Latest / The Refrigeration Mentor Podcast / Episode 296. Electrical Troubleshooting in Refrigeration

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Episode 296. Electrical Troubleshooting in Refrigeration · The Refrigeration Mentor Podcast

• 0:00
  What's up everyone? Welcome to the Refrigeration Mentor Podcast. This next episode was a free webinar I did on electrical troubleshooting. You may have to rebuild between the lines a little bit because I was showing some slides and stuff during the session, but hopefully. You can take a few things away from here to really help you As always, you know, be safe out there, especially when you're working with electrical or working with high voltage.
• 0:01
  As always, head to refrigeration mentor website. Go to ww dot refrigeration mentor.com/hub. Check out. The community there. This is where we're helping technicians and supporting technicians from all around the world to level up. If you wanna become better at troubleshooting or talking with your customers or talking with your service manager, if you wanna move from a technician into a service manager role, if you want career advice, this is what we're doing.
• 0:02
  My goal is to help you guys be successful. And my other goal is to help teach you to be able to teach other people. Know what I mean? Share one or two things. You don't have to share everything, but share one. The stuff that I teach you tonight are a few things. You, you, you might know how to, you probably, some of you are gonna know how to do it better than me, and that's totally fine.
• 0:03
  And he's like, Hey Trevor, you know what? I am just so excited that I took this program and I took the leap to try it. Today I went out to a job site that a lead technician was there a couple of times, misdiagnosed it and what you talked about in the filters and how to check the filters and and how to check the, the TX valve.
• 0:04
  E-Rate customers, service managers, down your back, dispatch calling you other technicians, not living up to what they should be doing. You know what I mean? Don't care about work anymore. Don't care about doing a good job. And that's our responsibility to do a good job. So this is what we're all about here.
• 0:05
  Tons. And I'm already set to do three more different manufacturer with the contractor, with the field startup guy, with the control guy. So I can learn how to learn how to work on their equipment, be in the field, put my hands on with the meters, looking at the equipment, talking with the technicians, what their struggles, what their wind is with the field guy to help all of you out there.
• 0:06
  All these manufacturers, like all these top manufacturers are, are reputable ma manufacturers who make equipment have to make a wiring diagram. It might not be on that unit that day, but you can find these diagrams today or call them up with the mall number and serial number and locate it. If it's within the last 15 years built or 20 years, especially here in North America and the uk, Australia, that, that from the manufacturer, you're gonna, you should be able to find them.
• 0:07
  That is a waste, it's not a waste of time if you have to do it, if you can't get a wiring diagram. But if there's no wiring diagram there, what do you have to do? You have to start drawing one. 'cause you're gonna have to go back and service that. So what is gonna be better to draw the wiring diagram or get it from the manufacturer?
• 0:08
  I worked on this project with quite a few of them from their team, Damon Reed who's one he's been on my podcast multiple times. So go, definitely check them out, like on their YouTube channel or Refrigeration Mentor podcast, and just a wealth of knowledge. The last one we did was on Danfoss controllers, remote logging in and troubleshooting through it.
• 0:09
  So that's different than line than other manufacturers. Which I, which I, I thought was really cool. So as we start to walk through it, and he showed me how Damon, we what? Me and Damon, well start walking through. He showed me. Okay, so this is the one wire coming from the main panel. Okay. So, and then we got another wire coming down here, another leg, and then another leg.
• 0:10
  You don't have to start pulling that stuff off. This is what all these terminal blocks are for down here, and this is how you take your meter out and you start following. So we know here, like if we looked at the legend, CB one. CB one. So here's our disconnect. So we got our main power coming right in here.
• 0:11
  Does that happen to often? Not often, but. That's one thing to do. So I got one line here, one line here, one line here. And then when I close this down, this shuts. And now I got power right here, here and here. But this C one is a contact look. It says 115 amp con contactor. Okay? So that would be this down here.
• 0:12
  Okay? So we gotta follow the map. This is, that's just one example. And then, you know, this is contacts pretty straightforward. You can see some relays they had down, down here, some fuses boards. Really love this layout. And then a terminal block, you gotta use more terminal block. One of the biggest things, and one of the things that I've learned one of the things that I learned was that every electrical wiring diagram is in the de-energized position.
• 0:13
  My good friend Paul Benette. Go check out the troubleshooting ones if you're working on CO2 or even supermarket application. 'cause this is what we train all the time. Day in, day out. Did the training earlier today on CO2, did a supermarket training last night, did a compressor training late. And this is, this is what we do, but Hill Hill, Phoenix, they, they're one of the top manufacturer, got some of the most equipment out there in North America.
• 0:14
  So if we, you have a manufacturer that, that has these types of components, these relays, you gotta understand how they work, right? So you wanna make sure that you understand how these components work. When they get energized, they'll pull in a coil. Let's take a look at that. Let's take a look. So right here when we take a look at this coil here, so this is an SKMT.
• 0:15
  This comes right out of their their manual. So 13 and 14. This means their coil. So what you can do is take your meter and put it on resistance and go to 13 and 14 and check what that resistance is to make sure that coil is still good. And you can look up, you can look at it at the man, what the manufacturer spec is.
