“I’m gonna do my best but I’m not an electrician so I’m not gonna re-wire this whole panel”...proceeds to re-wire panel more conscientiously than electrician. Hahaha been there so many times. Smart to be apprehensive though, as you said you don’t want to end up “owning”the panel and starting a long-term relationship. Best this site stays a one day stand.
I would pay to see you take the van up on the roof. That old motor starter did well. I think the new one will have a hard time meeting that kind of longevity.
Hello from Australia. Confession straight up, I am not an electrician, fridge tech. or anything like that. I have only a very basic understanding about all of this, however, I have no problem understanding what is going on. This is what is great about all of your videos, you explain everything really well and you are totally honest not only to your customers but also us, your viewers. Keep up the great work.
The first time i felt with a greasy af exhaust hood the restaurant didn’t ever clean it since it opened. It was opened for about 2 1/2 years. The thing was vibrating the roof so bad the employees and management was hearing it from inside the restaurant. Well we ended up removing the blower wheel and i tried to clean it with cleaners at the car wash and that was no bueno! So my bosses brother was like let’s bbq that thing. So we took it to his yard and lit it on fire the grease came off fairly easy after that. He suggested that his brother keep a oven or something to bake off grease like that in the future.
I will discuss this on my livestream this evening 11/9/20 @ 5:PM (pacific) come check it out and if you can’t make the live show it will post as a normal video afterwards. th-cam.com/video/67kxagSrC6E/w-d-xo.html
Part of it may be that you never take what you understand to be the clients usual choice for granted and always fully brief him and give him the option.
Great video of an exhaust fan. Look like an easy switch for the fan, but not for finding the problem. Those motor starters are always a problem to diagnose I felt. Why not just put a Greenheck exhaust fan in like the others. Curb would've fit then they would have all alike fans? Well they order what they want you just supply basically labor. Hope to see the beanies next week. Will be ordering 2 of them plus 2 hoodies when they come out. Thank you for videos and your excellent experience knowledge. Be good bud.
Two recommendations: 1) Would love to have a roll-up at the end of each job, with some ballpark itemized costs for that job (2ea contactors, 1ea replacement fan motor, 6hr labor = $xxxx.xx). 2) It would be great to have you recommend some user maintenance items with a recommendation for intervals that may help prolong equipment life and/negate the need to call you for an emergency response.
Great video! The small amount of service I have done over the years I can't believe The butchery I see in rooftops, furnaces and air makeup units you are a very thorough HVAC mechanic!! We need more guy's like you that actually take pride in their work..
FYI, it's pretty common in the controls industry to use all red wires for 120 VAC "control" voltage. Especially since controls like that are often powered by a dedicated isolated 120v transformer somewhere, which will not have a neutral leg.
I actually took a HVAC/R course back in 2013-14 & pretty much learned the basics and a little more but was never able to actually get a job doing so due to various reasons, mostly health related. However not too long ago one of your videos popped up, where you had a R-290 unit and that caught my interest & after that i was hooked... LOL. I've now been binge watching your videos for about a week & after watching the overtime video with Clive (Bigclivedotcom & Bigclivelive) who I've been watching for probably 2 years or so I decided to check out CuriousHVACguy's channel & binge watching him too. If anyone isn't familiar with Big Clive or Curious HVAC Guy you should check out their channels because you just may like them.
If you think about it, being an HVAC person is great cause you learn how to do wiring and electrical, you learn how to do plumbing, and you have a great eye for finding problems
Chris great video as always that color coding in that starter panel would have drove me crazy I'm not a tech or an electrician but I understand that color coding is very important keep the great stuff coming when I was in high school in the 80s I worked with a HVAC Tech at a college campus and there's Old School contactors there always got me "BANG!" "CLICK!" No soft starting no VFD we are talking about 20 -40 hp air handling units starting 480 v across the line
Awesome fault finding. I think you could save time on diagnoses like these with a pocket scope to see the voltage on startup to identify excessive voltage sag which would quickly identify problems with power delivery. Combine with a second waveform from a current clamp and you've got good data to quickly determine if the motor is bad.
The oily and fat pollution in the air duct can cause a fire problem, in Germany the law forces comercial kitchen to clean it every year. The design of the air vent collects rain, that looks strange to me! I like your way to solve problems!
