Latest / The Refrigeration Mentor Podcast / Episode 229. CO2 Gas Cooler Controllers with William Anaya of Güntner

Transcript

Episode 229. CO2 Gas Cooler Controllers with William Anaya of Güntner · The Refrigeration Mentor Podcast

• 0:00
  Trevor: Welcome to this two part series. Super excited about this. I've been to many CO2 sites over the last couple of years and Guntner keeps. Keeps showing up. I keep seeing them more and more. And I said, let's get the experts on and share some knowledge with everyone here in the community. William Anaya, he's a, this guy's a technical rockstar, Guntner
• 0:01
  and we're, we're going to challenge him today, asking him some good questions and some conversations because he's helping so many technicians and contractors manufacturers out there to get their product running properly in the field. And now CO2 is, It's not really new, but it is new to a lot of people.
• 0:02
  So we want, we want to dive into a little bit of a technical conversation today and, and just really share some knowledge will welcome to the refrigeration mentor podcast. How are you doing brother?
• 0:03
  Thank you. Good. I'm good.
• 0:04
  So why don't we find out a little bit about how long you've been in the refrigeration industry, working with Guntner, seeing this product?
• 0:05
  William: Well, I've been with Guntner going on five years now. My background is always controls. Learned a lot. Guntner's been a great company to work for. I've learned so much while working here. So before Guntner, I was at Johnson Controls, and I was a controls engineer over there.
• 0:06
  So, my entire background has been in controls. But what I really like about Guntner is that we're doing a lot of cool stuff with something you think it's just a heat exchanger. It's just a heat exchanger. And it's, you know, there's so many different features that are available on our units that you wouldn't think, Oh, it's just a heat exchanger.
• 0:07
  There's, there's a lot it can do. So
• 0:08
  Trevor: what I love too, is what you said, there's just a control side. This is where a lot of people struggle. Believe in me for many years. I struggled with it because I wasn't taught properly, you know, and I didn't have anyone there working on it with controls. You have to see it all the time. Like many did many podcasts.
• 0:09
  You got to do something seven to 11 times before you really get the gist of it. And so if you're only working on it once in a while, you go to one startup and the next one's eight months later and you never looked at it, it's going to be difficult. This is where you need to dive into the manuals, dive back into the hard stuff.
• 0:10
  Stuff, but most of that stuff is in the manuals. Do you want to talk a little bit about your manuals?
• 0:11
  William: Yeah. So what we like to do, our disorder units generally leave the factory set up in automatic. So there's a few different modes of operation on our controller. It could be the most common is automatic, where you basically just put a set point on the controller.
• 0:12
  Are you, our fans ramp up and ramp down to maintain a set point. If you have an adiabatic unit, the water starts to be used automatically to maintain that set point. And there's a few different modes of operation where, and I think this is where a lot of people get confused. Because when you're starting up a unit, the guy on site doesn't necessarily know how the design engineer intended the unit to operate.
• 0:13
  And I think that's one of the biggest the biggest problems, because. Yeah. You get there, you're on site and they're like, start this unit up. And I'm like, they're like, okay, how, what do you want? I'll get a phone call and then I, I'll ask them, so how do you want to control the unit? And you know, they don't know.
• 0:14
  So what we've been trying to do with a lot of a lot of our customers is. From the get go, if we can find out how they want the unit to be set up, we're trying to set that up from the factory. Now it's not a hundred percent perfect. I think we're getting there. If you would have asked me this a couple of years ago, I would have said, we're not doing it.
• 0:15
  You got to set it up in the field. Just because it is a lot of work, but we're, we're trying to make it easier on the guys in the field. It's, it's not. It's, it's still a work in progress, but I know for a few of our major customers that that's how we're, we're doing it. And in a perfect world, they're going to be, you get it to the site, you put power to the unit, you turn it on and you walk away.
• 0:16
  The
• 0:17
  Trevor: big thing is, is though they have to be set up differently depending on how they want . And what, what, and I see that too big disconnect between the contractor, the manufacturer, and then what comes out of your facility. So that there is a disconnect there because maybe a technician calls you up.
• 0:18
  And says, listen, we're struggling with this, but the manufacturer didn't talk to the contractor about it. And then there's a miscommunication. Then you're, you're a hands up in the air, because I know you get the blame. Law Guntner I hear from all manufacturers, they don't know what they're doing or whatever.
• 0:19
  The problem is like, you can't give them advice when you don't know how to set it up. Cause if you set it up in a certain way, it might not work for that, that equipment, the way it was designed. Correct.
• 0:20
  William: Correct. Correct.
• 0:21
  Trevor: So
• 0:22
  William: Basically it's auto internal, which is automatic, where it's just standalone. This is the number one way that the units are, are set up from the factory. It's just, you go to the controller, you put a set point in, you walk away.
• 0:23
  Right. And our fans ramp up and ramp down to maintain that set point. With this mode of operation. It is required that you have a temperature sensor or pressure sensor installed because without a temperature sensor or pressure sensor, our controller doesn't know what, what set point to meet there's auto external, which is we, you can some other system, some BMS will send us.
• 0:24
  Set point you could send it via 0 to 20 4 to 20 0 to 10 however, you either usually it's a hardwired signal from some other system and That changes the set the set point so either your temperature or pressure set point then there's auto external bus Which is the same thing but instead of sending it via hardwire, which is You know, zero 20, it sends it via comms, Modbus, BACnet, however.