• 0:16
  When this is energized at that same time. We could have wires to one and nine, six and 10, seven and 11 and four and 12. So we'd have it normally closed when it's de-energized. This one, we'd have this one from six and normally open when it's de-energized. We do this one, seven to 11, I think, is, this is normally open when it's de-energized and four to 12 normally closed when it's de-energized.
• 0:17
  All of a sudden it's called letting the smoke out. It's just like if you put one 20 volts right down here, you might not even see it. It might just flash really quick and it just burns right out. Okay. And then when you're wiring them up, this is one of the big things too, especially if you're doing startup or if you're working on equipping.
• 0:18
  There are so many times that I've seen, I've done a lot of electronics training over the last 10 plus years where I've had technicians, manufacturers, wholesalers actually going in and wiring up controllers. So they do all the wiring. They'd be wiring up contactors and relays. And then what, what I would do my first test, and this is what I, I challenge you to do, either test yourself or test test somebody you're working with after they wire it up, go in and, and pull on that wire, see if it's in there properly.
• 0:19
  Next is some compressor troubleshooting. Okay, so another one. This is I think really important to look at, be aware of is what's happening in the compressor. The compressor is that main component in the system, the one that costs the most money, the one that takes all the bru punishment from whatever we do or whatever the end user does, if that makes sense because we are the ones that will design well, the, the engineers will design it, and then you'll have manufacturers who will manufacture it, and then we, we go and install it.
• 0:20
  Okay. This here is once again another electrical wiring diagram, a compressor one from once again, my good friends from Hill Phoenix. What you, the first step when you're going through 'em, they could have a 10 page manual. I, I've seen so many electrical diagrams from dozens and dozens of manufacturers and I walked through them and was confused and didn't understand until I asked more questions.
• 0:21
  But visually, look at the stuff safely. Do this stuff. Make sure you power down if you have to on the, the circuits. But there's a lot of times where we work on live equipment, okay? So you gotta be safe. So look, this is on. Okay? So this is on, this is still in we're still thinking this is a de-energized position.
• 0:22
  This is, this is how, if I functionally troubleshoot, I can't, I should, I should not be saying you should do it this way. 'cause you do whatever way you want. I'm gonna show you the way I do it. That makes it super easy for me. Then we have a relay right here. Look, and then I got some relays down here.
• 0:23
  Man, did it ever take me a long time to troubleshoot when all those wires go back up into a terminal block, like I showed you on the first, that first slide up into a terminal block and you just go there from the terminal block. Now you don't want to be troubleshooting to ground. Ground is to check your safety.
• 0:24
  So we have a black wire and a white wire to what you do. And I've learned this from many different really good technicians, and I've seen, I've been out in the field with a service manager. When I was working for the manufacturer, I used to go out with the technicians and the contractors, and I went out with a few service managers because technicians couldn't solve the problem.
• 0:25
  We come down here and this, if this switch is off, it stops here. So if it's energized, we should have power coming through here this way. Well, it stops there, but the, well, there's MTF R one relay. We'd have to look that up. Where, where's that at? What page is that on? Okay, then we go down through here. So, 'cause we got the switch on right here.
• 0:26
  No, it's before, it's upstream. It's upstream of that. So it, it has to be somewhere up here if, as long as this is closed. I seen on a few systems where I was working on where the emergency stop for the system was someone pulled it out. So d so we're going through and checking where, how can the power's not here.
• 0:27
  So that's not what we're looking for. Mt OR one. So that's not what we're looking for. What do we get down here? MTFR one. Okay, so here's another relay and normally open. So what do we looking at? It's will be on another page. So this would be like the call for, for that compressor. So we got compressor switch on if the high pressure switch, which is right here is not open, right?
• 0:28
  So we know that switches from here so that, because this is normally closed, which would go to the compressor o oil relay, low oil relay error a contactor. So if it's switch, and now we go down here, we got power coming across here, and we hit right here. And so now we're energizing the Creon module. So now this is the motor protector, which is right here.
• 0:29
  So, and then we go through and then now we got the free one. So as long as the temperature in that compressor doesn't get over the resistance temperature inside the compressor on the stator, this here is gonna keep powered and energized. And we're gonna go here. And then LTR one, MT one, indicator light compressors running, which is this one here.
• 0:30
  It could be this oil level control when this one is, when this one is energized. When you get this light here, it could, the high pressure control. It could be this one here, potentially. The compressor number one relay.
• 0:31
  Love it. Love it. So that's compressors. Now if we get into case controllers, it's something that you need to take a, a look at too. We're seeing more and more across the industry, electronic valves case controllers. And it's the same thing. It's following the map. Following the map. So once again, we got power coming in.
• 0:32
  You figure it out though after a while. So we, what, what do we have here? We got. We got our black coming down. We go over here to the C, to the C to the C, all the way over here to the valve. Okay, and so this is coming down. This is our black. And then what we have here, normally open, going back out here goes to a reheat contact.