Those beautiful old Allen Bradley style contactors are so beautiful! If you have the spare parts, they have unlimited life span, and anything can be repaired in 2 minutes. Modular so you can build the style you need, and many parts are interchangeable between nearby models to reduce your spare part requirements. They really shine in heavy industrial applications, and are pretty much bullet proof in dirty environments. I cut my teeth on industrial control systems built with those. I also like the European style, the DIN format, clean and much more compact, usually easier to wire, and designed with less exposed pixies (worse shock I ever got was 480v three phase across the knuckles when my thumb slipped off the reset button on a LARGE Allen Bradley overload just like this old one but scaled up, and I punched the output terminals... Lol) , and often also have better condition indicators and sometimes adjustable trip settings. I guess the difference is whether it is going to be maintained, or run till failure. In a Plant or factory environment where you have maintenance staff on hand with spare parts on the shelf, so they can dress the contacts periodically and swap a coil out if they hear it getting noisy, then the rebuildable one is a no brainer. But for a fix and forget application like this, there is little benefit to it, so putting the Euro style makes sense. And back in the 80s and 90s, the euro style wasn't really available in the US. I remember in the 90s getting some machines with the euro style control panels, and loving it, but getting replacement was tough and expensive lol
Would have been interesting to tear down the motor too. I have run into intermittent motors which ran fine for days and even weeks, then acted up and tripped starters or blew fuses. Specially condenser fan motors on AAON RTU's, blowing out expensive ATQ fuses. Used a proper rating breaker with female connectors in place of the fuse for troubleshooting.
From my experience, it was very likely just the bad overload relay. Over the time they become too sensitive (weakening of the materials) and start false tripping. I had to change a few of them ( some of them more than 40 years old) just because of that.
I want to know a/c voltage and for some reason it's just not coming to me like I thought it would. I've been working on cars since I could drive and I know DC like the back of my hand but I just have a hell of a time with ac. Maybe it's all the colors. I just don't want to go back to school just to learn ac, I was hoping it would hit me a lot faster. Got the core principle down probably just need some experience. Great video guy.
used to just replace failed overload heaters after fixing the motor issue or contactor if it failed, now you have to replace the whole overload and most everyone changes the contactor at the same time. the adjustable over current is nice though, no stocking and ordering specific heaters!
Since that coil in that one was starting to disintegrate - propably due to air humidity and corrosion, I would suggest replacing the 2 last ones in that panel too. They will propably fail soon too. Preventantive maintenace you know.
The smaller contactor is IEC standard, it's not new technology. The older one is NEMA standard, which I find superior to IEC because they are oversized and can take overloads much better than IEC can.
FYI, once you verify winding resistance you only need to check one lead to ground to check for a short to ground with most motors you'll come across. In this instance if you had a short to ground on another lead than the one you were checking you would have read the 3.5 Ohms, if a good short to ground. But since the windings are low resistance anyway, any path to ground on any winding / lead will show up on all leads. Of course if you break all the leads apart or have a Wye - delta start motor, this doesn't apply. But just a quick tip to save you 30 seconds.....
Great video once again. Nice, neat re-wiring for you or the next tech makes it easier to spot trouble. Thermal imaging camera helps to eliminate causes. Your customers are certainly getting their money's worth on repairs. Using a logical trouble-shooting path, knowing your tools and the quirks of the particular equipment you are working on makes for a solid repair. Well Done!
Central blower which literaly is the same unit. Central blower is in industry. They used to be in partnership with the other company after the split they still make the same fan.
Who likes working on Restaurants hvac units or anything related to restaurants? I drove 90 miles to go to a fast food place because they said their kitchen exhaust fan was down. They had to have it fixed today (sorry to Night)Got there kitchen staff and manager did not even know the fan was down. Clueless people. Went on roof found broken belt. Maintenance guy said he has extra belts in every exhaust fan. Nope no belts. This is at 8 PM. No supply houses open, called several auto parts houses. No belts. Finnally got hold to Tractor Supply. Yes they have belts, but close at 9 pm. Drove 30 minutes to TS. The guy there actually reopened the store up for me. Got belt, drove back, put belt on. It is now 10 pm. Had manager sign paperwork. Did not even say thanks. In fact he even had an atitude about it. Dove 120 miles back to my house. Got home after 1 am. Did I say it was raining the whole time I was on the roof. Who likes Restaurant work? Did I say I started my day at 5 am
I get the corporate’s want to have you check it out even out of your normal range. I have a guy from Florida come to Iowa once a year to do a PMA on my planetarium.
Just remember you won't learn everything but you will learn a lot of stuff to help you understand the basics. Also you will definitely want to invest in a good quality multimeter, you'll probably be required to purchase one that has a temperature sensor in it and get yourself a decent set of manifold gauges because the ones the school has are probably going to be a little old and worn out.
You might want to think about puchasing a label printer. I bought a Dymo Rhino 4200, it has cheap labels in china and it can also print on heatshrink tubes. Makes neat job about them wiring jobs.
My guess would be a small part of that contactor coil former or a stray lamination caused the contactor to not cleanly pull in now and then thus causing current imbalance and tripping.
I know you said you're aware you can rebuild them, but to fix that buzzing noise it usually just entails dissassembling the contactor and cleaning the two mating surfaces for the shading poles. Of course there can be more to it though.