• 0:25
  , then there's the other side where if you don't have a temperature sensor installed in the unit, you just want our unit to act as one component where it's a just, just ramping up and wrapping down the band speed. Based on an external signal. , That's another way of operating. So, , generally speaking, the mold two most popular modes of operation are going to be server external and auto intern.
• 0:26
  But it just really depends on how The unit is supposed to operate by the design engineers and, and, and the system
• 0:27
  Trevor: itself. Okay. And that's great. So a technician calls you up and says, how's this supposed to work? You, it leaves the factory with your, your factory parameters in it, where you would send it at maybe just a signal.
• 0:28
  It's going to work off the way you guys have your default program. Is that, that's correct? Yeah, that's correct.
• 0:29
  William: So sometimes I'll get a call from a, A few customers. And I'll say, okay, what site is this? And they'll tell me what customer it is. And for a couple of major customers, I can guide them. Okay. This is how they want, but we have a ton of different customers, so it's not always possible for our, for a couple of the major ones.
• 0:30
  We can do that, but. For all the others, it's, it's, it's a little bit more, you know, finding out how they want it set up for their system.
• 0:31
  Trevor: And so, so the way I see a lot of times you're getting, it's getting a, a, a signal sent into it, just say for a zero to 10 out to it, and that zero to 10 is just going to, you know, Stage that the, the fan, the, really the fans on the, how those will operate, just say in that auto internal mode, for an example.
• 0:32
  William: Yeah. So the zero to 10 can either represent a fan speed or a set point, depending on the mode of operation. Okay.
• 0:33
  Trevor: So, yeah. So, so for an example, do you have a, as an EC, a EC fan motors on your units? Is it variable speed fan motors or both?
• 0:34
  William: Yeah. So they're generally speaking, the majority of the, of the units that we, we have AC motors.
• 0:35
  We have a lot of them. We, we do have AC controls also, but the majority of the support that that's requested is with EC motors. ,
• 0:36
  Trevor: Because that's different where guys can just go out and they can check, okay, do I got power or not? But with an EC fan motors, a different way to check them.
• 0:37
  So
• 0:38
  William: So on our newer controller, the GMM next we have, that's the main controller interface. And then we have the EC fans connected to Gmods.
• 0:39
  And depending on the quantity of fans you have will determine how many Gmods you have. So we can do up to 24 fans on one controller with three Gmods. And so what we'll do with that, another big question I get a lot of times is how do we, how do I troubleshoot it? How do I do this? Because it's, you know, it's new to them.
• 0:40
  And, and some guys you say, Oh, I have my meter on here and I'm not measuring any voltage and it's, it's different because what our fans do, they're electronically commutated fans. So we run a Modbus communication line from each individual fan back to the Gmod. And then we also run, you know, you know, 460 volts or whatever voltage it is.
• 0:41
  And we ramp up and ramp down the fans via Modbus. We have communication with them and a lot of times what happens is if this communication line from the fan to the G mod gets severed for whatever reason, whether it's a bad G mod or bad fan or whatever the case is, our fans are programmed to ramp up to a hundred percent.
• 0:42
  So, and you can't measure that with a meter. You know, you, you, you, you really can't measure it.
• 0:43
  Trevor: So all of a sudden you go up to one of your units and one fan is just a hundred percent.
• 0:44
  That would, could be a good starting point. Be like, okay, let's check that communication wire, that, that Modbus water wire to that one there.
• 0:45
  William: Yes. Yes. Correct. And this is just the, like, so what I'll do is a lot of times right now is I'll have a lot of, a lot of a lot of customers. requesting support. And so for instance, right now I'm getting phone calls from a, you know, a few different people and I can't answer that. Cause I'm, I'm talking to you right now.
• 0:46
  What I'll do is I'm like, Hey, listen, take a look at this video, take a look at this. And I'll shoot them a link to a video. They'll kind of show them and walk them through the troubleshooting features.
• 0:47
  Trevor: And is it just as easy, just so you don't have a community, they don't have a communication wire and they want to check it, they can pull it out from maybe a fan too, and use the fan to two wires, would that be the easiest way to test it if they don't have an extra Modbus cable? Yeah.
• 0:48
  William: So what i'll do is i'll send this video out and i'm i'm in this video I'm talking what to do and how to look at the alarms and it'll show that there's alarms there And what to do for that i'm not going to sit through the whole video for you guys.
• 0:49
  Yeah I show that so right here i'm showing in the video How to actually look at the G mod and what wires to look at how to troubleshoot it and what to do in this particular instance. Then I, I even show them right here, how to go up on top of the motor itself and what to check for. So if they do have issues with the motor itself.
• 0:50
  You know, and this, what I like about these videos is that I'm able to help a lot of different people at the same time and, you know, and they have it for themselves. So if they're ever back in the, you know, in the field again, they can pull up this same video
• 0:51
  Trevor: that's fantastic. And so. How often do you see that happening? Like the issue with say a Modbus wire where it gets cut by the fan or it's pulled too hard. Like how often is that, that the case? Well, it's
• 0:52
  William: it's, it's our number one service call and it could be, it could be either, because what I'll get is the call is going to come in.
