Latest / The Refrigeration Mentor Podcast / Episode 377. Controls, Electrical Troubleshooting and Building Confidence as a Technician

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Episode 377. Controls, Electrical Troubleshooting and Building Confidence as a Technician · The Refrigeration Mentor Podcast

• 0:00
  Trevor: Welcome to the Community Meetup everyone. Super excited to get a conversation going with you today. Here with my good friends Andrew. Eric and rasmus. I, I'll get it. Rasmus. I do apologize. Today we want to dive in, like, like each week diving into some personal development stuff.
• 0:01
  We're gonna get into some electrical. We're gonna get into talking about controls. I have, I've been doing a lot of talks and CO2 controls, electrical wiring diagrams. I've been doing a ton of that, and I, I think it's helping. A lot of technicians are reaching out to me and saying, Hey, Trevor, this has been so helpful.
• 0:02
  If I go across this circuit to switch it? It's so, so important to really understand the load to switch to. We're gonna dive into some controls and electrical, but first I wanna dive into more on that, the, the confidence and competence side. And I'll start with you, Andrew. What are some of the things that you do to help really build your, your confidence and competence when servicing systems?
• 0:03
  I also another thing that I've done is I go out to a system on my own time that I'm already done with work and see what it actually is working when it's working right. So knowing what, when a system's working right is gonna be key to knowing if something's wrong. Order of operations, figuring out the order of operations of that component is gonna help you out too.
• 0:04
  Trevor: Yeah, I totally agree with those. I do a lot of those myself. Because it's important how equipment works and how, how, when you, how you spend the time to learn that specific job or that specific tactic task makes it a huge difference. And putting the reps in. I always say when you put the the reps in, you start to learn it seven to 11 times to really grasp something, to learn it, and that's, a lot of people come into the training and they're like, well, I'd like to learn this.
• 0:05
  That's not really building. It's hard to build competence and confidence when you're doing something only once every 12 months. Eric, how about you? What are some of the things that you really work at and strive for to really build your competence and confidence? When you're out there doing all these big startups, and you've been doing this for decades, but what are some of the things that you do even now, maybe not only in the startup side of it, but really to really help you learning new things potentially?
• 0:06
  Rasmus: Basically the same as what Eric says. Yeah. Don't be afraid to ask all the stupid questions and rely on your competence coworkers or people around you.
• 0:07
  I went to school and they were like remember this, and if you remember this, you can put this on the IT test and then you get the test. Right. But it wasn't teaching me how to actually learn wherever the last five or six years I, I taught myself how to actually learn. And I, I think that's a way better skill than just learning information and then just regurgitating that same information as like thinking outside of the, of the box or being able to paraphrase something in your own words that the way you understand it.
• 0:08
  I guess the latest example that I had was I was working on Isaiah's Technical. I do a lot of work. I love, I love my job, so what can I say? But I was doing floor, floor designs on on a store and it was a floor. Floor plan. And I'm implementing that and putting it onto an E three and on the Connect Plus.
• 0:09
  That's how you learn a lot. And I know this about you because you're going out and you're teaching others and you come and you talk back to me. It's like, did I explain this right? You know what I mean? And then you say, should I explain it in a different way? So you learn, like I've been noticing over the last, the different ways you are learning.
• 0:10
  So if any, if I really need to, to learn something, it's really nice to have, it is like a goalpost for it. Especially, you know, if you do something in, in your personal life, your private life, you, for instance, I'm trying to, to learn myself to program a bit more in, in c plus plus and that's a whole different new world for me, and I'm not used to do that.
• 0:11
  You don't have to be like the professor in it or anything, but you need to have a, a good all round knowledge to be able to communicate that subject to, to, to whomever is, is gonna be. And you need to be able to figure out how to communicate with that person. What level is he on? Right? Because if, if I've tried to teach a, a, a college professor.
• 0:12
  Andrew: I have to agree with the the goal settings. I didn't think of that Eric. That was fantastic. Yeah. Setting yourself goals is gonna be huge and success rate on whatever you're trying to do. Personal or, or work-wise, whatever it may be. So goals, I do that all the time.
• 0:13
  And now you can start reaching out to your peers and say, oh could you explain a little bit more about how this, whatever works? Because you have experience in that, and I, and I, I only have, you know, scratch the surface. Can you explain that to me? And then better yourself that way.
• 0:14
  And if. Trying not to look like a complete fool, but, but now, now we're doing it for some time now and it's getting really comfortable doing this. So it's just rinse and repeat and, and, and, and just yeah. Carry on.
• 0:15
  I'm gonna reach out to Andrew, I'm gonna ask the manufacturer. I'm gonna go and look. Looking in chat e bt or on Google, I'm gonna call a manufacturer support line. You know, all these different things so that I am 100% confident in what I'm explaining. So it doesn't always, you know, you don't always have to be the, the top expert in the world on it.
• 0:16
  Trevor: I can, I can just share you a, a really, really funny picture, but it's really, really nice. It's it's a de Kruger effect during Kruger effect. And it's, it's basically an, an explanation of how you learn things and how your confidence are in things.
• 0:17
  I know a little bit about this subject, but I'm not gonna be, you know, bragging about everything here and, and telling everybody, oh, this is the way, this is the only way because I actually technically doesn't know very much, but I have a good understanding of it. The more you learn then, then it drop down here in the valley of despair in the beginning after this point where you see, okay, now I figure out, I do not know anything at all.
• 0:18
  So, and, and I think all of us working here is somewhere on the slope of enlightenment. Very few are absolutely, you know, guru like in, in, in, in knowledge about what we are doing. We are somewhere here in the slope here, but the dangerous part, this is the first part here, that's where we see a lot of people think they make quick mistakes at the work site because oh yeah, I could just do like, then everything works again.
