Come fly with me on Beacon II airlines

[Dad]

Board says....

Air probe bad…. Changed
Outdoor sensor bad… Changed
Defrost sensor bad…. Changed

Checked all sensors with ice water. All old sensors with in 5k @ 32*.. 27k – 32K HUH??

Board not telling me sensors are bad anymore. Fired up unit and get immediate A1 and temp reading. Kicked board it into test/clear. Unit went into dly and started. Still giving an A1 temp code… hummmmm Reset power and watched this puppy fire up on its own.

Let it run overnight and came back to find a frozen up mess all the way back to the rooftop tin man. Kicked it into force defrost and watched it melt away. Both fan blades have stress cracks, replace them too.

Fired up the unit and checked superheat settings on program review. Sup set at 8… all other program settings are looking good. Monitor saying sup at 8 but I didn’t believe it so I took a manual superheat. I found the EEV hunting from 10* to 15* while board monitor saying 8*. Hummmmm

Freeze up, duh….Bad board right? OK.. made all kinds of calls, It was 9AM Saturday. No Heatcraft vendor has any Beacon parts in stock except a Beacon 1 board…. We were able to contact Ray… he is the Heatcraft wiz that designed the board… I met him 30 miles out of town and got a board and probes from him. (Nice guy and smart as heck) Installed his board but it gets hung in a loop and calls for service… WTF??

Called another buddy of mine that does a lot of Mac work.. he had two take off boards he thought were good…. Also thought I would like a transducer since his shop is a candy store for Beacon. Darn.. only EEV and transducer he has is out in a truck. Drove another 45 miles out of town and got his boards.

Installed his newest looking board… same thing, in a service loop, unit won’t even come on much less go into a delay. What now??? EProm flash on the new boards were 1.8 and 1.7 version. Old board was 1.0 version. I took the last board I had. It was a 1.3 version software and wired it in….. hungrier than a butt munching elf and more tired than I should have been after 3 hours of sleep I fired this one up….

BINGO… set the program review to elec, 404, 8* 4 defrost.. and so on. Killed the breaker and reset. It held all programming. Board flashed freezer temp and popped into dly. 4 minutes later this puppy started to pull down.

Let it run for about 20 and temp was below 20*. Went to monitor for superheat check… 9*…. Took manual reading… BINGO 9* ! !

I will let this puppy run the rest of the weekend and go back for recheck and billing… Question is… anyone else ever have a cluster F**K like this on a Beacon II or am I just lucky it wasn’t worse ??

[Diceman]

Wow, that sucks. Ya know, I wonder if the technology is worth it anymore, it seems to be getting ahead of itself.
Not all, but some things like that, are unnecessary.

[primmers]

i just got asked to give a quote on one of these
for a mcdonalds....doOd was telling me how *****in they are.. gulp.

[rennsport]

I am just out of Tech school HVAC program and my instructor (who has been doing refrigeration work for a long time) loves the Beacon system. He looks at it as job security as a lot of people do not want to touch them.

[Dad]

http://www.heatcraftrpd.com/

Keep this with you rookie... print out the Beacon II Lit.

Their system is down right now but will be back soon.

[rennsport]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by lusker
[B]http://www.heatcraftrpd.com/

Keep this with you rookie... print out the Beacon II Lit.

Thank you,

I have the Heatcraft Refrigerartion systems installation and operation PDf on my PDA, which I carry. It comes in handy for writing down unit model and serial numbers.

About me,

I changed careers and am now working for a commercial A/C and refrigeration company almost two months now. My real interest is in low temp work.

[icemeister]

Every time someone posts another Beacon service nightmare I thank my stars that I don't have any customers with them. I'm one of those who will turn down an emergency call from a MacD's for two reasons. First, none of my local supply houses stock any Beacon parts except for a possible sensor or two and secondly, they're calling me at 10PM on a Saturday night only because they can't get their regular service company to come out.

I'm in business doing what I enjoy and trying make a living doing it. From my experience, customers like that won't let you accomplish either. :(

Lusker, how do expect to bill out this call? 150 miles of driving time alone just to scrounge up parts would put this over the top with most customers......or are they a major account where you eat a lot of this one to stay in good with them?

I'm further ahead sitting at home. ;)

[Dad]

iceme,

This is a large corp account. I had the national corp facility consultant on the phone three times Saturday. I will bill it 100% overtime labor and extra mileage plus normal markup on parts I will also add the normal time rates for finishing the job Monday.

bill should be 2K

[Dad]

Hey rookie

good luck to you in your new conquest....

BTW.. can you fix your http://www. ?

[icemeister]

Originally posted by lusker
..........bill should be 2K

I hope that fancy Beacon II system has saved them enough to justify paying for that. ;)

[Dad]

actually I could have converted it to stat,txv and valve cheaper and it would have run just as good. :)

the manager knows it too...

Could have slapped an ERC-2 in the puppy, sweated in a couple of valves... Boom baby... good news!