• 0:53
  Hey, listen, I'm not telling the fan. I'm not telling the unit to run and the fan spinning at a hundred percent. What do I do? And that's our bypass feature going on. So that that's, that's by far our number one our number one call. And it could be, it could be anything from a loose wire. It could be.
• 0:54
  A bad fan, it could be you know, fuse something, you know, so, but not necessarily a fuse, but it's usually, it's usually the wiring and it'll be, it'll be a fan replacement needed. So,
• 0:55
  Trevor: okay. And one of the things is, is there a way to, what's the best way to test that wiring? Because, you know, the wiring goes through harnesses and it goes along the wire.
• 0:56
  And it's not like I could take my meter and touch one side and my meter stretch all the way to the other side. What is the quickest way you guys, you recommend to test those wires to make sure that the wire would be a simple continuity
• 0:57
  William: test where you can. Go up to the top of the motor you know, disconnect everything.
• 0:58
  Obviously make sure there's no power to the handle or anything like that. The safety first and then just do a continuity test with your meter. That would be, that would be the simplest way. And
• 0:59
  Trevor: because these wires aren't wired by in the field, they should all come from the manufacturer from you guys already wired up rewiring.
• 1:00
  Yes.
• 1:01
  Replacing the fans. I've had some people say that there's not very difficult to, to replace the van, but they, sometimes they can be difficult. Do you have any recommendations on, on that? When they do have to replace fan replacement is
• 1:02
  William: depending on the type of unit we have, we have the 80 CHDs, which are the double Becker units.
• 1:03
  Those what's nice about those, they're more modular. Where the drive itself only needs to be replaced in certain instances, not the entire fan on EVM and syllabic it is It's an easy installation as far as wiring is concerned, because it's just wire for wire. But it, it does require the entire fan to be replaced.
• 1:04
  So, so at that point, when you do replace those fans, do you have to change the programming, like addressing and stuff like that, the matchup? So, so
• 1:05
  one of the, one of the things that's nice because we run individual Modbus lights to every fan. Our controller, once it's, once it's connected because we run individual mock bus lines to every control, to every fan our controller knows which fan is what.
• 1:06
  And there's no programming necessary inside the controller. It's just a drop in replacement. I will say this, there is a caveat to that. On our older controllers. So we have a few generations of controllers. Our oldest controller, which is the GMM EC controller. That one does require certain programming if you swap out a fan.
• 1:07
  Those are units, usually I would say pre 2016 ish. So so yeah, so pre 2016 would require generally speaking, the, the, a software update in order for it to work get a lot of customers asking about that. And it's, it's a little bit tedious to program it and do the software. If you're, if you're changing fans on a unit, that's older.
• 1:08
  I always suggest upgrading the controller itself to the new GMM next, because it's a bit of a pain up front because yeah, you're replacing the controller. You're replacing everything, but it makes your job down the road a lot easier because you are getting a lot more features on a newer controller that weren't available on the older controller.
• 1:09
  And it just makes, whenever you're swapping out new fans, the, the chain, the, the, the programming a lot easier, cause there is no program. You just drop it in, you put it on and it'll take off no problem on the newer controller.
• 1:10
  Trevor: I'm sure like anything is doing upgraded. There's, there's probably a return on investment in it.
• 1:11
  You know what I mean? Like, cause these extra features probably be running it a bit more efficient, the fans and things like that. So when you get into the control, so, cause. What's good about this is that you're, you're on top of the controls. You understand the control site. They get it to the manufacturer gets it, or it gets out to the field, to the technicians, a lot of, a lot of people, like I said, blame the controls right off the bat when something's not working.
• 1:12
  Right. What are some of the things that they need to look for when you're first starting it up? Because you know, you showed me that video there, us, that video that had some alarms already in it. But a lot of times when you're starting up, you get power to it. You don't always see an alarm and nothing's working.
• 1:13
  What are some of the things on in the program? I mean,
• 1:14
  William: with our controls, it's what we try and do is make sure it's very easy to navigate and easy to find the problem. There's an led right here. That shows there's like a triangle on the led. So right on the GMM itself .
• 1:15
  Trevor: Because that, that, that light will actually be like a, a signal for you to tell you what's going on.
• 1:16
  William: So on our controller, you'll see an LEE right there. And if that's red, that indicates that there's an alarm. And then if you press the dial and go to events, it'll tell you what alarms are present. And it'll, it'll say, you know, resistance high on a temperature sensor or fan one alarm active, and you can indict deeper in that, but it'll tell you right there.
• 1:17
  Trevor: Yeah. And, and the big thing is, Do you have like a, a help guide in there or do you online, like if somebody wants to start learning about the GMM next, where's the first spot that you want to show them? Because a lot of times technicians are doing startup today. They've never seen, may have never seen your equipment before.
• 1:18
  And I always tell them you got to go right to the, to get the manufacturing man. That's where you got to number one, start. If you don't know what you're working on and you can't, they don't have you at site. They know you don't, they don't all have a will at sight all the time. Right. So what's the first step that you tell them to do?
• 1:19
  And maybe, and I tell them every, all my students that come into my CO2 program, if you're starting a one in six months or three months, you're going to start learning the equipment now. You know what I mean? You start, start learning before you get onto the equipment, but it's not always the case. Right.