Eloquent, humbled, and a professional. As always God bless you Christ for being unselfish and share a wealth of Knowledge with those who enjoy and appreciate this trade. Thank you.
Wire colors shall definitely be according to what the code says to avoid unnecessary confusion. Around here in Sweden it's Yellow/Green for ground, blue for neutral and then brown, black and grey for the phases. Single phase hot shall be brown. This is the European standard. Could be good to know if you for some reason encounter an European-assembled unit. So watch out for confusion between blue and grey wires, could be an European wiring and then they are swapped. Seems like Australia also uses blue for neutral and white for phase. So never assume that the wiring colors are according to your local code on pre-assembled units because you never know where it was assembled and what the person doing the wiring assumed. The movie quote "assumption is the mother of all..." (left out the last to keep it family friendly)
Greetings from Germany ;) As mentioned color codes are EU harmonized and as such gladly the same all over Europe these days. Althoug In older houses I have run into very old wires (white, red and grey) before. After that age especially a lot of fun trying to differenciate between white and grey. And to be honest I run into those once and already forgot again what those colors have been. Beeing used to our color code seeing a blue wire used for a phase made me crinch at first. (Yes, I know, according to codes in other location, California/USA in this case, I am very well aware that this is completely fine! Just not beeing used to it makes you cringe first as first thing you learn here is that ground only is allowed to be ground. Next after that comes, don´t ever use the neutral wire for anything else... which in our case is the blue one) I can also only support to never assume anything with wiring. In cases of SPDT switches I found the blue neutral wire (illegaly) abused so many times to connect between the switches. And also you may not know what kind of hack job was done before or what kind of defect may cause wires to be energized. Which leads to a second good thing to do to do every time. Never assume the power you just switched off is realy off. Always take your time to check for voltage first. Had my own experience with that when reqiring a kitchen years ago. switched of the breaker, checked the first set of outlets, cut the wire, checked the second outlet, cut the wire, assumed power is of as all those should have been on one breaker and just cut the wire on the third set. Well, got a nice new notch blown in my pliers. Turned out someone added those outlets later and in a way that made absolutely no sense pulled a cable over from the living room (on a different breaker) instead of one of the other outlets. And by pulling a cable the way houses are built here I mean chisseled a slot through all the masonry to get the cable over from about 5 meters away instead of a direct line of about a meter...
Oh by the way, does anyone know a good and reliable source of wire color codes in comparison? I once had to reqire a whole electrical cabinet that came with a machine imported from the us. Not only had we to redo those parts that had to be adapted for the correct voltage and frequency, but also we had to make it compliant to the color code, before it was aloowed to be put into operation. Just in case anyone who not knew it was an import had to work on it.
It just goes to show you how they really don't make them like they used to. In my experience, todays HVAC products have a 5-10 year lifespan. But you had your old clunky motor starter from 40 years ago still chugging along. I used to repair a lot of PTACs. The 30 year old ones you could replace a component and it would go another ten years. The newer ones? You could almost count on whatever part being covered by the manufacturers warranty (5 year).
Hey Chris great video! I was wondering the next time you replace the a fan motor can you take it apart and see what happened to it that would be interesting! Keep up the great work Damon!
There was nothing wrong with that motor. That contactor was trash. It was failing intermittently which is why the voltage measured fine for him. That rattle sounded like an uneven startup and caused that fan spindle to vibrate. Probably voltage drop across one of the three windings.
If you are working for a chain travel time shouldn't matter if you're being paid for that ! Good if you are doing all their work because then you can expand your company with the dedicated work and make more money! Good job installing that fan! You can add mechanical to your company name now!
Thanks for watching!! I will be going live on TH-cam this evening 11/9/20 @ 5:PM (pacific) to discuss my most recent uploads and answer questions from emails, TH-cam comments and the live chat, come check it out th-cam.com/video/67kxagSrC6E/w-d-xo.html
I'm a learned electrician and nearly every time I see that electric connections in the units I get a head->table moment. You shouldn't see any noninsulated outside the connection-area. It's a possible short. Just a screw or any else falling on that area will shorten everything. The plastic brackets on the connections are there that you can not touch the connections by accident. If somebody removes the insulation of the cable that you have a blank cable outside that bracketed area, the safety of the bracket against touching is removed. At 12:32 the white motor starter is ok, but in the middle start the problems. The first connection with the one green wire is ok, but the next connection the two greens are bad (red is ok) and the other connections are bad and got much blank area. Same on the bottom connections. You don't remove more insulation than necessary for a connection. No insulation in the connector. That's bad, too. And no blank cable outside the connector. Best for getting the right length is an automatic cable stripper. It got a scale or a limit stop to be sure you strip the right length of the cable. And never remove insulation with a knife. For the outer insulation of installation cables exist special cable stripper and for wires in the cables use the automatic stripper. You'll maybe damage the inner cables insulation without that or with single wire like in the unit you'll maybe damage the wire itself and out of it reduce the diameter of the wire and that means it can take less current. And the damaged area is a possible point where it can break. Same for flexible wires where you'll maybe accidently cut some of the strands.
