This video is brought to you by spore'ln quality, integrity and tradition. We have an older walking cooler that is not working correctly. The manager keeps stating that the breaker is tripping, but he reset the breaker and it's been running since he says that the breaker is tripped. Two times and the break of that tripped is the three-phase breaker so normally on a walking cooler.

The three-phase breaker is just for the condensing units, but he says that when the breaker trips, the fans shut off so we're gon na, have to probably start up on the roof and then see how these fans are controlled. It's gon na end up being one of these two condensing units right here. One of them is gon na be a walk-in freezer. One of them is gon na, be a walk-in cooler off to dig into them.

Judging from the frost on the suction line, that is probably the walk-in freezer, but we'll jump into it, see what we can figure out. This is an old nor late, condensing unit kind of silly the way they're put together but see what we can do. What I think is silly about these units is how they come apart, but whatever so I mean, I guess it's convenient. It just seems like a way oversized doghouse for a tiny little.

You know probably a one and a half two horsepower condensing unit but anyways. So the side panel comes off, the top panel comes off, but I guess that could be worse. I could have like no access or the panels could all be him together. So the condensing unit was running when I got up here.

So what I'm gon na do again, I'm still just assuming this is the walk-in cooler. But another thing: that's making me think it's the walk-in cooler is our 22 refrigerant on this other one. It says our 404 a refrigerant in there. So pretty confident.

This is my walk-in cooler. Hey check that out. We got some like barbecue sauce in there all right, so we're gon na open up the electrical boxes and just kind of investigate. This is a 208 three-phase condensing unit that was a 208 three-phase breaker that was tripping, but I need to look and see we might be getting our hundred and there might be a neutral in here.

You might be getting 115 volts from this condensing unit on the roof, but I did confirm that the coil does have 115 volt motors in it. So sometimes I'm walking coolers Yool or most of the time I should say the ones that I come across. You'll have high voltage on the roof and then you'll have low voltage like 115 volts lower voltage at the coil running. The fan, motors and it'll usually be two separate power sources, not one.

So I'm gon na dig into it and figure out exactly what's going on here. I have visually inspected everything I went ahead and came up with the amp draws of what everything should be. We've got my condenser fan motor should be running at one point, one. The compressor approximately nine point three, but that amp draw is gon na change.

That's not it's going to change when the pressures and the system change and things so, but I'm just doing a visual inspection. Okay, looking at everything, so we've got a compressor contactor here it does look like it's probably pitted out a little bit because we've got some char, some white chalky substance. That's usually a result of contacts going bad, but I don't see anything there. No electrical shorts that I could see as of yet I've opened up the compressor down in here again, nothing jumping out at me.

I have yet to see the system turn back on, but it was running when I got here. I've got the timeclock section opened up in here. There's some funky. I don't know what the heck's going on here, something funky, but I don't see anything else of yet.

We've got a junction box here, nothing in there as of yet I've got a pressure control right here, don't see anything then we've got a disconnect switch right here, don't see anything abnormal. So again we still have line voltage coming to the unit we're just kind of watching. Well, I'm going to wait for it to turn back on then I'll get some amp readings once it turns back on, and I still got to figure out if we've got 115 volts being supply to our evaporator coils, which I have a feeling. That's what's gon na be happening here, all right so again we're waiting for the units of turn back on, but we're gon na go ahead and do a voltage check on it and, let's see, I did confirm that where my condenser fan motor wiring was, I just Followed the conduit, so this is a condenser fan motor wire, so once it turns on we'll get an amp reading on that looks like powers coming in the top of the contactor, so line 1/2 to 209, two three, a five one-two-three 206.

So we have 208 three-phase coming to the condensing unit. This is our breaker in question right here, so we're gon na go ahead and shut it off and see if it shuts off the evaporator fan motors. This box is actually pretty cold in here, so I can see why it's not turning on up at the roof, but the break or that three-phase breaker definitely turns off the evaporator fan motors and it is a hundred and fifteen volt coil. So what I'm gon na do is just start looking for anything down here.