• 1:20
  Well, right now
• 1:21
  William: what we're doing is we're we're developing a service portal that's, that's in the process. It's, it's, it's going to be a bit before we're able to bring it live. But we can always send you the manuals and the guides. They can always shoot me an email and we can always send them the documentation and on how it how it's supposed to operate, but I have a ton of videos out there and if anyone ever needs, like has questions about how this is supposed to operate or, or what the case is, or how do I set up this controller or that controller this program that I have right now is just basically, you know, Sending out videos to people because I'm a type of person that I learned more from seeing than, you know, when I read a manual, it's like, I have to read it three or four times and I'm sitting there like, Oh my God, what were they saying?
• 1:22
  So I, I took on this for this project just to get videos going. And then I've seen that 90 percent of the issues out there are solved with the videos I have that are available. Now, the next the next step on this project is to get these videos onto a service portal where guys can get to them right away.
• 1:23
  But at the current moment, Unfortunately, I'm the gatekeeper of the videos. So I have to send these out one by one. You know, we're, we're working on something out there that's in place right now.
• 1:24
  Trevor: No, no, that's amazing. Right. You know what I mean? And the big thing is those people who, and technicians who want to learn and people want to learn who are here on the call or listen on the podcast, they are going to reach out, you know what I mean?
• 1:25
  They want to dive a little bit deeper because they want to do it right. And that's the whole, the whole thing is, is doing it right the first time.
• 1:26
  So now we talked about the fans a little bit. What do you, what are you seeing out there for, for, for the fan? So we're talking about CO2 transcritical booster systems.
• 1:27
  We go above, you know, 87. 8, 31 degrees Celsius. We're in super critical mode. Do you have all that built into the controller understanding when we're above this certain pressure and temperatures, we're going to activate. Say our water valve do we have a dump valve? Is it all done in your controller? So what we do is
• 1:28
  William: let's get to the adiabatic control.
• 1:29
  Okay. So with, with critical transcritical anytime it's, it's a system that's critical or transcritical control. Normally the mode of operation is going to be slave mode or server external mode, which means they're going to be giving our controller a A fan speed signal for zero to 10. Usually zero is going to be a hundred percent.
• 1:30
  10 is going to be. Off, right? That's the typical operation when it's a CO2 for critical transport. What we do is if you can see my screen, am I sharing? So we have two controllers in, in our unit. One is for one is on the left, which is the GMM Guntner motor management. The one on the right is a G H M Gruner hydro management.
• 1:31
  So the GMN manages the motors, the G H M manages the water. There's a lot of confusion on how this actually works. So the, we'll receive a zero to 10 signal for the fans fees. The fans will ramp up and ramp down. And then our G H M looks to the GMM to see what the fan speed is. We also have ambient temperature sensors and humidity sensors on there, which is looking at the ambient temperature and humidity to determine how much water to put across the pads.
• 1:32
  And depending on the fan speed and ambient conditions will determine how much water. Now getting into that a little bit further there's three trigger points that will turn on what turned water on and off. It's ambient temperature. Fan speed on and fan speed off, right? So from the factory, the default conditions are 80 percent on fan speed on 80%.
• 1:33
  I'm sorry, 90 percent fan speed on 80% fan speed water off and with a 71 Fahrenheit switch point. So let me say it all over again. What does that mean? That means if it's. over 71 degrees outside and the fans are greater than 90 percent, water is going to kick on and it's going to start to use water and you're going to see water across the pads.
• 1:34
  Then until the fans drop below 80 percent, that's when water will cease to be used. or if the ambient temperature drops below 71. So those are the, that's when water is going to be used. Now next question I get is, well, how much water am I, should I, should I expect to see? Right. And well, I'm only seeing cause we're getting into troubleshooting.
• 1:35
  How do I know that it's getting the right amount of water? If, if you ever want to set a unit up, I have a whole series of videos that I set up just for that, that I'll, that I'll share with everyone to make sure it's set up properly, but the only parameters, the technicians, ideally in a perfect world, we're talking perfect growth here.
• 1:36
  Um, that, that, that, that the technician should be touching. Are going to be the fan speed on the fan speed off and the switch point. Just those are the three parameters of technician should be choose should be touching. Now, if they want, there's a lot of things you can do to make it use more water than, than it's supposed to, or less water, things like that.
• 1:37
  If you're ever getting into those types of things, you can reach out to us for support in that area. But generally speaking, another service call I get a lot is. Hey, listen, it's really hot today and we're not using a lot of water. Okay. What's What's not a lot of water. Oh, I don't know. I don't, I don't, you know, I don't, I don't see a lot of water.
• 1:38
  I'm like, okay, so is it, what's the ambient temperature outside and what's the humidity they'll say? Oh, well, you know what? It's about 85 percent humidity with 95 degrees out, which is a really warm, sticky day, right? And so we have, we have built into our controls to say on days that are more humid, you're not going to use as much water because.
• 1:39
  It's, it's just wasting money. Right. And that's, and that's the other thing that I think is important for a lot of guys to understand because it's not just on off,
• 1:40
  Trevor: Because it makes sense. If it's super humid out, you're not going to pull any heat more, any more heat than you have to.
• 1:41
  And then, like you said, now you're just
• 1:42
  William: Yeah.