I'm clear across the country and that chain is the same here as well. Thought I recognized the setup, but the background noise when he was inside is pretty distinctive.
I will discuss this on my livestream this evening 11/9/20 @ 5:PM (pacific) come check it out and if you can’t make the live show it will post as a normal video afterwards. th-cam.com/video/67kxagSrC6E/w-d-xo.html
With old electric motors that still work but aren’t great do you sell them? Maybe people need good used motors for very little use like a replacement air compressor motor?
I have a question for you, who is ultimately responsible for emptying out the grease bins that the fans have, is that a grease remediation company or does that fall into a division in your type of company that comes out to actually service that side of things?
I will discuss this on my livestream this evening 11/9/20 @ 5:PM (pacific) come check it out and if you can’t make the live show it will post as a normal video afterwards. th-cam.com/video/67kxagSrC6E/w-d-xo.html
they’re very sensitive to current-if a winding in the motor draws too much, it will open, and then the overload will shut the motor off to prevent damage. the heaters are interchangeable and must be matched to the motor.
When you set that thermal relay to 5.6A, it will allow you 10% over for unlimited time. For info only. Very strange electrical design, is the circuit breaker at the end of the circuit, thus on the roof? Nothing before the contactor, how is this possible and why is not seen as a fire risk?
There is a breaker before the contactor (that was what he turned off when he worked on the circuit) but just in another panel. The thing on the roof is a safety disconnect switch, used to turn off power to work on the thing. By having the safety switch as close as possible, you avoid the lockout/tagout paperwork if the disconnect switch is in direct sight of the workman as opposed to breaking the power at the breaker panel.
“I’m gonna do my best but I’m not an electrician so I’m not gonna re-wire this whole panel”...proceeds to re-wire panel more conscientiously than electrician. Hahaha been there so many times. Smart to be apprehensive though, as you said you don’t want to end up “owning”the panel and starting a long-term relationship. Best this site stays a one day stand.
Finally some more HVACR knowledge im never gonna use but somehow very much enjoy learning.
^this
Totally agree, me also.
Yup
Yep 😂
You never know maybe it will be useful one day
Love how you pull the old parts apart ,no one else does this .Its always good to know why something failed rather than to just discard the part .
"It arced somewhere, I don't know where."
Me looking at that ball of electrical tape: "Hmm, I wonder"
Thanks for the information !!
I would pay to see you take the van up on the roof.
That old motor starter did well. I think the new one will have a hard time meeting that kind of longevity.
@@2dfx agreed
You’re the best thing since sliced bread during this quarantine.
is sliced bread *really* that good though
@@letterslayer7814 yes
sliced bread makes me happy
Quarantine? What's that? I work 45 hours a week all year
Probably cooked up letting time slip him by.
Thanks for the video they are always great to watch and the summing up at the end is top-notch.
Hello from Australia. Confession straight up, I am not an electrician, fridge tech. or anything like that. I have only a very basic understanding about all of this, however, I have no problem understanding what is going on. This is what is great about all of your videos, you explain everything really well and you are totally honest not only to your customers but also us, your viewers. Keep up the great work.
Fellow ozzy with the save non feild. :) but love Chris's vids
wow. XPO Freight and it arrived in one piece? A MIRACLE!
Chris should open a HVACR school. His teaching is top notch!
12:19
I hear time to take the Van up on the roof lol , I know that’s not what he said but god that was funny to me .
Heard the same thing
It feels like you take the van on the roof by the amount of crap you have to carry up there in the way of tools.
The first time i felt with a greasy af exhaust hood the restaurant didn’t ever clean it since it opened. It was opened for about 2 1/2 years. The thing was vibrating the roof so bad the employees and management was hearing it from inside the restaurant. Well we ended up removing the blower wheel and i tried to clean it with cleaners at the car wash and that was no bueno! So my bosses brother was like let’s bbq that thing. So we took it to his yard and lit it on fire the grease came off fairly easy after that. He suggested that his brother keep a oven or something to bake off grease like that in the future.
5:43. Currently feel that exact way.. They just seem so ominous!! Nailed it 😂
I will discuss this on my livestream this evening 11/9/20 @ 5:PM (pacific) come check it out and if you can’t make the live show it will post as a normal video afterwards. th-cam.com/video/67kxagSrC6E/w-d-xo.html
Keep up the great work do enjoy watching all of your videos. I’ve love learn new things.
I’m truck driver and I like watching these videos. U should let those customers know they need to change those relay.
I think they like the quality of the service you provide. There has to be companies who provide the same service who are closer to their site.
Part of it may be that you never take what you understand to be the clients usual choice for granted and always fully brief him and give him the option.