Just do visual see if I can see anything that jumps out of me and then we'll continue from there. So there's nothing horrific looking in here I mean you know never as pretty as you want it to be, but I don't see any obvious electrical shorts I'll definitely have to open up this box right here and then we'll open up these fan guards and look at The fan motors too, I went ahead and took the fan blades off, so we can look in here and just kind of see so on walking, evaporators the hot points, and someone did this. One wrong is right here, where the wires rub against the motor bracket. Same thing here, someone has these installed incorrectly uh, where it goes through the bulkhead right here over here and look at that look at the black around that fitting right there.

All I did was observe right on that black. That's not normal, then look right! There look at that just using my senses, just looking so looks like we got to fix some electrical here. The reason why that happened was because there's a slight vibration likely because we have some bent fan blades, which is very common. These fan blades, like you, can see the pitch difference when I stacked them on top of each other, there's something a little funky there.

But there was a slight vibration and these things just shake and they eventually cause wires to rub out, but it also would have helped if that connector was tight. It's not the quite correct connector. I should say for that's like in Ex connector, but it'll work. Fine for wires, you just need to have it tight snug, so the wires aren't bouncing around.

So in this case, the wires were just bouncing around and they rubbed against at the top of that connector again, we're not going to assume that's the only short so we're gon na continue to look, but we will fix those wires I'll go ahead and it's gon Na be a chore, but I got ta open up this panel over here. So as far as the wiring goes, if you're gon na want run wire same thing goes with refrigeration piping, it can run parallel to something, but if it crosses something, that's when it becomes a problem. So this one is borderline. Okay, because the wires are kind of running parallel, they're running with it, but the moment that you come over here and you cross it.

That's a rub out and that's a problem there's a better way. We could have strapped this and, in all honesty, I don't like zip tying the wires to the motor bracket, because when these things iced up, I like to pull the whole motor and motor bracket out in this situation. We're gon na have to unwire a bunch of crap, so I'm probably not going to clean this up tonight, because it's late in the evening, I'm gon na fix this short and get them running and then we'll come back with some new fan blades. I think the motors are probably okay, we'll have motors with us, but we'll come back with new fan blades, so this is likely the culprit again.

I don't know because the fans were still running. It was just intermittently touching. I went ahead and did a temporary fix. Just ran a new wire and this is temporary just from one side to the other.

I'm gon na come back with some new fan, blades and redo. This electrical come up with a better connector. I went ahead and tighten it down, but come up with a better connector. They can't possibly come loose, so it's possible to that that connector just vibrated loose because of the vibration that this coil has so well we'll clean it up, but this should get them going for the evening.

It's not horrendous, but there's. Definitely especially when you put your hand on it this one, I hear this side has a vibration to it, not so much, but this will get them going for the night will change out those fan blades, possibly the motors it just depends and then fix that electrical. When we come back right now we're running 209 to a 7 to a 9 9 2:07 9 check voltage drop, not the yeah. It looks like we're getting some voltage drop across that one.

I don't know, though, it's weird it's coming and going mom we're gon na. Go ahead and open this guy out, I think that's a totally sealed contactor! I'm silly probably consider replacing that guy. Just from that Carvin stuff. We see right here now that should come off all right.

Well, we'll look at it. We come back, let's go ahead and test the condenser fan motor amperage or current, Oh interesting, that condenser fan motors over empty not by a lot but falada run 1.1 amps and we're running 1.2. I'm sure it's well within the safety factor, but we could have a capacitor going out on that condenser fan motor. That could be a problem.

So again, I think we're gon na be okay, I'm pretty sure we found the electrical short downstairs, we'll follow up tomorrow and go through it a little bit more, but we'll definitely investigate that. Condenser fan motor. It is the next day I came back out to go ahead and finish this up. We're gon na start by removing the fan guards again we'll go ahead and let their dishwasher clean them up.

Put new fan blades on there and then we're gon na fix the electrical wiring inside the coil and try to clean it up to where it won't vibrate and short out anymore got everything pulled apart. I don't think I need to take the motors out. I can work with it. I'm gon na go ahead and clean this up.

