This video is brought to you by spore'ln quality, integrity and tradition. Today's service call is on a walk-in freezer, that's not working properly and let's go ahead and pop back to the back of the coil, and we are frozen up nice and thick, so they're still moving. Some product for me we're gon na hop onto the roof check out some stuff up on the roof and then get down here and we'll get this defrosted and then finished diagnosing call it whatever you want. When I you know, I like to be as organized and as efficient as possible, so you know I used a rope to get my tools and stuff up onto the roof and then, when I'm done, I like to leave my rope down there out of the way.

So nobody's tripping over it, and then I like to rope it up here so that way it's not sitting on the ground getting dirty or in my case, wet because of morning dew and frost everywhere. This is my walk-in freezer unit. We're gon na dive into that right now on the rope, though, what I will do I'll pull it up just to show you guys is. I use a hook on line so that way I can rope up.

I just set all my stuff down there. This hooks made by Hawaiian, I think, actually, I believe, it's a client yeah its client client industries, I'll put a link in the video show nuts, but I really like this because it pivots tie it on one end yeah. I got a crazy-looking knot right there, but it works, and but you know I like to leave it down there so that way, if someone else comes here or if you go downstairs without thinking about it, you bring something else up the ropes already down there. You don't got ta climb back up.

You know it's just a silly things like that that make my day go easier because you know we're better prepared, basically so, but I'm always concerned about the customer, so I'm making sure that it's not in their way to where they're gon na trip over it. That kind of stuff, so we have three condensing units for walkins here and sometimes it can be kind of tricky to tell which ones which now, if they're labeled, which you know when you install them, you should probably do a decent job of labeling them. But this one's labeled walk-in cooler, it looks like we could probably label that with a paint marker, this one's labeled beer walk-in. This one does have some labeling on it over here and it's labeled walk-in freezer, but something as simple as that helps the next guy.

Once you've figured it out now, if there's no labeling up here, then there's some other methods. Okay, we can do some obvious assumptions because the Jelena's iced up down at the evaporator and we could walk in and look at the other ones. Is there any ice on the evaporators? No okay? So it's a pretty safe to say this is the walk-in freezer, but we can go further and diagnose by opening up the electrical cabinet. I'll show you some things to check.

That'll help you to figure out whether or not you have the right condensing unit on the roof, because when you're working with remote condensing units or multiplex systems that have multiple evaporators, sometimes it can be kind of difficult to figure out which ones which you can you Can cycle temperature controllers and watch the unit turn on and off you can in this case this is a walk-in freezer. Now I know the sequence of operation on this unit. The power for the evaporator is controlled from the rooftop, so that disconnect will shut off the evaporator. You can shut that off.

You know, there's a bunch of different methods. Alright, I went ahead and pulled the covers off just so. I can get access to everything. Now.

Let me point something out: refrigerant pressures mean absolutely nothing to me when you have an iced up, evaporator. Okay. Obviously, if I did check it, I would have extremely low superheat and the reason why we would have extremely low superheat. The ice is preventing the air from completing the heat transfer process passing through the evaporator, so we're not boiling off the little vapour particles and I'm sorry, liquid particles coming out of the expansion valve.

You know because it's like a liquid vapor mixture blowing into the evaporator and it's coming directly back up to the compressor, so we're gon na have extremely low superheat. So you never trust you or you never put your service gauges. There's no point! Okay, until after you've defrosted it completely same thing for a splashing sight, glass, it means nothing when you have a totally iced up evaporator coil in this particular situation, now there's some systems but on a typical, walk-in freezer. It's it's not gon na.

Do nothing! The next thing is is coming into the electrical section, just kind of doing a visual inspection just to see if we think see anything jumping out at us. It's still energized. Okay. I have not checked any voltages yet, but we know that we have voltage because we've heard a cycle coming up to our defrost clock and look at that pretty common, but we've got a short on the defrost terminal.

That's the number three terminal! So that's the electric heat for the defrost circuit. So essentially I can make an assumption that this thing's never going in to defrost, even if the clock is still initiating a defrost, the wires shorted out. Now it's hard to say exactly what caused that a very common cause of a melted terminal like that is a loose electrical connection. Now here's the difficult thing once it shorts out like it has it's it's kind of arced and kind of welded itself.