Ohh for sure thats part of it. But a 2h 30m drive with light traffic just to get there would be very far out of his range
I love it, when you do a teardown of failing equipment!
Great video of an exhaust fan. Look like an easy switch for the fan, but not for finding the problem. Those motor starters are always a problem to diagnose I felt. Why not just put a Greenheck exhaust fan in like the others. Curb would've fit then they would have all alike fans? Well they order what they want you just supply basically labor. Hope to see the beanies next week. Will be ordering 2 of them plus 2 hoodies when they come out. Thank you for videos and your excellent experience knowledge. Be good bud.
Two recommendations:
1) Would love to have a roll-up at the end of each job, with some ballpark itemized costs for that job (2ea contactors, 1ea replacement fan motor, 6hr labor = $xxxx.xx).
2) It would be great to have you recommend some user maintenance items with a recommendation for intervals that may help prolong equipment life and/negate the need to call you for an emergency response.
Great video!
The small amount of service I have done over the years I can't believe The butchery I see in rooftops, furnaces and air makeup units you are a very thorough HVAC mechanic!!
We need more guy's like you that actually take pride in their work..
interesting that the coil was still working. Testament to the way things were built back then.
That buzz is a sign that the coil was straining against the return spring--about to lose strength.
It would be interesting to see if the replacement European style starter is still around in 30+ years.
Old stuff just works better. Now days if you get 3 years out of a common household box/stand fan your lucky..
@@newjerseybill3521 good joke sir :))
FYI, it's pretty common in the controls industry to use all red wires for 120 VAC "control" voltage. Especially since controls like that are often powered by a dedicated isolated 120v transformer somewhere, which will not have a neutral leg.
I actually took a HVAC/R course back in 2013-14 & pretty much learned the basics and a little more but was never able to actually get a job doing so due to various reasons, mostly health related. However not too long ago one of your videos popped up, where you had a R-290 unit and that caught my interest & after that i was hooked... LOL. I've now been binge watching your videos for about a week & after watching the overtime video with Clive (Bigclivedotcom & Bigclivelive) who I've been watching for probably 2 years or so I decided to check out CuriousHVACguy's channel & binge watching him too.
If anyone isn't familiar with Big Clive or Curious HVAC Guy you should check out their channels because you just may like them.
If you think about it, being an HVAC person is great cause you learn how to do wiring and electrical, you learn how to do plumbing, and you have a great eye for finding problems
Chris great video as always that color coding in that starter panel would have drove me crazy I'm not a tech or an electrician but I understand that color coding is very important keep the great stuff coming when I was in high school in the 80s I worked with a HVAC Tech at a college campus and there's Old School contactors there always got me "BANG!" "CLICK!" No soft starting no VFD we are talking about 20 -40 hp air handling units starting 480 v across the line
Awesome fault finding. I think you could save time on diagnoses like these with a pocket scope to see the voltage on startup to identify excessive voltage sag which would quickly identify problems with power delivery. Combine with a second waveform from a current clamp and you've got good data to quickly determine if the motor is bad.
The oily and fat pollution in the air duct can cause a fire problem, in Germany the law forces comercial kitchen to clean it every year.
The design of the air vent collects rain, that looks strange to me!
I like your way to solve problems!
Those beautiful old Allen Bradley style contactors are so beautiful!
If you have the spare parts, they have unlimited life span, and anything can be repaired in 2 minutes.
Modular so you can build the style you need, and many parts are interchangeable between nearby models to reduce your spare part requirements.
They really shine in heavy industrial applications, and are pretty much bullet proof in dirty environments.
I cut my teeth on industrial control systems built with those.
I also like the European style, the DIN format, clean and much more compact, usually easier to wire, and designed with less exposed pixies (worse shock I ever got was 480v three phase across the knuckles when my thumb slipped off the reset button on a LARGE Allen Bradley overload just like this old one but scaled up, and I punched the output terminals... Lol) , and often also have better condition indicators and sometimes adjustable trip settings.
I guess the difference is whether it is going to be maintained, or run till failure.
In a Plant or factory environment where you have maintenance staff on hand with spare parts on the shelf, so they can dress the contacts periodically and swap a coil out if they hear it getting noisy, then the rebuildable one is a no brainer.
But for a fix and forget application like this, there is little benefit to it, so putting the Euro style makes sense.
And back in the 80s and 90s, the euro style wasn't really available in the US.
I remember in the 90s getting some machines with the euro style control panels, and loving it, but getting replacement was tough and expensive lol
Would have been interesting to tear down the motor too. I have run into intermittent motors which ran fine for days and even weeks, then acted up and tripped starters or blew fuses. Specially condenser fan motors on AAON RTU's, blowing out expensive ATQ fuses. Used a proper rating breaker with female connectors in place of the fuse for troubleshooting.
