Service Assistant

[tomt]

Went to seminar on the new Honeywell Service Assisiatnt, has anyone used it yet. Looked to me to be a pain to use.
Cost is high for a set of gauges.
It will tell you if coils are dirty and over or undercharged.
I guess we will be obsolete when this becomes the new way to service A/C.

[R12rules]

I see nothing wrong with spending $800 on a set of gages.
I would spend that much on a velometer if I found one I liked so much.

Look at what is spent on combustion anaylisers!


When I started out, everyone had a Halide torch. Now ... look at what everyone is carrying for leak detection. Big bucks.

It's the same way with those gage sets. Someday the prices will drop and people will begin buying them.

But until such time as we see and hear of friends using them and making claims of how much trouble is saved by having them ... we will put them out of our thoughts.

[jon harmon]

I'm not exactly sure what Service Assistant is but I did a project for Enron checking Simon property malls with something probably very similar. It was a gauge manifold that also connected to a digital analyzer that was connected to a palm pilot. You attached the various sensors, OA, SH, SC, discharge air and return then "it" would diagnose the unit and print a report. What a joke!@! The only true value this has is as a sales tool. In this day and age people love bells and whistles. There is no substitute for a competent technician. Therein lies the problem. I think these types of equipment dumb down the requirements of a tech. If a tech cannot adequately diagnose a unit he/she is in the wrong business.

[wra]

We have one under another name. The nice thing about it is it will log the info on how the unit is running. The bad thing about it is the diagnostics are off on it some times , like you need to cover the temp sensors or you will get bad readings, also if you try using it on something that has a suction line that is bigger then 1 1/8" you will not get a good reading. Most of the time it will say there is a restriction. I still have to play with it some more. BTW don't even think about using it on a unit with unloaders that is running unloaded or with multiple comps without them all running, and then if the load is not there you will get a low side airflow problem.