Get rid of this connection. Point right here we're gon na my plan is to try to make it one solid piece of SJ cord strap it to the roof all the way through, because the wiring that shorted out is actually, I believe, come on we'll have to see. I think it's for the solenoid coil. It looks like it's a constant power source for yeah, because power comes in on this side.

Okay, again, understanding the sequence of operation really helps so power is gon na come in on this side, we're gon na take a hot leg, we're gon na run it all the way over through the thermostat into the solenoid valve the Commons gon na they're neutrals gon Na be there too, and then we also got to bring a neutral, which it probably happens over here. A neutral yep, oh yeah, neutral and power for the fans is up top, so yeah. This cord should slowly be for the solenoid coil and the thermostat on the other side. So we'll try to make it one solid piece and make it cleaned up in here.

Get it nice and pretty slowly trying to rip stuff out just disassemble, but not saying that I've never done this before, but this is an overcrowded wire nut right here. This has three looks like a 14 gauge. There's like three 14 gauges, maybe a 12 gauge in there. I need to go with the bigger wire now, instead of trying to cram all that stuff in there look look at this.

It's not even look. I just pulled that out without even twisting it it's because it's overcrowded that leads to issues too, so I always want to watch out for this stuff again assume someone's gon na come in behind you, but this looks like it's gon na be fairly easy. This MX connector cord lock, I call them - has actually welded in because of the little arc that happened. It actually welded itself.

So I'm not gon na be able to get that off. But I got an extra term right here and I'll come in with the the cord connectors, the I don't know what they're called strain relief connectors or whatever. So that's always good. I kind of had a hunch cuz.

I saw some rust down here, but the thing is full of water: nothing's sealed the penetrations even going up, and even this penetrations not sealed. You can see the rust so we'll seal those up for them and try to clean this up, make it look a little prettier slowly moving along it's taken a little while, but I'm just securing the cord. I've got it connected with the proper connectors. If you guys can see, I don't yeah, you can't, but I got the proper connectors everything zip tied up.

Let's see I'll show you the connector that I'm using I'm using an actual strain relief connector for the cord, so that way holds them in there tight and then the motor wiring separated. So that way, you can just pull the motor out nice and good, and then now I'm just over here in this miss Joe. This was a giant mess and trying to clean it up and try to make it look pretty. My solution here is to bring the cord coming from the other side, the cord coming from the temp control and make the solenoid coil the junction box and then try to get this up in here without rubbing anything out because before they just had a bunch of Wires and again I I you know, I'm not mad, because it was wire nuts in there I just figured.

I had the connector, so I'm gon na go ahead and connect it right. The solenoid coils right back there. So almost there there we go it kind of worked out like I planned it. Wires are all safe, no problems so yeah and I'll clean I'll.

Try to put some zip ties on that thermostat sensing bolt, but we're almost there. Then it's kind of polishing a turd. It's not a whole lot you can do. I don't want to move this too much, because this thermostats very old and I want to break the sensing bulb, but we're good everything's free, not touch.

You know make sure I kind of maneuver it to where it's not going to touch anything and then put the cover on. So I didn't have a new junction box. We can do that later, so I just went ahead and siliconed up the holes so that way, we'll try to reduce the moisture coming into here, taped everything up, so we're good. I don't like that.

The supply house is put, or the manufacturer puts these stickers on there, but you're not gon na see it once it gets. Spinning got the blade on there. You want to make sure that it's inside the blower's or the coil enough, basically - and that way it's scooping the air from inside, but then also that the blade is slightly coming out. So that way, it has the right pitch to push the air out and it doesn't recirc inside so we're gon na go ahead and start this up and then test everything out test.

The thermostat make sure I wired it all correctly. So that's always a plus. Nothing exploded and it seems like it's working, so I'm waiting for them to clean the fan guards. I'll put those on I've got some new screws for the fan guards, so we'll start putting the cover on the electrical and all that good stuff.