The building I work in was built in the 80s and is full of those Furnace motor starts - nice job on the change out! Keep up the great work..👍
From my experience, it was very likely just the bad overload relay. Over the time they become too sensitive (weakening of the materials) and start false tripping. I had to change a few of them ( some of them more than 40 years old) just because of that.
he is genuine, and wish i can meet chris in person.
Just open a restaurant chain in the Riverside area and don't do PM on your equipment.. Lol
thanks for the video That is amazing that exhaust fan lasted so long.
I want to know a/c voltage and for some reason it's just not coming to me like I thought it would. I've been working on cars since I could drive and I know DC like the back of my hand but I just have a hell of a time with ac. Maybe it's all the colors. I just don't want to go back to school just to learn ac, I was hoping it would hit me a lot faster. Got the core principle down probably just need some experience. Great video guy.
used to just replace failed overload heaters after fixing the motor issue or contactor if it failed, now you have to replace the whole overload and most everyone changes the contactor at the same time.
the adjustable over current is nice though, no stocking and ordering specific heaters!
Since that coil in that one was starting to disintegrate - propably due to air humidity and corrosion, I would suggest replacing the 2 last ones in that panel too. They will propably fail soon too. Preventantive maintenace you know.
I like your methodical fault tracing, and the bonus teardown too. Great job as ever.
That teardown at the end is going to give bigclive a run for his money lol
Thank you for a good teardown
Very good content. I have hvac experience with my job offshore. Watching your shows are great training. Keep it up
The smaller contactor is IEC standard, it's not new technology. The older one is NEMA standard, which I find superior to IEC because they are oversized and can take overloads much better than IEC can.
FYI, once you verify winding resistance you only need to check one lead to ground to check for a short to ground with most motors you'll come across. In this instance if you had a short to ground on another lead than the one you were checking you would have read the 3.5 Ohms, if a good short to ground. But since the windings are low resistance anyway, any path to ground on any winding / lead will show up on all leads. Of course if you break all the leads apart or have a Wye - delta start motor, this doesn't apply. But just a quick tip to save you 30 seconds.....
It's awesome you take the time to take things apart. You can learn so much. I need to start doing that. Great video!
Do you think the motor windings could have a few shorted turns? Equipment autopsies are very interesting. (I'm not an HVAC tech.)
That fan is an oldie!
Great video once again. Nice, neat re-wiring for you or the next tech makes it easier to spot trouble. Thermal imaging camera helps to eliminate causes. Your customers are certainly getting their money's worth on repairs. Using a logical trouble-shooting path, knowing your tools and the quirks of the particular equipment you are working on makes for a solid repair. Well Done!
Central blower which literaly is the same unit.
Central blower is in industry.
They used to be in partnership with the other company after the split they still make the same fan.
Who likes working on Restaurants hvac units or anything related to restaurants? I drove 90 miles to go to a fast food place because they said their kitchen exhaust fan was down. They had to have it fixed today (sorry to Night)Got there kitchen staff and manager did not even know the fan was down. Clueless people. Went on roof found broken belt. Maintenance guy said he has extra belts in every exhaust fan. Nope no belts. This is at 8 PM. No supply houses open, called several auto parts houses. No belts. Finnally got hold to Tractor Supply. Yes they have belts, but close at 9 pm. Drove 30 minutes to TS. The guy there actually reopened the store up for me. Got belt, drove back, put belt on. It is now 10 pm. Had manager sign paperwork. Did not even say thanks. In fact he even had an atitude about it. Dove 120 miles back to my house. Got home after 1 am. Did I say it was raining the whole time I was on the roof. Who likes Restaurant work? Did I say I started my day at 5 am
Keep the exhaust fan videos coming
Another quality video by Hvacr videos!
The hoist trick we use is remove the handle and attach cordless drill to the shaft.... slowly raise and lower
14:00 I like the forensic part of your video. Have you tried Solid State contactors? If so, how are they compared with regular electro-mechanical one?
Nice tear-down of the motor starter!
Great job and video like always
Chris. We alway break the neutral with the overload and use power with the control. Thanks for another great video.
I get the corporate’s want to have you check it out even out of your normal range. I have a guy from Florida come to Iowa once a year to do a PMA on my planetarium.
I think we need to see a video of your planetarium...
Love the in depth commentary. Keep up the good work. Watching your videos encouraged me to enroll in HVAC school. I start at the end of November 😁
Just remember you won't learn everything but you will learn a lot of stuff to help you understand the basics. Also you will definitely want to invest in a good quality multimeter, you'll probably be required to purchase one that has a temperature sensor in it and get yourself a decent set of manifold gauges because the ones the school has are probably going to be a little old and worn out.
Thanks for that advice. I’ll start saving lol
You might want to think about puchasing a label printer. I bought a Dymo Rhino 4200, it has cheap labels in china and it can also print on heatshrink tubes. Makes neat job about them wiring jobs.
