Professional Member
Thats funny. The part about the whorehouse anyway. I've never done much in that field and there was not much taught about refrigeration in tech school. What do you like so much about it?
Professional Member
I work on near about anything too. The only brush I've had with refrigeration was a cooler in a restaurant. My mind was totally blown when I realized that the evaporator and the condensor were not electrically connected. I thought it would be like a house ac. Wrong!It would have been pretty funny to be a fly on the wall. I bet It looked like I was trying to work on a spaceship or something.lol.
Professional Member
So I find myself working on the cooler in the resturant. This is the second time that I worked on it. The first time I just had to change out the evaportator fan motor. No big deal. This time the outside condensor wasn't running. The condensor had these funny looking boxes on it. (aka pressure switches). Also, the Thermostat was just hooked to a funny looking valve. I thought that looks inportant. Wonder what it does? Thats a very frighting question at 11:00 on a saturday night when the meat is thawing and the owner wants to go home. I'm hoping this is not the end of my refrigeration career.
Professional Member
Anyway the outside condenser is not running, The start cap and the run cap are bad(I know this because my meter has a handy dandy cap checker). I change the caps (and waalaa! I get the same thing I had)No good. Earlier I had checked the voltage to ground on the R,S,T terminals and had voltage. (Or so I thought), So I thought the caps are good now and I Have voltage. The compressor really should be running. Took my amp clamp out . Compressor wasn't drawing any amps. Compressor is bad its just gotta be. Wrong! Luckily enough I didn't change it because I wasn't sure. The voltage was coming though the windings of the compressor. I was not looking at it right. I wasn't getting the voltage I needed. I wish I could say I found it, but I didn't. That was my first introduction to pump down refrigeration. It was painful.(The condensor fan had gone out. Thats was made the caps go. )
Professional Member
Had a pretty easy one yesterday. Had a ac unit that burned up the breakers. Replaced the breakers. The breakers went to two different units. One unit started up fine. The other one wasn't cooling. Went into the attic to check to see if the evaporator coil was stopped up. It wasn't. Unit was a piston type on the inside unit and a txv on the outside one. Checked for leaks. Inside unit was leaking where the piston goes in. Tightened nut and sprayed soap on it. No leaks. Hooked up gauge set. SH was at 44 degrees. Charged to 13 degrees. Think a loose connection is what caused the breakers to burn up.
Professional Member
Had another easy one today. Window unit would not cool( Hey I know its sad, but got mouths to feed) The blower wouldn't turn. Took unit out. Turned fan unit free and put some penetrating oil on the ends.
Professional Member
Whoo Hoo. Got to buy a toy today! Bought a fieldpiece SMAN3 digital manifold set and it is awesome. You plug a wet bulb thermo and a dry bulb thermo in and it will calculate sh and sc for you. I am so happy. I usually have to duct tape rags around pipe with dial thermos to get these readings.
Professional Member*
This is the new daddy cool thread lol
Jjk I remember when I was trying to get my post up:-) good job! Sounds like you know your stuff, keep it going
Membership Chair/ARP Committee / Professional Member*
Good deal.
But remember: it's never the Situation - it's always the Man.
Duct taped rags in the hands of a genuine mechanic will always beat a hundred digital meters and gauges in the hands of a bumbler.
PHM
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Originally Posted by Daddy Cool
PHM
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When faced with the choice between changing one's mind, and proving that there is no need to do so, most tend to get busy on the proof.
Regular Guest
Hi I've been in the business for 33 years graduated from Oklahoma state tech. (part of OSU) and love the trade. The trade has been very good to me and I encourage everyone to get a AS degree from a trade school. The trade is great security to people who enjoy their work and know what they are doing. I've worked for myself for 31 of the 33 years and still learning. Love the fieldpiece SMAN4 HG3 combo and wireless CFM testing. This trade is pretty simple (most things) for people that study it and I love having knowledge that 99.9% of people have no clue about.
Professional Member
He He , I gotta get my count up guys. I need to ask about a million questions.Thanks for putting up with me for a little while.
Professional Member
I agree with you all the way PHM. When you are poor like me you gotta improvise!
Professional Member
I'm with wrong. Tech school is awesome.I loved getting to learn on equipment where you weren't scared of tearing it up. Also its a lot easier with a teacher. You can always ask him or her if you get in hot water. The real world just isn't like that.
Professional Member
This field is pretty great for people like me. I like to get my hands dirty. I really love fixing things. I really hope I can have a successful business. I'm really intrested in all parts of the field. AC, Refrigeration, even the newer things like geo and solar. I would really love an Mechanical engineering degree, but with two jobs and a family a man just has to keep priorities. Maybe later. Now its pretty nice to turn a buck or two every now and again. PHM I can tell you are the man. Maybe one day I will have it going on like you.
Professional Member
Had another pretty easy one on a ac unit. It was supposed to be a service. I cleaned the evaporator coil with a brush and sprayed some cleaner on it. It did not look bad. When I went outside and took the cowling off the condensor unit it literally had a fur blanket around it. The customers had a dog in the back yard and it sheds big time. You could literally peel the fur blanket off in one piece. Used nu calgon purple to clean the outside coil. Checked for leaks with a leak detector and could not find any. Fixed orifice system charged to superheat. The customer was so used to his system running all the time that he was amazed it acutually cuts off not. I love a happy st0ry.
Professional Member
Check out the field piece sman3 I bought the other day. Looks pretty cool . Wrong, I wish I would have seen the wireless on the sman4 before I bought it , but oh well(prob couldn't afford it anyway) It will calculate the target super heat by plugging in two thermocouples in the front. Man, that gonna save some time. Won't have to look up the charging chart. There is nothing wrong with old school, but convience is worth quite a bit.
Professional Member
Ran into another one today that was strange. The call was that the blower motor would not run. Got to the indoor part and it was a mess. The thermostat g terminal went right into the back of the motor. Ecm motor. First encounter. It was bad. Dang things are expensive.
Professional Member
Well I've been having a house giving me fits with the pan switch shutting off the unit. Found out that it was out of level and was leaking water pretty bad. Had my guys go over there this morning and by about noon they called back. I had to go back over myself and found out when they lifted the furnace to level it, they sat the furnace on the pan switch some how causing it not to come on.
Quick question do you all find it necessary to clean coils with the coil cleaner?
Professional Member
Do you still work in OK? I'm in Tulsa/Bixby, I love working here in Oklahoma because of the extreme temperatures; however, on new construction the codes here are a joke!
Professional Member
Thats no good.At least you found it. I sometimes use the evaporator coil cleaner. It seems to cut the crud. I like the nu calgon in the green jug. For the condensor coil the nu calgon in the purple jug. The purple stuff is some pretty bad stuff though. You can see the coil start to smoke. Gotta rinse really good!
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