This is my pile of stuff that I pulled out of there, so I made it much simpler, much easier, all right, so I'm gon na grab the thermostat and test it. So listen so thermostats working and it's not shutting off the fans. So I wired it correctly. I did my job right all right at this point, investigate this contactor a little bit more and what I'm concerned about is this chalky substance right here? Typically, that's associated like carbon or something and it's usually from the contactors marking or the contact arcing or something in there.

So I want to see if I can get this cover off. I don't know if I can, but if I can, I'm gon na change the contactor anyway, just because I want to be safe yeah, it doesn't look like it comes off, so we're just going to go ahead and pull it apart and get it replaced before. I start I need to verify the voltage is actually disconnected and that the disconnect switch is working correctly. I have it shut off, so let's double check that room check incoming nothing, nothing, nothing and for shits and giggles we'll check the bottom, nothing, nothing not being so.

We're completely disconnected safe for me to get my hands in here and start pulling this thing apart. This is a standard 208 volt contactor. What's in here is a 25 amp. What I have is a 40 amp, so this will work fine.

I don't carry a lot of contactors. I just carry the common ones that I use so oftentimes, we'll end up with one a little bit with bigger amperage rating. Basically, but usually that just means that the contactor itself is bigger. There's nothing really wrong with it.

So problems that kick in on my side is coil voltage on the contactor and there is on the top. That would mean that I'd have to flip the contactor over, but just one of my pet peeves OCD, whatever you want to call it, the writing has to be right side up so two screws, and I can flip this cover around now. My contactor is nice and good coil voltage is on the top, so we should be good to swap it out. I chose to go with the contactor with lugs, because the incoming wiring is solid wire and it's not stranded.

So I can make this work a lot easier and not have to use connectors for a lot of the points. So make sure you understand the sequence of operation of these units, because if you mix up the wires or anything you got to know how to be able to, you know figure it out or something. So you always want to be cautious when doing these. I'm gon na do it line for line, but if I need it to, I could just rip this apart and stare at it for a minute and figure it out.

So there you go, looks good everything seems nice and tight. Hopefully, nothing blows up when we turn it on, so I'm gon na step aside turn the disconnect switch on and, let's see what happens so something got messed up here. What happened here? It's going to bless your control, sometimes stuff happens, so I must have missed or crossed something because didn't blow the breaker, but it's not turning on so something's funky, we'll figure it out. So I stared at this for a minute and I just kind of traced out the coil voltage I measured voltage at the coil and I had 115 volts, which I should have had two away.

So something was up, but what I realized was I had put this wire on the bottom of the contactor when it should have been on the top of the contactor. So somehow it got away from me. Power still disconnected I'm gon na put this on. It happened.

That's why I'm saying you got to be able to understand how these things work so that way, when something happens, you can figure it out. So now I'm gon na go through the sequence of operation here, so power comes out of line and that's line not load goes into the high pressure control on this blue wire right here comes out of the high pressure control on this blue wire goes into the Low pressure, control comes out of the low pressure. Control goes up to the compressor, contactor coil. On the other side, we have a jumper wire from line 1 going directly to the coil.

So now we have voltage going to our contactor coil. So let's turn it on and try this again and see if it blows up in our face or if it works. Okay, the compressor is running. Condenser fan motors know it, but the condenser family is on a fan cycle.

Control right over here is the fan cycle control. So, theoretically we should be off until the head pressure gets there. We go an inch family just turned on so we know the fan cycle, control works. So that's good.

I'm getting ready to apply my service gauges and the suction line service valve right here has got two ports on it, and I just want to point out because this may be confusing for others. Whenever you have two ports on here, you usually have one that's lower and one that's higher the one that's the closest to the stem is operated by the stem. The one that's farthest away from the stem has constant pressure, so we would put maybe a low pressure control on this port because it's always going to have pressure basically, but when we backseat the stem, this port turns off when we crack or screw it in or Front-Seat it, this is always going to have pressure. Another thing that you want to be concerned about is the service valves whether or not they have a pack in them.