" I can hear crispiness inside that fan." LOL
Good one Chris 👍
My guess would be a small part of that contactor coil former or a stray lamination caused the contactor to not cleanly pull in now and then thus causing current imbalance and tripping.
You could see visible discolouration on the line terminals as well as the heat coils. It had definitely been in a high current /high heat state prior.
I don't see any idiots here. Just a rock star. Good work.
Nobody is commenting on how remarkably clean that hood is!
I know you said you're aware you can rebuild them, but to fix that buzzing noise it usually just entails dissassembling the contactor and cleaning the two mating surfaces for the shading poles. Of course there can be more to it though.
So this guy is why Maccas is always so cool. Nice!
Eloquent, humbled, and a professional. As always God bless you Christ for being unselfish and share a wealth of Knowledge with those who enjoy and appreciate this trade. Thank you.
Great video. 👍
Wire colors shall definitely be according to what the code says to avoid unnecessary confusion. Around here in Sweden it's Yellow/Green for ground, blue for neutral and then brown, black and grey for the phases. Single phase hot shall be brown. This is the European standard. Could be good to know if you for some reason encounter an European-assembled unit.
So watch out for confusion between blue and grey wires, could be an European wiring and then they are swapped.
Seems like Australia also uses blue for neutral and white for phase.
So never assume that the wiring colors are according to your local code on pre-assembled units because you never know where it was assembled and what the person doing the wiring assumed. The movie quote "assumption is the mother of all..." (left out the last to keep it family friendly)
Australia use Blue,White,Red for phase, black for neutral and yellow and green for earth
The motor is supposed to have a little placard in that terminal / wire box to dictate how to attach each voltage, high/low speed.
@@quietone610 Key word there Supposed to. lol reality original installer.took it and threw it away lol
Greetings from Germany ;) As mentioned color codes are EU harmonized and as such gladly the same all over Europe these days. Althoug In older houses I have run into very old wires (white, red and grey) before. After that age especially a lot of fun trying to differenciate between white and grey. And to be honest I run into those once and already forgot again what those colors have been.
Beeing used to our color code seeing a blue wire used for a phase made me crinch at first. (Yes, I know, according to codes in other location, California/USA in this case, I am very well aware that this is completely fine! Just not beeing used to it makes you cringe first as first thing you learn here is that ground only is allowed to be ground. Next after that comes, don´t ever use the neutral wire for anything else... which in our case is the blue one)
I can also only support to never assume anything with wiring. In cases of SPDT switches I found the blue neutral wire (illegaly) abused so many times to connect between the switches. And also you may not know what kind of hack job was done before or what kind of defect may cause wires to be energized.
Which leads to a second good thing to do to do every time. Never assume the power you just switched off is realy off. Always take your time to check for voltage first.
Had my own experience with that when reqiring a kitchen years ago. switched of the breaker, checked the first set of outlets, cut the wire, checked the second outlet, cut the wire, assumed power is of as all those should have been on one breaker and just cut the wire on the third set. Well, got a nice new notch blown in my pliers. Turned out someone added those outlets later and in a way that made absolutely no sense pulled a cable over from the living room (on a different breaker) instead of one of the other outlets.
And by pulling a cable the way houses are built here I mean chisseled a slot through all the masonry to get the cable over from about 5 meters away instead of a direct line of about a meter...
Oh by the way, does anyone know a good and reliable source of wire color codes in comparison?
I once had to reqire a whole electrical cabinet that came with a machine imported from the us.
Not only had we to redo those parts that had to be adapted for the correct voltage and frequency, but also we had to make it compliant to the color code, before it was aloowed to be put into operation. Just in case anyone who not knew it was an import had to work on it.
It just goes to show you how they really don't make them like they used to. In my experience, todays HVAC products have a 5-10 year lifespan. But you had your old clunky motor starter from 40 years ago still chugging along. I used to repair a lot of PTACs. The 30 year old ones you could replace a component and it would go another ten years. The newer ones? You could almost count on whatever part being covered by the manufacturers warranty (5 year).
Your awesome keep up the great work
Hey Chris great video! I was wondering the next time you replace the a fan motor can you take it apart and see what happened to it that would be interesting! Keep up the great work Damon!
There was nothing wrong with that motor. That contactor was trash. It was failing intermittently which is why the voltage measured fine for him. That rattle sounded like an uneven startup and caused that fan spindle to vibrate. Probably voltage drop across one of the three windings.
Just a FYI, the little round pads on the actual contacts is pure silver. Do not throw away.
send em to sreetips here on youtube
Or platinum
Another good one Chris ...
It really isn't new vs old starter tech, they are 2 different standards. The big ugly one is a NEMA starter, the streamlined one is IEC standard.
