Do it yourself Refrigeration and Air Conditioning

   / Do it yourself Refrigeration and Air Conditioning #51  
Give me one expansion or reversing valve that isn't made in China...
My entire unit is made in China LOL. And as you know, Many of these inverter units and components are sourced from China
 
   / Do it yourself Refrigeration and Air Conditioning #52  
With my luck I will hold onto it so long demand evaporates.

I understand 410a is getting pricey…

The new built up unit takes many jugs to charge both circuits..

A nearby study found 8 of 61 Schrader valves leaking…

I felt bad for the contractor having to replace all the lost refrigerant plus paying for the supply house to open on a weekend…

Yesterday a bad contactor blew two of three 125 volt 480 volt fuses that required supply house to open after hours again and no 125 amp only 100 on shelf.

The failure also tripped the 125 amp breaker in the panel room…

I don’t see the need for both 125 amp fuses at the service disconnect on a 125 amp circuit breaker protected dedicated circuit…

What am I missing because I’m thinking just making the Service Disconnect fuseless.
Cant just do that. Fuses are first line of defense for motors, etc. some like ac units will use time delay fusus, other are instantaneous. A breaker will allow alot more power thru to device before they trip. How come your hospital doesnt install a locked fuse cabinet and store some of every sized fuse necessary? The hospital and large production facilities i used to work on had large fuse cabinets plus inventory records to keep them stocked.
 
   / Do it yourself Refrigeration and Air Conditioning #53  
With my luck I will hold onto it so long demand evaporates.

I understand 410a is getting pricey…

The new built up unit takes many jugs to charge both circuits..

A nearby study found 8 of 61 Schrader valves leaking…

I felt bad for the contractor having to replace all the lost refrigerant plus paying for the supply house to open on a weekend…

Yesterday a bad contactor blew two of three 125 volt 480 volt fuses that required supply house to open after hours again and no 125 amp only 100 on shelf.

The failure also tripped the 125 amp breaker in the panel room…

I don’t see the need for both 125 amp fuses at the service disconnect on a 125 amp circuit breaker protected dedicated circuit…

What am I missing because I’m thinking just making the Service Disconnect fuseless.
Are you using magnetic contractors for the systems? Then appropriate thermal trips can be installed for motor protection.
To my knowledge the physical disconnects located in sight of the unit do not have to be fuse protected, as long as the upstream protection is sized correctly.
As they are just for "personal" safety while working on the equipment.
I will also admit to not staying current with the NEC the last 10 years.
 
   / Do it yourself Refrigeration and Air Conditioning
  • Thread Starter
#54  
Cant just do that. Fuses are first line of defense for motors, etc. some like ac units will use time delay fusus, other are instantaneous. A breaker will allow alot more power thru to device before they trip. How come your hospital doesnt install a locked fuse cabinet and store some of every sized fuse necessary? The hospital and large production facilities i used to work on had large fuse cabinets plus inventory records to keep them stocked.
I have spares for every fuse in the building in many formats from euro style to cartridge plus spare circuit breakers.

I only keep 3 of the TRS125R on hand since the only application is this unit… never needed to use one in 30 years.

I keep the 3 spares on the roof in the unit control cabinet.

Yesterday I told the tech I have spares on the roof and he said only one and it’s bad?

Turns out contractor used my spares and didn’t say anything and did not replace…

Several weeks ago this board in the same unit became toast… 5-6 weeks build from Carrier… none in North America per Carrier…
IMG_0432.jpeg
 
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   / Do it yourself Refrigeration and Air Conditioning #55  
Are you using magnetic contractors for the systems? Then appropriate thermal trips can be installed for motor protection.
To my knowledge the physical disconnects located in sight of the unit do not have to be fuse protected, as long as the upstream protection is sized correctly.
As they are just for "personal" safety while working on the equipment.
I will also admit to not staying current with the NEC the last 10 years.
That may or may not be true. Some devices will work just great with thermal disconnects, others not so much. Some equipment ive installed in pharmaceutical production facilities have strict instructions as to what sized fusible devices you need. As to need for cut off, while the NEC may not require a knife or fused disconnect next to machine, the device itself may need it depending on the complexity of the electronics within the device. Some machinery includes fuses within the controls. Most dont. Some machines will void warranty if fuses arnt used.
 