There's all kinds of weird stuff going on in there, so it's almost impossible to figure out if it was actually loose or not. Sometimes you can tell but a lot of times the screw is gon na weld itself to the little electrical connector and you know you're. Never going to know, but that's a very common cause of a short like that or a burnt-out terminal on a defrost clock is loose terminals. So at this point, there's nothing else we can do until we replace that defrost clock turned off power, will double check and then we'll go down and defrost the evaporator coil all right.

We're just gon na double check voltages off it's a three-phase system, so I'm gon na check all three phase to phase dead and then I'll check all three phase to ground dead, dead, dead, all three phases to ground. So now I know the operation of this unit. So I know that this could disconnect right here. Controls power downstairs.

We still need to verify just double-check downstairs to make sure powers disconnected, but so we're gon na go so I'm gon na go grab me a defrost clock. We're gon na get this actually swapped out. First, so I have a new defrost clock. These are very common.

This is a Paragon 81. 45 20. You can come in hundred and fifteen or 208. The last two digits, the twenty designates two hundred Naples.

So you know I hear a lot of people talking I'll use grass. Ah no use Paragon, Oh use digital. That gives every single wine it. Just I'm not I'm not even to change everything if it has a paragon.

I'm gon na throw a Paragon back in you know. I see benefits to both so for the most part I just try to put back in. What's in there typically pull the clock out with the new one end and then just do a wire for wire. Whoever invented flathead screws has been spartan, invented the Philips in my region, walk-in freezers going to have four defrost with the failsafe time of 20.

The across termination switch so the way these clocks work is pretty simple. You can just pulled it back from a party opponent Waco. The defrost takes power from this terminal because of the jumper in access, your switching leg, so one powers, the clop, is the other side of power that completes the circuits or the clock will run to is actually your common for your switch leg, two switches between three And four and that's why there's a jumper there, so we can bring one source of power X. Is your defrost termination, so in the middle of a defrost? If everything is working right, we can terminate defrost, be a temperature, so we're gon na do is just kind of wire for wire until we get to the wires that are - and this is my burnt wire, so we're gon na have to put a new connector on That, hopefully I got one in my bag.

I used the veto, backpacker tech pack and usually looks like we got a whole plethora of stuff in here today about keep a couple little connectors in here. Save me some headaches: they'll be links to all the tools that I use in the show notes we might get lucky and find the person up slacken the wires too work with. So I don't have to go. Get a bunch of extra got to go back, make sure you can find a spot where the wires not burn.

That's good. You can tell, and you have bad wire, that when you screw like these for Milwaukee, you know it's Milwaukee crimpers, they work it alright. So here's the deal - I don't want to energize this circuit yet because I'm pretty sure it was a loose connection. But what happens if there is an electrical short or something grounded downstairs? We're going to do turnout check continuity, we're gon na find a good ground right down here.

We have good grounds, let's check continuity, anything's browndown grounded out everything's good, so I feel pretty safe. I'm gon na go ahead and turn this guy back on. Hopefully not that blows up in my face. I'm gon na stand away from the electrical panel when I turn it on just to be safe from a glasses on Dave powers back on.

It's writing a cooling mode right now. It's wet check for proper voltage to a 3.6 yeah, so we have three phase power: 208 volts, basically, 203. We're going to go and check the buffer clock operation so 1 to N powers. The clock 201 volts into 3 should have nothing at the moment.

Backbeat. I see that sometime to do the limit switches into four is to our wine, but I don't think that's a show. So let's go ahead and again turn our face away and we're gon na pop this guy in the defrost and see what happens. We just went in to defrost now this unit has a compressor, contactor and a defrost contactor.

It will not allow because of this. Interlock switch right here on the side of this compressor. Contactor will not allow this defrost contactor to pull until the compressor contactor pulls out. So essentially, it's looking for the system to pump down and go off on low pressure and then the defrost contactor just pulled in so now.