• 1:43
  Trevor: Rolling your customer's money down the drain and it's not going to do, there's no effect. You're not going to get any any more cool. Adiabatic cooling.
• 1:44
  William: Yeah, exactly. And so inside of our, inside of our unit on the opposite end of the control panel for adiabatic units, you're going to see three devices.
• 1:45
  This little orange device is a water meter. I'm sorry, is a control valve next to that you have a water meter. And then you have a blue drain saline light and all of those three devices work in conjunction with our controllers so that we know how much water to get across the beds. So we regulate the amount of water flow using the control valve, and then we have a drain sunlight in there too.
• 1:46
  So service things to check make sure you have enough water pressure. We usually request above 30 PSI of water pressure with the control valve open. That's a big one because especially if you go to the certain grocery stores or, you know, places like that, they have their domestic water tied to the bathrooms and to our unit.
• 1:47
  So I had one site that was having a lot of problems providing enough water because every time someone would flush the toilet, the water pressure would drop like 15 or 10 PSI and they're like, well, your unit's not working. Your unit's not working. I jump on a call and I'm looking at it and I'm like, well, You're not getting enough water.
• 1:48
  And then it's like, well, it was at 30 PSI a minute ago. It was at 45 PSI a minute ago. And then we sat there and looked at it. And sure enough, it would jump to like 45 PSI. Then down to 15. I'm like, is this tied to the bathroom? You know, cause that was, that's the first thing. So as many, you get a bunch of, you know, people flushing at the same time, pressure drops and that that's, that's something to take a look at.
• 1:49
  Trevor: And you can see the set point rate in your controller. Is that how you were seeing it? Like, how do you tell, like, we
• 1:50
  William: actually have, we actually have a pressure gauge right on the on the water inlet. So we're B for this reason, because before we didn't have a pressure gauge and we're like, how do we know?
• 1:51
  You know? So we started installing pressure gauges years ago, already. And, and that's how we're able to tell what the water pressure is. You, you can look right there.
• 1:52
  Trevor: Yeah. Because that's a, that would be a big issue there. Cause you, you come to a site as a technician and you don't know how it was hooked up.
• 1:53
  You're coming to service, but all of a sudden you don't get any, you know, the water's not happening or you're just getting a little stream. If he'd even comes out and, and it's not enough. Correct. Correct. So, okay. Okay. That's, that's fantastic to know. So, I know a lot of people ask me, well, Trevor, how do I, how do I clean these?
• 1:54
  So like, first of all, when you, when you see them, especially on a warm day, you'll see that they'll get wet and then they'll dry off. They'll get wet. You'll see the pattern. It's not like they're just dripping and water's falling off. That's happening. That's an issue as well. Right? Yeah. So,
• 1:55
  William: so with the, I I've had calls where they'll say, you know what?
• 1:56
  The water isn't. Is it dripping uniformly down? It's, it's coming off the sides. It's just not, it's, it's splashing down instead of going down the X. So at the very top of the unit there's a piece of the, the guard. Yeah, the channel that you can, there's thumb screws, you can remove those thumb screws and open that up, right?
• 1:57
  And there's there, you're going to see a PVC pipe with holes in it. Now, if you're looking at the unit, though, that orientation of the holes need to be up and towards the unit. So if you're standing at the water box and you're looking at it, the right side should be pointed. The holes should be pointing at 11 o'clock.
• 1:58
  The left side should be pointed at one o'clock. Okay. So up and towards the unit, that's the first thing to check. The second thing to check is to make sure at the very top, the adiabatic pads the holes for the pads should be be facing up and down. So vertically. Okay. Because the whole point is that the water goes up, hits the wall, and then travels down through the holes.
• 1:59
  Onto the pads. Okay. Okay, the rest of the pads, the holes are horizontal, but the very top channel, it's about a four inch channel that goes all the way across. Those should be facing up. And I, I've seen in the field where they've done maintenance on it and then they install them wrong. So instead of the, instead of the water going down, it's going across and hitting the ground, so that's another thing to check.
• 2:00
  The last thing to check is to make sure that the pads are flush. If your pads are offset, that could be, that can also cause the water to, to not go down smoothly on the pads.
• 2:01
  Trevor: Yeah. So when you're doing a maintenance, this is so important. You just get a mark where, which one was top left, top right, and make sure you put them back in the same way because that that's very, very, it makes it easier and makes it easier for sure.
• 2:02
  What about maintenance? Cause I have a lot of people saying, well, Trevor, you know, what do I use to clean them? Can I just take a big pressure washer and start ripping at them? And I'm like, no, you don't, don't want to do that because it's a material thing.
• 2:03
  William: Yeah. But for cleaning you're just going to want to use.
• 2:04
  You know, water pressure on it. Normal water pressure on it. The one thing with the pads, the pads are consumable item. Okay. So that's, that's something that depending on water quality, they will have to be replaced over time. So that's, that's one thing. I I've, I've been to a site where. They had these installed for, I think it was like seven, 20 years.
• 2:05
  And they were just like, I'm like, you guys need new pads. There's no saving these pads. So, but generally speaking, I mean what I recommend is, yeah, just take a, just take a soft brush. And, you know, light, light cleaner, nothing, nothing you know, dawn is great and just, you know, clean them and, and wash them now, like a soft car, a soft brush that's used on like for your car wash, you know, to wash your car that that's one thing that would work nice and then just, you know, holds it down.