I finally had enough and added my on leads to get it to the same point of the other motor wires
Green wire on the line side. Nice.
Cool thanks
Nice 👍🏻 job.
Love your videos
Nice video
If you are working for a chain travel time shouldn't matter if you're being paid for that ! Good if you are doing all their work because then you can expand your company with the dedicated work and make more money! Good job installing that fan! You can add mechanical to your company name now!
Nice job Chris nice video? Your the best
Thanks for watching!! I will be going live on TH-cam this evening 11/9/20 @ 5:PM (pacific) to discuss my most recent uploads and answer questions from emails, TH-cam comments and the live chat, come check it out th-cam.com/video/67kxagSrC6E/w-d-xo.html
I'm a learned electrician and nearly every time I see that electric connections in the units I get a head->table moment. You shouldn't see any noninsulated outside the connection-area. It's a possible short. Just a screw or any else falling on that area will shorten everything. The plastic brackets on the connections are there that you can not touch the connections by accident. If somebody removes the insulation of the cable that you have a blank cable outside that bracketed area, the safety of the bracket against touching is removed.
At 12:32 the white motor starter is ok, but in the middle start the problems. The first connection with the one green wire is ok, but the next connection the two greens are bad (red is ok) and the other connections are bad and got much blank area. Same on the bottom connections. You don't remove more insulation than necessary for a connection. No insulation in the connector. That's bad, too. And no blank cable outside the connector.
Best for getting the right length is an automatic cable stripper. It got a scale or a limit stop to be sure you strip the right length of the cable. And never remove insulation with a knife. For the outer insulation of installation cables exist special cable stripper and for wires in the cables use the automatic stripper. You'll maybe damage the inner cables insulation without that or with single wire like in the unit you'll maybe damage the wire itself and out of it reduce the diameter of the wire and that means it can take less current. And the damaged area is a possible point where it can break. Same for flexible wires where you'll maybe accidently cut some of the strands.
I'm surprised a restaurant in these times would do this now unless this is a fast food restaurant.
Judging by the amount of grease up at the roof and some of the ambient noise while he was inside says yes it was.
Interesting that chain is the same everywhere. The tell is the lennox rtu's and you labled the fan CTX. (edit to remove the name of the chain)
Thank you!! Yes you are right
I'm clear across the country and that chain is the same here as well. Thought I recognized the setup, but the background noise when he was inside is pretty distinctive.
Weak winding insulation mostly cause. You should use insulation tester is best for motor winding test
I will discuss this on my livestream this evening 11/9/20 @ 5:PM (pacific) come check it out and if you can’t make the live show it will post as a normal video afterwards. th-cam.com/video/67kxagSrC6E/w-d-xo.html
I'm using hioki insulation tester. Tech friendly.
If the core is rusty, it doesn't make proper magnetic contact.
You could clean it, but it's better to replace it. Too old to maintain it.
8:16 sounds like some kind of scifi spaceship engine starting up
Lmao I love when they make the sound I think it sounds like a robot powering on
What’s that new rooftop shutoff? did you supply that or did it come with the fan?
it came with the fan
do you save all the copper from the parts you replace????
6:12
the gloves said "aight i'm 'boutta head out"
With old electric motors that still work but aren’t great do you sell them? Maybe people need good used motors for very little use like a replacement air compressor motor?
I have a question for you, who is ultimately responsible for emptying out the grease bins that the fans have, is that a grease remediation company or does that fall into a division in your type of company that comes out to actually service that side of things?
Dunno about california, but this side of the country it's usually a grease company, the kind that does used fry oil.
did u fix the dodgy switch on the outside of the hvac on the roof?
Will you have that motor rebuilt and put in stock?
I will discuss this on my livestream this evening 11/9/20 @ 5:PM (pacific) come check it out and if you can’t make the live show it will post as a normal video afterwards. th-cam.com/video/67kxagSrC6E/w-d-xo.html
Do you ever recover the silver from the contacts. As they are about 90% silver
What’s the heater there for on the old motor starter?
they’re very sensitive to current-if a winding in the motor draws too much, it will open, and then the overload will shut the motor off to prevent damage. the heaters are interchangeable and must be matched to the motor.
When you set that thermal relay to 5.6A, it will allow you 10% over for unlimited time. For info only. Very strange electrical design, is the circuit breaker at the end of the circuit, thus on the roof? Nothing before the contactor, how is this possible and why is not seen as a fire risk?
There is a breaker before the contactor (that was what he turned off when he worked on the circuit) but just in another panel. The thing on the roof is a safety disconnect switch, used to turn off power to work on the thing. By having the safety switch as close as possible, you avoid the lockout/tagout paperwork if the disconnect switch is in direct sight of the workman as opposed to breaking the power at the breaker panel.
The beeping indoors sounded like a mcdonalds store
why did you replace the entire unit instead of just the motor?