If we check between n three, we should have 208 volts or $ 1.99. Kinda looks like we're getting a voltage job into form. We've got nothing. Let's do into one well, maybe not 200 volts.

Why are we getting really low? Let's check down here again, 2:04, 2:02, two or four. So we are getting 201 202. So I guess it's not! The end of the world - 2:01 200 - I guess yeah. I guess I guess that's right, so our heater circuit is now energized.

So what we can do is check the amps on the number of three wire going downstairs: we'll go down and test the heaters too, but we find the number three wire going downstairs and that should be this guy right. There we've only got three amps downstairs: that's not good for a heater circuit, we're missing a heater something's up there, all right, so we know there's an electrical problem because we should have much higher amperage. I mean, I don't know the number right off top my head, but we should have at least 8 9 amps. I would think because there's typically three or four heaters in those things, I also need a new battery in my meter, but okay, well, we're gon na go and DNR eyes now and go check out.

What's going on down there, we've got a defrost at first and then we'll go through the okay. I completely removed the motors from the picture, fan guards off side panels off. We got that one off. I'm still need to take this one off and we're gon na go ahead and use water, we're gon na defrost this very carefully without getting any water on the ground.

This walkin has a raised floor. We, like I say, a million times. You can't get water underneath the raised floor or it'll freeze and lift up so nice and slow. I love my wand.

This thing showed it a million times I got from Lowe's. This thing does a really good job. I'm able to get in there put it on the shower function and go to town with hot water. So we'll get this defrosted and then check back in.

We got the evaporator defrosted all the way over here the expansion valve section. I even got the suction line. There's some insulation falling off we'll get that fixed over in the electrical section. You got everything going on over here.

We got three limit switches, so this one doesn't use combination switches, so you've got a heater safety up here. This has probably got to be the fan. Delay because it's up towards the top and this one, no maybe this is the family - I don't never. One of these is a fan delay one of them's defrost termination.

I guess I can stare at the wires and figure it out, but anyways um, because I wasn't getting amperage like all my heaters were running. I'm gon na go ahead and mount the heaters individually. Since I have the voltage off and test to see. If we have any issues 37 ohms on that one, so let's do the other one! There's only two heaters in here there's one at the bottom of the coil and one in the middle of the coil - will test the other one, real, quick, interesting that one's getting 37 ohms to this is the top Peter cool.

So these are electric strip heaters. It's very interesting, but yet I was only getting like three amps. Maybe we got something going on a limit switch we'll see, we'll investigate a little bit further, all right. It's not the end of the world, but you know I cleaned off the ice off the accumulator.

In the suction line, just kind of it was all loose because I'd been defrosted him for so long, and I noticed that this whole accumulator was covered in oil. So it's good thing. It's you know, I'd be able to see it now, cuz, it's all on my towel, but I noticed that this dryer is pretty rusted out on the top. We'll definitely be doing a leak check, the others, I'm sure there's gon na be a leak somewhere.

It could just be a bad Schrader cap. Those things all leak, all the time too, who knows, but this equipment's getting pretty old, but we're gon na go ahead and get ready to fire this guy up and then gauge up alright we're getting ready to turn it on. I came down here to do one more final check to make sure there's no wires in the way of the fan, blades or anything. So this thing has a fan, delay limits which over here so the evaporator families should not turn on until the evaporator temperature gets somewhere around 20 ish degrees, then it'll turn them on.

So I will be upstairs when that happens, and then we got to let the coil get cold enough, because it also has a defrost termination switch currently right now. I think my box temp is about 36 degrees, so we need this coil to get cold enough, that it will allow it to go into defrost too, before we can test any further, what's going on with the heaters. So this point we're gon na got some gauges on the unit. We're gon na go ahead and turn it on lean to the side fires it up.

We got away for the evaporator fan motors to come on. Usually, you can see it because your suction temperature will go down really low. Your evaporator temperature will be really low and it takes a few minutes for the the fans usually to turn on, but we'll see our current we've got box temp. On this too, I can't box.