• 2:06
  Trevor: What's the lifetime for them for depending on it's gonna be different if you're buying airport There's a lot of dust and dirt and depending on where it
• 2:07
  William: depends an environment and it depends on water quality Those, those are the two things I, I've seen customers with excellent, you know, service and excellent water quality.
• 2:08
  I've seen them last, you know, four years, five years, but they do an amazing job maintaining them. I've seen customers that are, have horrible water quality and just don't take care of it at all and in less than a year they have to replace it. So it just really depends on the environment and the maintenance of the unit.
• 2:09
  Trevor: And that's because the water is key key to this the, the system, right. And, and understanding you got to have the right water pressure. You got to have good water. Do you guys sell like any filtrations in bad, like bad areas, or is that up to the contractor? Cause I know I see water treatment like little water treatment skids.
• 2:10
  Do you guys offer that? Or is that something that.
• 2:11
  William: So there's, there's different types of units. These are adiabatic units. When you're dealing with water treatment, those are the ones that with recirculation pumps and you actually have to treat the water. So one of the things that leads to another great question, as far as like your unit is using a ton of water because that's the other question it's using a lot of water and I'm like, okay, so how do you know, you know, what's, what's a ton of water, fortunately, it's really subjective.
• 2:12
  Yeah, because, because I'll have guys, I'm like, well, it's just, it's just a lot of water. Let me show you. And they'll they'll, they'll tell me that they'll send me a picture of the water draining out of the trough. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, Okay, maybe. But what we do is we actually record the actual amount of water that's being used.
• 2:13
  So we can do a total calculation to show you how much the water, how much water it's actually consumed. And the reason I'm going down this side path, because the question I get is like, well, don't you recirculate water? No, we don't recirculate water. That's why we have a control valve that modulates the amount of water that goes across the pads.
• 2:14
  And that's exactly why we have a temperature humidity sensor so that we don't use a lot of water when it's not going to be affected. On days that it's less humid you are going to use more water than on days that it's more humid. But all that being said one piece of advice I give everyone is if if you have the ability and you're doing a startup, make sure that the drain is piped, the trough, the water, you know, waste is piped to a drain because what a lot of guys will do, a lot of sites will do, it's not even up to the guys in the field, is they'll just set it there and then water is dripping all over the roof.
• 2:15
  The owner looks at this and why is there water on my roof and it's just it's a bad visual, you know, but that being said, I have yet to come across a unit. In my five years here at Guntner, where if the controls, one caveat, if the controls are properly set up where it's using too much water, more than it's designed to use all of our units have always used way less water than what they're designed to use.
• 2:16
  Trevor: And, and that, yeah, how does, how does it, what does it use to measure that? Like our, and in and out how long the water regulated valves open? How does, how do you, how do you guys measure that?
• 2:17
  William: Well,
• 2:18
  Trevor: we have a
• 2:19
  William: water meter that, yeah, we have a water meter inside of there that counts the pulses and it'll tell you exactly how much water we use.
• 2:20
  \ we take for the life of the unit, we can tell you exactly how much water it takes.
• 2:21
  Trevor: And so this is something that I guess you can go into a controller and it'll show you over a year if you wanted to, or whatever. Can this go back, can this be tied back to, say another controller, BAS system, like say, MicroThermal, E2, Danfoss, Corel?
• 2:22
  Can they be tied back in to read that information, or is it all? Yeah, they
• 2:23
  William: can, they can all pull that information. Oh, good. It will be depending if the unit was ordered with Matt, Modbus or BATMAT, they can pull that information in and lock it.
• 2:24
  Trevor: Good. I love that. I love that. Okay. So one of the things too is we talk, you bring it up a little bit already, but it's the draining.
• 2:25
  So, so when you're doing a maintenance, we talked about maintaining the pads for these adiabatic. What are other things? Cause I know the drain is another one, you know, so you fill up, you have a, like a little water level sensor. When you hit a certain sensor, it will drain. Is that right? Is that how yours work or how does the drain work?
• 2:26
  William: So we measure the water going in. We don't measure going out. Okay. So we know exactly, but, and that's. I know some of our competitors measure water, but they don't measure water going in. I think measuring water going in is, is, is a lot more accurate because you're knowing exactly how much you're consuming.
• 2:27
  As far as maintenance on that is make sure that there's no clogs. Cause that, that can happen. The trough is open and leaves and sediment can get in there. Another thing is make sure the drain is properly sized. I had one customer who the trough was constantly overfilling, but then they piped it to like a little half inch drain.
• 2:28
  Beautiful. It wasn't, yeah, it wasn't draining properly.
• 2:29
  Trevor: Well, once again, you got to go just into the installation manual. You take a look at their installation manual and they'll say step by step on what you need to do. So nothing difficult if you follow the manufacturer's manuals. That's the big thing.
• 2:30
  But back to, back to the controller. So I, I get, I get it set up. I set it up for just say that you use the standard settings at 71, 90 percent fan water's on. Okay. That that's working. They would have to go in just because I see different setups.
