leaning towards this contactor causing the problem then leading to a catastrophic electrical failure that destroyed the windings that inevitably killed the compressor that's my hypothesis on this one. So well good.

Morning for me. This is uh saturday july 23rd. It's about uh 8. 30.

In the morning. I got up probably about 6 30. Or something wanted to go ahead and make a video. This will be releasing on sunday july 24th.

If all goes well last week. I had a disaster trying to upload my video and it took forever. But regardless so um. I love doing the the the root cause analysis stuff.

I love autopsy in the parts. Um. It's i literally have a bone yard at my house. Now um.

That i've gotta like clear compressor parts out uh. I will say that if you guys get the opportunity to ever work on this especially. The smaller scroll compressors. They they're a lot easier to kind of take the parts and be able to show them to people so if you can ever cut open a small one you can clean it up really good soak it in a degreaser dry it really fast and then you have really good parts.

I have a bunch of scroll plates and stuff from really tiny compressors back behind me this one was a medium sized. One it was just a five ton. So you know that one is uh it's it's a little bit bigger. But it's manageable.

But the smaller ones you get into like the the the one and a half two horse compressors and those ones are really cool because they're smaller and they're easier to carry around. But i encourage all of you guys to start tearing this stuff apart trying to figure out why you know once i started cutting compressors open. Then i started getting curious about you know why is this thing doing this and then you start looking. And it gets your gets you curious and really gets you to start digging deeper to figure out you know why am.

I seeing overheat in this situation. You know. And then you realize okay you know they're pulling 100 outside air. This unit wasn't designed for that so you know that kind of stuff right now.

That's not the case in this video. But uh contactors are no joke and they're one you know very cheap component. And it's it's very funny because i get a lot of pushback and criticism that i change way too many contactors. But i don't agree with that when you especially when you're working with three phase equipment.

You change those contactors just out of safety out of precaution. I mean because in this situation in my opinion. I believe blowing sand got stuck in that contactor and either caused a single phase and or a low voltage situation that inevitably led to the failure of that compressor now i uh kind of talked to my buddy trevor matthews from refrigeration mentor. If you guys don't know who trevor is you definitely need to go check him out trevor is an awesome friend of mine.

And uh trevor used to work for um emerson uh in the copeland division. And he used to be a uh uh. You know a field service trainer. Essentially that would go around and and he's a really good resource and a really good friend that i'm so lucky to have because i can reach out to him right i just private messaged him real quick did a video call and i'm just like hey.

This is what i found this is what i think you know and he's like yeah he goes. It's definitely an electrical failure whether or not it was a single phase or a. You know a low voltage situation is the question uh. So you know it's really cool to reach out to friends right even if you don't have a friend like trevor matthews.

But trevor is a very uh approachable person you know you can message him on social media. You know as long as you don't bother him when he's sleeping or anything like that you know you can you can find him on all the social platforms that refrigeration mentor so definitely check it out start watching his content. Trevor has a compressor master class. That i took that was really pretty cool man you learn a lot in that class.

So anyways uh definitely check out trevor's content. But i love tearing this stuff apart because it helps me to understand and it really helps you to to to quantify. I guess that might be the right word might not be the white word. Um.

You know how important a preventative maintenance. And routine maintenance is on this equipment right so my analysis of this summer. Now another thing at this particular location. I've been working here for a very long time at this particular location.

We have like waves right. There's there's one or two years where we don't have issues with blowing sand. But then this year is one of them where they're having a big issue with blowing sand probably drought related or something so it starts to make me question you know what i mean as crazy as it sounds maybe because we do the maintenance like every two or three months or something like that maybe every maintenance during the summer. We change all the contactors on the roof right and and i'll take that information to the facilities department and be like look i realize you know this is going to be changing every contactor in the building.

You know on all the three phase equipment equipment's probably going to cost them you know just under a grand or something like that every time. But we could prevent these issues right i have been out to this location. I've done i know i've done at least three videos of having to change contactors. But we've actually been out more times.

I didn't film them all so we've probably been out four or five times changing contactors now uh. This was the only time that it potentially led to a compressor failure right. But we also have that ac that i didn't make a video on that i alluded to in here. That has a bad electrical feed now what caused that one.

I don't really know for sure i kind of have a hunch that in that lb where all the wires were burnt that we had a loose lug. A splicing lug and i i believe we had a loose splicing lug and then that started the problem. But i don't know you know so it it starts to make me wonder by analyzing this and really thinking about this location. Like hey maybe when we have these years.

Where we have a lot of sandstorms. We just start preventively changing the contactors right you know and dig into them further or at least just go in there. But i was going to say and measure them. But even then i'm not getting voltage drops across any of those other contactors that i changed today right.

But you can tell by the shape of them like that's not good so you know i encourage everybody out there to start analyzing your stuff. And start taking it apart. Now um. This video.

Too i also went into when i first went out there we we made this a 911 priority right. Because they already had one ac down uh. It was a 15 ton. And that feeds half their dining room this ac that was down feeds.