Temp is 35 degrees right now and it'll actually, probably warm up a little bit. So, let's see what happens, let it run for a few minutes and then we'll slap it back into defrost and test it right. The evaporator fan motors are running so now we're gon na, let it run for a few minutes and bring the box temp down and then we'll put it back into defrost and test all the heaters and see what's going on. Alright, my box tip is about 21 degrees.

I feel pretty confident that we can go ahead and slap this guy in to defrost and we should get a. We should be able to click it in, and you know it not click out again. Turning my face away, we got to watch the pump down you're going to see the suction line pump down, okay, defrost heater pulled in our contact or pulled in let's go ahead and check some voltages here. Alright, so one to n is 201 volts into three.

It's 201 volts and the four should be nothing correct. Okay, so we are in defrost now. So let's do what our amperage is or our current is. It should be this guy ten amps, interesting that we weren't pulling 10 amps earlier see earlier.

What were we only pulling like 5, or something like that? It makes me think one of the heaters wasn't working, something was going on there, a limit switch or something funky very, very interesting, I'm also gon na start. I started a stopwatch, so we have a fail-safe time of about 28 minutes and I got a stopwatch going on my watch right now. So if, if we don't terminate defrost before then, then we know something's going on here, because this thing with the box temp inside there, the defrost termination switch, should easily terminate defrost before the 30 minute timer all right. Let's see 5.2 6 amps on one of the circuits and here's the other circuit, 5.3, 5 amps, so they're both working now.

So it's interesting, if you guys remember at the beginning of the video I put it in defrost and we weren't running anywhere near that hmm see, I don't know what's going on, both of these guys are powered. At the same time, the only thing I did was pull the electrical connectors off an ohm amount and we put him back on so I guess they could have had bad connections, but you would think there would be signs of heat or anything. There was a bad electrical connection for the heater. It's very interesting, I'm leaning towards a limit switch because I didn't come down here because I couldn't because it was all frozen up.

These limit switches have a really high failure rate, I'm leaning towards a limit switch being a problem and messing with the defrost. Somehow, I'm going to show you guys a trick if you want to know if your defrost heaters are working correctly or if there's a problem with them. If you have the manufacturer's information, so check this out, it's a 208 to 30 volt circuit, and it says the heater circuit should run at 13 amps. So what you could simply do is take an Ohm's law calculator and input the highest voltage 230 volts and the amps.

Now this one has two heaters right, so I'm gon na split that into so I'm going to take 230 volts and 6 and 1/2 amps and I'll input it in an Ohm's law, calculator and it'll. Tell you what the ohms of that heater should be, and you can compare that to what you're measuring just see if you have an issue. Alright, what I'm gon na do is open up an Ohm's law calculator and it comes with some generic numbers in there. So we're going to input the voltage of 230 volts the maximum and then the only other.

We only have to know two things to figure out: the Ohm's law calculation right we said 13 amps was the total amps, but we're gon na split it between two heaters. So we're gon na go here, change it to amps and we're gon na do 6.5 and then hit calculate, and it says our resistance value of each heater should be approximately 35 ohms and that's right about where we were so. I don't see anything too alarming with that, but so I don't think there's anything wrong with the heaters per se. Now that we did that we're going to everything's running - and it's also possible that you know those both those heaters aren't exactly identical resistant about you.

They might be one that's a little bit more than the other one, but they're somewhat the same, so I don't think there's anything wrong with the heater. So I think the heaters are fine. Unless there's a bad connection here that one's loose, though it's missing the hanger strap, I can feel it dangling. You know we're good, so we're just now just waiting for the timer we're at 9 minutes now we're waiting for it to time out on defrost termination, while I'm waiting for this thing to kick out a defrost, I'm just checking this thermostat and check this out.

It's not working turn it all the way off turn it all the way on. It's, not you don't hear the actuation, it's not clicking, it's definitely not below negative 20 in here, and it's definitely not above 100 degrees in here. So it's not shutting off. Now.

That's no bueno Wow, so we're gon na do this thing set for as cold as it'll go. We have an open circuit, it's funny cuz. When I first turned it it clicked, but it clicked in a weird spot and then I didn't do it again. So it's like it just went bad.