Have you seen the paragon ERC-2? Love them...

[Edited by lusker on 07-31-2005 at 04:05 PM]

[icemeister]

Big corporate accounts are often as wasteful as the government. I suppose it has something to do with accountability.

I have some ERC-2 systems out there.....a few for several years now with no major problems. They're less expensive than the timeclock and thermostat they replace, they give you more precise control, defrost termination/fan delay, a temperature readout and an alarm capability.

My only real complaint about them is that they are sensitive to power supply problems (like lightning and such) and will shut down the system occaisionally......requiring a reset. Once I get the customer trained at doing this it's all good. :D

If the ERC-2 had an output to drive the Beacon II expansion valve it would be a piece of cake. ;)

[Edited by icemeister on 07-31-2005 at 04:30 PM]

[condenseddave]

Originally posted by icemeister

Originally posted by lusker
..........bill should be 2K

I hope that fancy Beacon II system has saved them enough to justify paying for that. ;)

:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

[Dowadudda]

Beacon Systems just suck. The idea is great. I have done a lot of supermarket computer controls stuff, and I love it, dig it, talk it, know it. Some things like the Danfoss over the CPC, they both got their good points. Point is, I mess with this stuff alot, and that beacon system is the most unreliable, unstable hardware system out there. I have not worked on much of them, but my god, there are alot of people I have met in my career that have, they suck. It has a bad reputation.

[Dad]

Originally posted by condenseddave

Originally posted by icemeister

Originally posted by lusker
..........bill should be 2K

I hope that fancy Beacon II system has saved them enough to justify paying for that. ;)

:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

This store was a guinea pig for the Beacon II when it first came out 4 + years ago. It is not the manager’s fault but it surely coming out of his budget.

You would get a big no if you ask it was worth the cash. When are they going to learn that more complicated is not better, it is just more complicated.

[bullit]

we had nothing but problems with beacon sensors we had 5 different location and have changed all sensors, eventually beacause of repetitive sensor problems we have converted 3 of these to conventional systems.
good luck

[Dad]

Beacon sends a tech to see what was going on. Tech says I didn’t wait long enough on the condenser switch to initiate the board.. (4 minutes). You don’t have to do the switch, just disconnect red (service wire) for the same amount of time Yeah.. like I was there all night because I like being in a freezer just screwing around. Smells fishy to me.

So he tells the customer that there was nothing wrong with any of the boards and the one that I got working is bad and he has no idea how I got it working….

Smells like it and sounds like it, must be it. Fishy

[icemeister]

Originally posted by lusker

So he tells the customer that there was nothing wrong with any of the boards and the one that I got working is bad and he has no idea how I got it working….

What a tactless idiot to show you up in front of the customer like that.

Did you call for this tech or did the customer? Either way, it sorta makes your chances of getting paid for all your trouble grow rather dim. :(

[Dad]

They came on their own.... told you it was a mega account.

I talked to him while he was there. He did nothing that I didn't do already 4 or 5 times.

I also told him that I changed the harness to the eev and the transducer before testing the last board. Although I have never seen a harness situation before, that may have fixed it for the other boards. Thus, he had no problems.

I will write it up in my report as such and the invoice will be going out today.

[Diceman]

Originally posted by icemeister

Originally posted by lusker

So he tells the customer that there was nothing wrong with any of the boards and the one that I got working is bad and he has no idea how I got it working….

What a tactless idiot to show you up in front of the customer like that.

Did you call for this tech or did the customer? Either way, it sorta makes your chances of getting paid for all your trouble grow rather dim. :(


Yeah, great Mfg support there, he is just trying to cover the fact his little Beacon thingy ain't all it's cracked up to be. Ya wonder how much this technology really saves, in the long run.

[Dad]

I am going to cut slack here.... I think after I changed all of the sensors, the EEV harness, the transducer wiring and got a 1.3 version board to work with the service toggle in the off possition at the condenser.... my 16 year old son could gotten a new board to work. :D

[icemeister]

I'm convinced not to ever get involved with Heatcraft's Beacon system. I'll just stick with Paragon's ERC-2. ;)

[Dad]

ice-me-i-ster

Found out today that my buddy has had several run ins with this dude from Beacon. He has one objective. Make Beacon look good. Also hear he is an arogant SOB. He has one really big problem... the manager was over my shoulder most of the time learning how to operate the board... lol Makes it two against one. :)

I submitted my bill today and didn't hear a word.

[Dad]

Update

Three weeks ago the Beacon II walk in cooler takes a dump.

Bad Board and two probes on overtime Friday night.

Replaced with free parts mailed to me by Heatcraft for a "just-in-case" after the freezer call at the same location. (read above)

Billed the walk in cooler out. Heatcraft said they were going to send a tech out to completely comb through both units... that was 3 weeks ago and no one has seen them.


Both invoices paid in full. Both units working perfectly :D