• 2:31
  Trevor: I've been, I see the few of them where it's, you know, you need to be above 60 degrees Fahrenheit above this fan speed, whatever it is, and then water on. What are those? Though, cause it's like four parameters, right? That they'd have to change three, three, three parameters, ambient fan on fan off. Okay. So if you need to adjust that, no, or sorry, those are usually from the manufacturer, correct?
• 2:32
  Yeah. So the default
• 2:33
  William: is that that's the default, what I gave you leaving from the factory. Yeah, with those parameters are user adjustable, so they're they're they're designed to be user adjustable. Unfortunately, we don't always know where the unit's gonna be. You know, you're gonna have up in Canada versus Texas.
• 2:34
  Yeah, you're gonna have completely different parameters, depending where the units at. And that's why it's it's site specific and you know, one thing I, I've seen is if you're generally in the Great Lakes area where water's cheap, you can prioritize water usage and use more water. We generally have three modes of operation and that's, you know, it's energy savings, water savings, or efficiency mode.
• 2:35
  And the water savings mode is generally used in the Southwest where water's expensive and you prioritize. You know the fans and then at the last possible moment you kick on water and then there's energy savings which is Where it's the opposite you prioritize you kick on water as long as it's over 50 degrees outside you start getting water if The ambient temperature, I'm sorry, if the fan speed is above 30%, you know, and you're just using a ton of water because it's super cheap, there's a site out there, they give free water, you know, so I've seen that too.
• 2:36
  And then we had the efficiency mode, which I've only seen one site use it so far, but I wish more sites would, because it's, it's a really cool feature, but it requires maintenance. So what do I mean? Efficiency mode is. If you put the cost of water and the cost of electricity into our controller, our controller will calculate which is the best way to operate, you know, and the reason they say it's high maintenance is because the cost of water and the cost of electricity fluctuate, you know, so and you, you always have to get the utmost up to date cost of water and cost of electricity and put that into the controller, which is, I understand why a lot of sites don't use it because.
• 2:37
  Not everyone is able to, but you know, that, that's a nice feature. If you have a BMS and you ever wanted to set that up that's, that's something that would be really nice. You'd probably have to look into APIs from your power company and water company to get that live information and write it to us.
• 2:38
  But that would be something that would be the most efficient way to operate.
• 2:39
  Trevor: And that's a good point. And you know, I talked to you technicians. I talked to contractors, like I built programs on how to help save your customer more money. And the big thing is, is more contractors went and started working with the energy companies, right.
• 2:40
  And showing them, okay, let's get one of these on a roof. Let's start doing a measurement verification with it and just actually test it. And a lot of times you can get depending on the state the province the country you're in You think you get incentives for some of this because gas cooler, adiabat gas coolers are not cheap It doesn't matter what the manufacturer is.
• 2:41
  These are expensive components that you're adding to a co2 system That's already more expensive So if you can have the opportunity to get maybe some kickback from the the government or some rebates from that Local, power company I would be looking into that. So i'm going to check that out a bit more to the efficiency mode You
• 2:42
  William: I'd be, if you're ever doing it, one of those projects, let me know.
• 2:43
  I I'd love to work with you on it to make sure you get it right. Cause that would be, that would be good for all of us. I think, you know, it's, it's something that's definitely beneficial. One of the things that we're, we're diving into right now also is IOT and we, we, we have the option to throw IOT devices on the unit for remote support.
• 2:44
  We have a few of these units out there right now across the country. And it's, it's really cool because we're at the beginning stages of this, but once we, once we get fully rolling, we're going to be able to do a lot of cool stuff. You know, this would be one of them where we're able to work with power water companies, things like that.
• 2:45
  But you know, predictive maintenance. It's all kinds of other stuff, but that's, that's still in development right now for a lot of this stuff. But
• 2:46
  Trevor: yeah. Yeah. So, so basically you're going to be taking some, the information. So basically you have more, maybe more sensors and it's going to be bringing them back to back to a server or a cloud where you're going to have some sort of AI.
• 2:47
  Analyze the data to say, okay, now make this change, make that change, or you need to send someone out to clean the pads because nobody has done it in five years.
• 2:48
  William: Or, you know what, we can even do things where, Hey, listen, there's a cold front coming in. Maybe we can lower the set point and gradually lower it until the set, until the cold front gets here.
• 2:49
  So that way you're operating as optimally as possible. There's, there's so many things that we can do. And we're, we're, we're looking at this and we're currently developing a lot of it too.
• 2:50
  Trevor: I love that. That sounds super cool. Well, I like seeing that stuff because this is how we're going to see the refrigeration industry evolve with technology like this, AI, predictive maintenance, all these things that been around, but now people are investing more money into it, spending more time because this stuff takes time.
• 2:51
  You guys probably just researching and developing this for years. It's not like you're just starting this stuff.
• 2:52
  I love that. I love that. I love this conversation. Like I've learned a ton already. I got a whole page or two of notes and those of you listening out there, if you're not driving, you should have been writing and taking notes from this, from what Will's been saying, because this is a hands down some of the top stuff.
• 2:53
  Cause you're going to get out there and you're going to see the, these condensers. You're going to see these gas coolers. You're going to see these these adiabatic coolers and you got to know the stuff, right. And prepare yourself to be ready. Will. Final thoughts. What's one or two things you'd like to share with any technician that a year is going to start one of these up or going to maintain one of your gas coolers out there?