   / Do it yourself Refrigeration and Air Conditioning
  • Thread Starter
#56  
Are you using magnetic contractors for the systems? Then appropriate thermal trips can be installed for motor protection.
To my knowledge the physical disconnects located in sight of the unit do not have to be fuse protected, as long as the upstream protection is sized correctly.
As they are just for "personal" safety while working on the equipment.
I will also admit to not staying current with the NEC the last 10 years.
image.jpg
image.jpg
179C1CB3-2BB0-4DC6-8CF3-A601E95C3BE8.jpeg
 
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   / Do it yourself Refrigeration and Air Conditioning #57  
Thermal magnetic circuit breaker is not the same as a disconnect with resettable heaters. The heater elements can be sized for the load, and are resettable.
But again, not as fast acting as a instant fail fuse.

IMG_7552.jpeg
 
   / Do it yourself Refrigeration and Air Conditioning #58  
I remember reading that one electronics manufacturer kept having warranty claims. They determined that the chinese factories they were using to make their products had substituted components for the ones that they had approved for them to use. They decided to build their own factory in china to get control over production and their warranty claims dropped. Sourcing from third parties not necessarily a good plan.
 
   / Do it yourself Refrigeration and Air Conditioning #59  
I have spares for every fuse in the building in many formats from euro style to cartridge plus spare circuit breakers.

I only keep 3 of the TRS125R on hand since the only application is this unit… never needed to use one in 30 years.

I keep the 3 spares on the roof in the unit control cabinet.

Yesterday I told the tech I have spares on the roof and he said only one and it’s bad?

Turns out contractor used my spares and didn’t say anything and did not replace…

Several weeks ago this board in the same unit became toast… 5-6 weeks build from Carrier… none in North America per Carrier…View attachment 3804314
If it were me, I'd buy a second board... I detest this trend in HVAC in particular of not stocking spares of even current equipment, especially for equipment with known track records of failures.

I can't tell from your photo, but there might be an electrical technician nearby who could repair the board, especially if you didn't lose a microcontroller. I do think I'd be wondering a bit about why some many pieces let out the magic smoke at once, and I would want to develop a plan to find and address the underlying cause. That's a lot of broken items.

Schrader valves? Without a gas tight over cap? That seems like a worse than poor design from this armchair. These days, at a distance, Carrier seems to have this diversity of designs, some good, and some in the pig's breakfast category, or worse.

Personally, I think that this lean manufacturing / just in time stocking concept is for the bean counters and the bean counters only. If one needs resilience, some amount of proactive planning and stocking is in order. (Not picking on you, just generally) A hospital I worked at had a pair of 1MW diesel generators that could cover 2/3rds of the hospital power in case of an outage, but they only had three days of diesel in the tank. I once asked what there plan was if the outage lasted longer than three days in, say, an earthquake. There response was that they would get a refill from somewhere, not even, "oh we have contracts with two fuel suppliers for refueling in case of emergency..." (and much less, no consideration of possible "force majeure" clauses in said contract post disaster...) To liven things up a bit more, the hospital was a mile or so from the San Andreas fault, specifically the segment most likely to rip in the next big one.🙄 Yeah, I don't expect that hospital to be functioning when the big one hits.

I have done a lot of forward resiliency planning over the years. For items requiring sustained uptime, I tend to think about not having one 50T unit, and instead think of three or four 20T units, with resilient control management that can failover gracefully. With multiple small units in parallel, they can be loaded to efficient levels, the hours on service can be rotated and equalized, and servicing can be done without generally impacting user needs. It also is more cost effective than full duplication of resources. Yes, it requires a little more planning, but single point failures don't take everything down.

All the best,

Peter
 
   / Do it yourself Refrigeration and Air Conditioning
  • Thread Starter
#60  
image.jpg

I remember reading that one electronics manufacturer kept having warranty claims. They determined that the chinese factories they were using to make their products had substituted components for the ones that they had approved for them to use. They decided to build their own factory in china to get control over production and their warranty claims dropped. Sourcing from third parties not necessarily a good plan.
The inside the unit factory breakers stamped made in China and they have never tripped…
 

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