The other half of the dining room so they had no cooling in the dining room right so i made it a priority uh. They called me sunday evening. So i was like okay monday morning. I'll be out there first thing went out there found the grounded compressor disconnected that one compressor so i got two compressors in that system running two five tons so they had 10 tons of cooling.

But then on top of that they'd been dragging their butt getting me a work order to fix that little split system. So i just fixed it right i just got into. I didn't even wait for a work order. I just did it on this work order got in there found the problem low voltage electrical short.

But then i'm observing i'm looking at that contactor saying you know what that one's a problem. Too we're not just stopping at the low voltage short. You guys get the whole idea. If you've been watching my channel for a while.

It's about a big picture diagnosis right. It's it's trying to solve the problem. And not just the symptom. So you know on the the small little split system.

The problem was or the symptom was a blown fuse okay. I could have put a fuse in and it probably would have worked. But i dug deeper and i found that there was exposed low voltage electrical wires that were touching the electrical cover right so there we go we solved the problem. But then we looked bigger the contactor looked like crap.

It wasn't giving us a voltage drop. But it looked like crap okay. It was gonna be a problem we changed the contactor. We didn't stop there put.

My gauges on it found it to be a little low on refrigerant put a little refrigerant into it okay. But didn't stop there went downstairs found that the filter wasn't installed correctly okay and the evaporator is a little bit dirty not too bad. But a little bit dirty. So we're gonna take some time.

We're gonna go through this equipment. I want to go ahead and clean the evaporator. I want to split that condenser coil. Because that is a let's see what do you want to call it a two piece coil right so you actually can split it so i want to split that coil clean it and then check the charge again and adjust accordingly okay.

It's so important that we look at the big picture. But also understand that just because we give the customers a big picture quote doesn't necessarily mean that they have to approve the big picture quote. They may just want to fix the problem at hand instead of addressing the big picture and that is fine. But document it have it in your invoicing.

I strongly suggest doing this this and this because it could prevent this and this right and then the customer says no i don't have the money for that i don't want to do that okay they just want to fix this problem. But you have it documented they're signing off then you don't own that equipment anymore. It's on the customer. Because when they come back and say you just worked on it well you know i did but i presented these options and you guys chose the lesser of the options.

So therefore now you have a failure. And it's not my problem okay so big picture thinking. It's so important okay and i encourage everybody out there to take things apart get your hands dirty get in there. Don't be afraid to cut open a compressor.

I didn't do a perfect job cutting this compressor open. But i have gotten pretty good at being able to cut the compressors in different places. I go through about six grinder wheels and about four batteries because i use a cordless grinder uh in doing so so that does have to be part of my stuff. But i've gotten down to being pretty quick at doing it um.

So you know i it takes time though you know the first one you cut open you're gonna butcher. You're gonna cut a bunch of components the second one you're going to get better and each time you're going to know where you should cut them to try to prevent from damaging components. In there. I will say when you're using a grinder wheel be cautious about where the sparks are flying.

If you can when you're cutting the compressor top off and stuff is try not to let the grinder real wheel really go into the compressor try to keep it to where it really just scores. The outside and just barely breaks the skin of the inside. So that way you can just kind of whack. It with a hammer and then less of the grinder debris is flying into the compressor because that can be a little confusing.

When you're opening it up. And you're like oh. My gosh. There's so much stuff in this compressor.

Well really. It's the the the material from the grinder disc is actually being shot into there so just keep that in mind you know it's just observations that i have but um. I really appreciate y'all. Making it to the end uh let me know in the comments.

If you did i've been asking that a lot lately. But it's cool to see all the comments and i really do appreciate all your all support. Okay. Remember if you're interested in checking out my website go to hvacrvideoscom.

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You all been doing amazing because you helped me go through a stock. I didn't expect you guys to clear out my stock that quick because i just did a reorder a couple weeks ago. And we're already running low again. So i'm going to place another order for a bunch of hats.

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You don't have to do it the easiest way to support this channel is literally watch these videos from beginning to end without skipping through anything. That's the easiest way right because then youtube handles supporting it right because when you guys watch a video without skipping anything um youtube pays ad revenue right and i try not to like smash too many commercials in the videos. I usually only do two or three depending on the length of the video. This one will probably have three commercials um.

But you know it's just a great way to help support it these do take a lot of time it takes time away from my family and all that good stuff. But i do love doing this this is actually fun you know it's interesting because i find myself when we get service calls. I think ooh that's going to be an interesting one and then you know i decide i'm going to take that service call right because i'm the owner so i can choose which ones. I want to take and i'll take the harder ones because i know they're going to usually make good video content you know so it's like oh.

That'll i'll be able to film that one that'll make a cool video you know so i do like uh. I do enjoy making these videos so thank you so very much i really do appreciate y.'all if you have any questions feel free to email me hvacr videos gmailcom. Um yeah and that's it we'll catch you on the next. One be kind to one another um and uh yeah.

That's it.