• 2:54
  I
• 2:55
  William: think just understanding the overall operation because I think once you, I think that's the biggest takeaway because you know, a lot of guys are used to the old AC heat exchangers where it's just on off. Yeah. And there's no water. And you know, I think it's really hot. They'll throw some sleek sprinklers under there and call it a day, you know, but it's still evident all the time right now.
• 2:56
  Hey, now you're in Ontario. There's a, I've seen it. I've seen it. And I think if you just understand the way the unit operates, it like takes a lot of the mystery away, you know, and if you ever really want to dive deeper, we can, you know, it's you know, we could, we can always do that. It's just.
• 2:57
  Understanding the overall operation of how it works is, is the big thing that, you know, the, you know, the, the 20, 000 foot view, you know, if you can understand that, then everything else comes into place later.
• 2:58
  Trevor: Yeah. And then I think that that's the thing on any refrigeration or HVAC system. And I think that's where a lot of, a lot of people struggle is because they don't understand that, that sequence of operation where it starts and where it finishes.
• 2:59
  And that's the only way you can troubleshoot, really troubleshoot something to find a root cause. This happens and this happens and this happens to make this happen. You know what I mean? And if you don't know that whole process, sometimes you're going to be chasing a tail because I did that for years.
• 3:00
  And then until I started learning, well, I need to know this a little bit better. That fan is turning on, but this one's running at a hundred percent, but all the rest of them running at 60%. Why is that? And
• 3:01
  William: then also if you're doing a startup ask questions before you go. Meaning how is it supposed to operate?
• 3:02
  You know, because
• 3:03
  there's a lot of guys that, you know, and I, I get it, you know, you're busy, you have so much to do and they tell you, go to this site, start this up. And you're like, what, you know, but if you have the opportunity, cause you don't always have the opportunity, but if you do you know, ask the questions.
• 3:04
  How is this supposed to operate? What's the mode of operation? Are you guys integrating via BACnet or are you sending it a signal? Is it standalone? And that way it just makes it a lot easier for you down the road.
• 3:05
  Trevor: Yeah, that's for sure. And I think that's that, that is key too. Or learning before and then getting out there and learn again, because you're not going to always remember all this.
• 3:06
  Like I said earlier, seven to 11 times to remember some of this stuff. Awesome. Man, I learned a ton. We got some questions here. I'm going to ask you a few questions if that works. Okay. The first one's how to pressure the sensor to control pressure liquid to vapor. Not sure about that one. How to, if you want to elaborate,
• 3:07
  William: I think what he might be asking and I'm guessing,
• 3:08
  So in our sensor, in our controllers, I'm sorry, in our units you can have a dry cooler where it's a temperature sensor. Or you can have have a unit with a pressure sensor, right? If you have a pressure sensor that you're controlling to, and you set it up to be you, you set up the refrigerant inside our controller, it'll show you the condensing temperature.
• 3:09
  But if you leave the, if you leave the pressure sensor in our controller set to bar, it shows you the pressure. So I'm guessing that's what he's saying. I'm not, I'm not certain, but it depends on how, on our, on our units. If you're using a pressure sensor, if you leave it set up as bar, it'll show you the pressure.
• 3:10
  If you set it up as an actual, you know, R four Oh five or whatever it is, it'll show you the condensing temperature. So,
• 3:11
  Trevor: yeah, no, that makes sense. Another one. How does water temperature affect efficiency?
• 3:12
  William: Well, I mean, if you have a colder water, you're going to get that, you're going to get it, you know, to be a little bit more efficient, so it just really depends, you know, where the water is coming from.
• 3:13
  Trevor: Yeah. But I really appreciate your time. Will for, for coming and chatting with everyone here, refrigeration mentor, sharing some of your knowledge. I'd love to do this again next week. We have a part two learning about heat exchangers, heat transfer, super important with gas cooler plate heat exchange.
• 3:14
  You gotta know that stuff. Just like will said understand the sequence of operation. You got to understand how heat transfer actually works and affects it because even with these These gas coolers if they're filled up with oil for an example, if oil, they're not going to work properly, you know And if they're not set up properly, the fan speed's not set up properly.
• 3:15
  The pressure's not working. Probably you're going to run into issues Oh, I forgot to ask you this question. Do most people set it up on the temperature on the drop leg? Or are they using the pressure? Do you, do you get into that at all? I know that's more on the manufacturer's side, but I'm sure you'll get into that a little bit.
• 3:16
  I think that really
• 3:17
  William: depends on the site that really, that depends on the site and how they're, how they're controlling, you know a, yeah. If it's a gas cooler, it's usually temperature.
• 3:18
  Trevor: So yeah, so I've seen lots of people switching it to the SCTIT now, it's going back to the, the saturated condition, but it all depends on the site, how it's working, you know what I mean?
• 3:19
  So there's a lot of variables. It's not like you just go switch all of them.
• 3:20
  You got to see what the site, where is it at? What's the climate? What's the, you know, where are you at? Well, thank you so much for taking the time today. I really appreciate it. Learned a lot. Look forward to the next one and make sure you get out to Gunnar's website, get into their manuals, log in there.
• 3:21
  You username, password, some information that you get to get all their documents. If you need their documents to download and check that stuff out, really appreciate your time. Well, and we'll catch you at the next refrigeration meant to podcast. Okay, great. Thank you.