• 0:33
  For an example, this will be a close, normally open. So all of a sudden we need that contactor fan to turn on. So inside it, it knows to turn it on after. You hit a certain temperature if the door is closed, whatever the set points are in there. I think there's actually a door closing one in there. Fans come on.
• 0:34
  You cut it in half, and you put it on one end, one end that it's not touching and it's open. So just, just follow the, the map for the electrical side. Inside these controllers, you do have to understand how they are set up. You gotta get into the manuals on how to program them. But honestly, I've worked with hundreds of technicians all around the world and after they dive into the, the, it's a, it's, it's a fight because I had a fight for it for many years.
• 0:35
  So the green one's, the, I think the 18 edition, I got that back in 2003, 2004 when I first, because that's the first book I had to buy. You gotta buy this big 1800 page book. And we went through different sections in my, in my program. I didn't understand what I was reading about eight years ago. When I'm, I moved, I opened, I opened it up and I seen where I was highlighting all this stuff and circling and writing down even in the electrical section, I started reading.
• 0:36
  You could be working on a package unit. It could be a rack. It could be CO2, it could be a heat pump. It could be a ice machine. It doesn't matter to me. Electricity is the same thing. It's moving flow and it has resistance as it moves. How much can we move? And what I do all the time, and I continue to try to, I guess preach a little bit about it, is when you're going through this, write it down on this, print this off, have it with you and write what's the voltage?
• 0:37
  I used to overwhelm myself when I walk into this big commercial refrigeration room or, or commercial HVAC room, and you see all these VFDs and all this electrical. Is it intimidation? Sure is. But how do you beat intimidation? You beat it by going and doing it and trying it and consistently do it, and you're gonna fail.
• 0:38
  It's good. It's good. Doesn't mean anything to me. It's good. Could be five degrees super. That, that could be really good. It could be 12 degrees super. That could be really good too. It could be 35 degrees. Super. That could be good too. It all depends where you're checking it at and why you're checking it.
• 0:39
  NTC, the resistance starts to drop. Heat it up. You increase temperature, drop resistance. P-T-C-P-T one thousands. So this one's a CPC, this one's a Danfoss example. So all of a sudden you heat it up, that resistance starts to go up. Well, so does the temperature, or sorry, the temperature goes up. So does the resistance.
• 0:40
  That's kind of their midpoint. Depending if it's a 2K, three K, 10 K, 86 k, whatever it is, there's so many different ones out there. You wanna make sure you use the right ones as well. Testing transducers, basically same thing. You're gonna see more and more transducers at their user meter. So right here, we'll go to the, the red and the black.
• 0:41
  I'll have to look it up in the calculator again. I just looked it up before this, but you can go into those calculators and actually look it up. Easiest thing to do is actually get an accurate pressure gauge and check if you can right beside it, but if you can't check, you can do it electrically. To check that.
• 0:42
  Am I sending out that zero to 10 volts properly? Am I, you know, is the 10 volts going out there properly that I'm sending out this analog out signal and walkthrough? Understand when you understand all the components you're working on, electrical troubleshooting gets easier, gets easier.
• 0:43
  So they're gonna go in groups of three and four technicians. They're gonna spend two hours at the site. And what they're gonna do, they get the PNID. So the first step is that they start to go through all the mechanical stuff. And so I got a list of stuff that they need to do, taking pictures using meters and then they go through all the electrical stuff and they got a, a whole assignment that they have to do in the field and they gotta walk through this in a specific amount of time.
• 0:44
  It's a beta test. That's something you're gonna wanna check out. It's gonna be a game changer for sure. And we're fine tuning it now where technicians are actually using it in the field. They're asking you questions to be, or actually your buddy that mentor to help troubleshoot stuff with you, not just give you the answer to help you learn to get better, to grow.
• 0:45
  They haven't solved yet. You know, and, and this is it. This is what we're doing because I know how it was when I was six, seven years in the field, and that's the stuff I put in that academy. The things that, you know, that will really help boost it. And you might, you probably know a lot of the stuff, but it's going, it's effective.
• 0:46
  It's not like you just drive 10 minutes and you get to a site, you drive two or three hours to get to a site. And I've done that countless time. Just like a lot of you out there, you're doing the drug drive, so it's a three hour one way you go, but you're by yourself in your head the whole time you get to a site and it's a disaster.
• 0:47
  So here's the, the Supermarket Academy. So this is just the academy if you are interested in learning about it because this, this is game changing stuff. And then we'll get into I'll send you the bundle as well, good Joby bundle. And if you guys have any questions, please put it in the chat. You know what I mean?
• 0:48
  And honestly, reach out, man. All, any one of you, reach out and we'll have a conversation. See if the program, 'cause I don't want you to come into the program. It's not right for you. 'cause it's not, these programs are are, are game changing. I know that. But it, it does it does cost money depending on where you're at in the world.
• 0:49
  Send me an email, trevor@refrigerationmentor.com. Go to the website and reach out because I'm here to help you. I'll take any more questions in the chat for those who are here live. If you're watching the recording, thank you for watching this. Share this with someone because it's gonna help you.