I don't know that that would cause the freeze-up issue, but they picture diagnosis. It was going bad, it's weird, it's like it terminated defrost, but it didn't. I haven't heard the cooling cycle kick on. I guess it could, because that thermostat, but so we definitely terminate a defrost, we'll go up there and check out the clock.

Alright, so we're back up on the roof check the clock, real, quick one to end two or three volts into four all four volts in two three: nothing so compressor, contactors not pulled in and defrost contactors not pulled in, but that thermostat being open, won't, let it Energize the solenoid valve, because the thermostats open, so it's just got multiple problems, so we're gon na have to change that thermostat out and then finish going through everything. Alright, I removed the old temperature controller, which was right. There relocated it to a much better location back here and then just ran the sensing bulb and put it in the middle of the coil. That way, and basically, you got to make sure it's off the wall, the way it's getting more air temp I mean.

Ideally, it's suspended in the air, but yeah it's um kind of difficult, just tied it in over here, so that way people don't mess with it. I also have a cap to put on that when it comes time, so we're gon na go back up on the roof and finish our diagnosis. Let's try this again see what happens there. We go pressure, came up selling our jobs open, so we're gon na watch.

The box come down in town. This is a very interesting one because, like I said when I first came up here, I put it in defrost and I amped it out and it was not running. It was barely any amps, which was interesting. So I'm thinking there might be something going on with the limits, which is my thought, but anyway, so we got the defrost clock changed out thermostat.

We found that to change that house and now we're gon na watch. It come down in ten. Well, everything seems to be working. Okay.

I just came back from a lunch. It's come down and temp quite a bit, we'll jump on the roof and look at the numbers right now, but I'm gon na start putting the panel's back together in this guy. So the receiver is only about just under half yeah. I can feel it with my hands.

I'm using my hand right now and basically, the liquid level feels to be about right here, which is where it's showing on the thermal-imaging camera too. So we need to put a little more refrigerant in this system, just to be a hundred percent sure my system is pumped down and what I'm doing is is just adding refrigerant wallets, still pumped down very slowly into the accumulator, so that we were not overloading the Compressor and instead of going through the whole process of pumping it down again, I'm just bringing the pressure up very slowly and be very careful. You want to slug your compressor, but the accumulator is helping me out, because I have that here and I'm putting it in through a Schrader port. So it's already barely gon na be any liquid by the time it goes into a Schrader port and then it's you know changing state in the accumulator or just boiling off, basically or whatever, but yeah just adding a little bit of refrigerant and then we'll check the Liquid level again, if we look at it, the thermal camera, I'm gon na change it over right now looks like we're just about at the three-quarter mark, so I'm gon na call it good there yeah we're gon na call it good there and see what that does.

The whole reason why I filled the receiver up to the 3/4 mark is because, when my systems operating right now, my head pressure control valve is not bypassing at all. Ok, I had a hunch that we might have a refrigerant leak on top of everything else. That's wrong with this: there was oil all over the accumulator. When I took the ice off and then also some of the service caps, I can actually tell you they're leaking right now, because there's I can just see when I pulled the caps off.

They were oily. So I had a hunch we were low on refrigerant now, because the head pressure control valve is not bypassing. I have no way of knowing how much refrigerants in the system at this moment, so the easiest way. In my opinion, I'm not the smartest genius in the world, but this is the way that I roll is I'm going to put the maximum amount of refrigerant into that system, and the only way that I can do that is by filling that receiver up to the Maximum capacity when it's pumped down, which is 3/4 of a receiver all right, so I used the thermal camera.

It showed that it was like in the halfway range and then I added some refrigerant and brought it up just under the 3/4 mark. That's all! I'm gon na add to it for now we're gon na go ahead and turn this system back on, and I'm actually going to get out of here, because it's Saturday and I've been here all day as it is all right. We had a bunch of stuff going on with this one, but it started out as a walk-in freezer that wasn't working properly. When I arrived, I found that the evaporator was iced up, really good, ok and immediately.