This one has a packing that on it, so right here right on the edge of the stem. I can loosen it okay by doing that, I'm going to extend the life of this valve because there's an o-ring in there and it helps basically when you loosen that it'll make the valve last a lot longer. Now, let's come on over here to this receiver and there is no packing, so there's nothing to do, not one that you can adjust so that one you just crane, so I'm gon na go to apply my service gauges and we'll continue to check everything else. These numbers look pretty darn good.

My unit is running a clear sight glass. My super heats pretty good. That's evaporator superheat for 1 degree, I'm not going to go chasing that one. My sub cooling is kind of irrelevant because this unit has a receiver.

It's still worthwhile to take the sub cooling reading, but when you have a receiver you know it's going to skew the numbers and we really don't use the sub point so much okay, but a super-high sub cooling would indicate something, but it really depends. You got to pay attention to where you put the clamp. So personally, I like to put the clamp coming right out of the condenser on the liquid drain, because that's my true sub point, if you put it further down you're, going to get a skewed number as the lines start to cool everything's, looking really good, my box Temp, my my pressures are almost on point. My outdoor air 77 degrees, we're running r22 refrigerant, looks like my box is still high right.

Now, it's coming down into our evaporator TD's, really high. I think in all honesty that well it's just it's pulling down in temp right now, so it's gon na be a little while yeah. So I'm looking good here all right so, like I said, I'm using measure quick, my sight glass is clear time. Clock has the right time I did bring up to the customers attention about the condenser fan motor.

They want to hold off on it. It's okay, it's running about what did I say: it's allowed to run 2.1 amps and we're running 2.2 amps. So it's not horrible, but the customer wants to wait. It's okay! It's you know we'll keep an eye on it.

We do normal maintenance, so we'll just monitor it and see what happens. I don't have a motor with me today anyways, but I did change the contactor because I was a little worried about that other than that guys. That's pretty much gon na wrap it up. I think I'm gon na go ahead and clean up.

My tools watch the box run for a little bit longer, but I'm pretty happy with all the numbers everything's looking at honky-dory, so nothing too difficult there. It was a little bit time-consuming because again we approach these very carefully, making sure that we're looking at the big picture as usual. Okay, so I didn't just stop when I found the electrical short, I continued to look for more shorts, evaluated. The rest of the system found you know, contactor, maybe was going bad.

I couldn't take it apart, so I just replaced the contactor customer decided not to change the condenser fan motor and it's okay. I really wasn't pushing the condenser fan motor to them, because I'm kind of not too worried about it. I'm just gon na keep an eye on that everything else looked really good. Okay, it's just a matter of you know really thinking about what you're doing, if you're, making repairs kind of I mentioned a little bit, but you know you always want to approach these jobs like someone's gon na, come behind you basically and and talk about you.

You know so you want to make sure that you're doing the best job that you can so that way they have no fuel. They have nothing to say. Okay in this situation, there's some things that the previous person could have done a little bit better, but hey. It is what it is, I'm not trying to be rude or anything to them.

I mean I probably have done those things before. I've probably done that exact same thing before, where I strapped him to the the the evaporator coil brackets. Okay, the lot the electrical lines - it's just you learn from it, after maybe the first time you're like wait, a minute that was kind of silly, because now I got to cut every one of these zip ties every single time I di it's, the coils working in Restaurants, we D ice walk-in, cooler, evaporator coils, constantly, because people are leaving doors open all kinds of things, so anything you can do to make your job easier or the next guys. Job easier is the best I always like to.

You know act and work to make it easier for the next guy. Okay, in hopes that maybe I'm gon na continue to be the next guy, but if not hey, I'm helping out the next guy. That's the way! I go about things, so I really appreciate you guys taking the time to watch these videos, please any questions or comments leave them down in the the YouTube comments. Send me an email to hvac our videos at gmail.com.

Leave me a facebook comment. I do live streams Monday nights, 5 p.m. Pacific time work permitting so so long as I'm not too busy at work. We go live.

I talk about the videos, I answer questions. It's a good time come check it out if you guys can other than that. I really appreciate it and we'll catch you guys on the next one: okay.