compressor smoke

[will34]

My mother's neighbor called her and told her she heard a loud bang and saw smoke pouring out of my mom's outside unit. My mother's AC still seems to be cooling/compressor sounds fine. Any ideas on the possible cause? Thanks for any help.

[DeltaT]

What's the old saying about where there is smoke, there is fire!

Why take a chance? Turn the thing completely off and have someone check it immediately.

[jdenyer]

Maybe fan motor or cap went? Shut it off and call for service before something more expensive like the compressor goes.

[Irascible]

"smoke pouring" implies a lot of it. It may have popped a severe refrigerant leak. When the charge blows suddenly through a catastrophic leak it will look kind of like a bunch of smoke coming out.

[Swampfox]

Possibly blew the terminals on the compressor, that would explain the pop and "smoke" which most likely was the refrigerant, it wouldnt cool at all though.

[ct2]

could have been a rat or other small rodent that just got into a bad spot at a bad time -but not being there to look at it , thats only a guess

[bbk]

All things electrical are powered by smoke.

If you let the smoke out...it don't work no more!

[hvacguy1075]

Or the neighbor could be hallucinating. did i spell that right?

[simpleman]

When they blow a pin like that do you guys feel that is was just something wrong internally in the compressor or is
it from a partial restriction in the refrigeration circuit
couple with a overcharge system?

Speaking of,I no longer see many fusible link on condenser anymore...why?

[Mr Bill]

Originally posted by hvacguy1075
Or the neighbor could be hallucinating. did i spell that right?

Man I can remember those days kinda miss the old purple microdot, but I still get the flashbacks. :D

[mark beiser]

Are you sure its not just still cool in the house, or is the system actually still blowing cold air?

I have run across compressors that blew out the termindal block but were still running twice.
Wierdest thing to find one still running, but they definatly were not cooling.

Definatly get it checked.

[will34]

Thanks everyone for your replies--when I talked to my mother yesterday she informed me that she now realizes that her system definitely was NOT cooling the house after the smoke incident (she came to this conclusion after coming home from a doctor's appt and finding the house temp at 84 degrees !!)

She had in fact called her service rep, but also mistakenly told them she thought the system was still working--they told her to go ahead and run it and they'd be out Monday. In light of your responses and her realization that the system was no longer working, I told her to shut it down for safety's sake.

I'll let you know what they find went wrong--hopefully it won't require a whole new system for her.