I found that the defrost clock, the number 3 terminal on that particular clock was melted and the wire was just about burnt off completely. That's why the unit wasn't defrosting, but there was some other stuff going on there too. Once I got it all defrosted, you know I kind of walked you guys through some steps, and it was very strange because I put the defrost clock in there and it wasn't getting the proper current draw or amperage for the heaters when they were running was really Weird, I saw, I think it was like three something amps or for something amps and it should have been much higher than that and I kind of guessed what I thought it was, but I think it was supposed to be about ten amps or something like that. So it was very strange and I couldn't duplicate that problem again.

Okay, but also, if you remember when I was testing the defrost clock after I replaced it. I was also getting some weird like back feed through the limit switches is what I thought, because I was getting some weird voltages from three to n when the unit was in the freeze mode. So it makes me think or made me think that there was an issue with the limit switches now also found that the unit had a bad thermostat, and that's that's another one too. That happened while I was there.

You know, because I turned the thermostat just to see how accurate it was to see where it was clicking at versus the box temperature, and I heard it click once, but it clicked in a really weird spot as far as temperature, and then it wouldn't click again. So the thermostat literally failed after I turned it. You know big picture diagnosis like I always say not my fault, but had I not turn that thermostat more than likely, I would have gotten a service call within the next few days when the thermostat failed on its own. So you know always go through as much as you can.

You know it's a fine line between spending too much time in parking there and you know being thorough, that's a hard one. You got to kind of you know evaluate that yourself. Talk with your managers and different things, but big-picture diagnosis, all these guys. Okay, so I got them up and running.

I change the defrost clock. I changed the thermostat and I'm gon na talk to the customer. Now I'm gon na be honest with you. I don't think that the customer is gon na authorize any more repairs on that unit.

This customer, as I've said many other times in my videos likes to change equipment. This equipment was from 2002. I do not see them. Having me do a leak, search and a leak repair on this unit, if it was a giant leak.

Yes, I would have fixed it that day, but being that it was, it was only five pounds short. It took five pounds to fill the receiver up to the 3/4 mark, so you know I I don't think they're going to, but again I'm gon na contact them and basically give them all the options and see where they want to go all right. Another thing that I did was I check the liquid level in the receiver, and I've talked about that many times. Alright, I really didn't elaborate as to what I was doing when I was doing it in the video, but I pumped the system down after.

I was all done to check the liquid level because we typically leave them at the 3/4 mark unless otherwise it's marked with a paint marker. Okay, this one had no paint marker, so I know that it should have been at the 3/4 pumped down level and it wasn't. It was a little bit below half. So I went ahead and added 5 pounds of gas to the system, got it up to the 3/4 mark.

Just because that wasn't the problem. While I was there, but I didn't want when it got really cold outside one night, for it to be starved for refrigerant, because the head pressure control valve tries to bypass alright. So I checked the level filled up the receiver to the maximum amount, which is the 3/4, and that's why I left the customer, and you know I basically just presented everything to them. Also, I think when I got there, I think the box was in the 40s and I think when I left it was just below 20 degrees, maybe 15 degrees, or something like that was where I left it.

And it's since been a day and because this call was the yesterday and yeah so that you know customers happy and everything for now and it's just a temporary fix, really appreciate you guys taking the time to watch these videos. You know I've been plugging it in every single one of my outros, I'm starting a new YouTube channel. It's called HVAC our tools, there'll be a link in the top of the show notes right here. I'd really appreciate, if you guys go over there and give me a subscription, I plan to start uploading to that channel right after the first of the year.

We'll start uploading videos - I don't know if it's gon na be as regular as this channel, but we definitely will upload content. It's gon na be a different spin on tool reviews guys it's gon na, be my spin. It's gon na be my way nobody's telling me how to do it. You know I'm still figuring things out, but you know I like to do things my way and I really don't want to be told what to do so.

That's the kind of channel that I want it to be. It's going to be on the tools that I want to review so keep an eye out for that also live streams. You know I do live streams every Monday evening work permitting as long as I can get off work in time, 5 p.m. Pacific time on my YouTube channel, where I usually answer questions and address things that I forgot to mention in the videos come check it out.

Guys really appreciate you guys taking the time to watch these, and I guess that's it other than that we will catch you guys on the next one. Okay.