• 0:19
  Rasmus: My learning curve in CO2 is a bit like this. If you switch out confidence with ambition, like switching from HFCs to CO2, I just want to learn it all.
• 0:20
  But getting stuck on, on the peak, I guess. And that's where you end. That's, that's also dangerous as well. That's a
• 0:21
  I really like that Eric, like, if it's, it's so true. I've seen this time and time again. Sometimes it's just breaking through the barrier of the, the people that are hesitant about it too, Andrew, you know what I mean?
• 0:22
  Speaker: If you're a technician, tired of guessing, getting stuck on jobs and feeling the pressure every day, this is for you. And if you're a service manager or business owner, tired of nonstop phone calls, long troubleshooting times, and callbacks crushing your margin, this is for you too. Refrigeration mentor helps techs go from helper to confidence service technician.
• 0:23
  Andrew: Yeah, so I mean, you got your main power supply coming in. That's going to be 1 22 8, 2 40. Whatever supply, and then what the output is where we're, we're talking about the 24 volt output. However, a center tap actually takes the, the transformer and, and now you get to split it in half. So you get, you get a positive 12 from the center point.
• 0:24
  And, and that's the only way to get it running is having these 12 volts. And the good thing about it is if you just need 24 volts, you're able to do that as well. You're able to just use the only, the 24 volt side of it. So for me I carry at least two of these. And again, I have the center tap as well.
• 0:25
  And then right above it where it says S one, S two, S3, S four, that is what's going to basically with those dip switches, that's what is controlling. So you have to read what, what that says and which one, which number is what programming as far as the board number is one is, is meant for one, so you turn that on.
• 0:26
  Turn the bits you need high or low and 12 in binary, that will be eight plus four. So yeah, that will be your number three. And the no, your number two, no number two, four, number three. And you need to raise to high. And that gives you the, the value of, of 12,
• 0:27
  Trevor: Andrew, Andrew, for the communication, let's talk about that a little bit. Like there's a certain voltage that you need to get across, but I think it's 2.3 when you go from the, the outside.
• 0:28
  Usually CPC is 9,600 but it could be whatever is programmed to, so I'll be aware of that. But yeah, so as long as you got the voltage there, then, then the lights are flashing. I don't, honestly, I don't know the combo with the lights flash. Maybe Eric, you, you know that on those
• 0:29
  If you, if you cross the, the, the send and receive portion, then you're just talking to talking and not talking to listening. Yeah. So that's, it is sensitive. That is, that is a nine out of 10 error is, is the polarity there. So you, you, you're mixing up send and receive. Yeah. And you can also have issues with the cable length.
• 0:30
  So that's something you need to be aware of. And longer distance always use, you know, proper communication, cable shielded, cable twisted pairs. So you avoid that with the right impedance. And yeah, that's the main, that's the main issues.
• 0:31
  If you want it to fail on, you put the switch up. If you want it to fail off, then you turn the switch. Well, I think they come stocked that way is off. So on a fan situation, like Trevor was saying if you lose all communications, we want those fans to stay on. So you're gonna turn those dip switches up and that's going to, if you lose communications to that board, everything's gonna ramp right up running, running a hundred percent on but you on what's sensitive.
• 0:32
  So it all depends on what you're trying to control and what is the better of the evils per se, I guess, on the on what you're trying to control. So that's where you have to really understand what is happening. And, and for me, cases, an example, I want that thing to fail on because I'd rather have that meat drop down in temp versus then increase beverage cases I want to shut off versus to keep it running.
• 0:33
  Trevor: That may also be a part of the, of the, of the shop's risk plan. So they say, okay, I want these cases to fail in a certain way. Okay. Then we can set the jumpers for, for that configuration. Yeah. So it's not only up to you as a technician, it could be a, a company policy. We want this and this configuration in case of a failure.
• 0:34
  Trevor: Yeah, I think that like for analog out, I see them like a zero to 10 vol going to a bli o valve, or a zero to 10 outlay, sometimes to a drive. Or ECM fan motors, like getting that, that output. E Eric.
• 0:35
  Do you, you can do the same thing with this. I know me and Andrew were talking a few weeks ago. Andrew was in a controller and he was like, this is not working. You don't, don't know why. And it actually went into the software and switched one of the relays. Was it, was it it was a digital relay. Looking at Andrew.
• 0:36
  And that is, again, typically the biggest one I see where they do it, where it's programmed wrong. 'cause you they default on is on, off is off, but on unloader we need on is off and off is on. So depending on your application, what you need, that's, that's where that comes in into place. So but yeah, you just go to the input and then, and then change the dynamic, I guess, of it.
• 0:37
  So then again, so it's backwards. So that's where, that's where that came, came into play. And I didn't really think about that with the lights. 'Cause I just, because I had to go there. The, the, it was an, an E two, the programming got scrambled for some reason. I uploaded the the last saved programming to it, and then all, none of the lights work.
• 0:38
  And those should have been, hey, when I tell you to turn on, turn on and, and then turn off for the outside lights. And I didn't put that together when I just saw the lights in the building weren't working. 'cause I was there that during the daytime and yeah. Anyways, so that's how I, how I did that. And so I just went down anything that said lights, but I made that mistake where the outdoor lights actually need to be on when I tell it to be on versus when I don't give a signal.
• 0:39
  No, normally what I, I suggest everything every time is if it's shiny, don't touch it. That's, that's the ground rule. So if it's shiny, don't, don't put your fingers into it because it, it will bite you at some point. But and the second basic rule is if you can, at any, at any way, you can avoid having an energized panel, working on an energized panel, switch everything off and take a lock.
• 0:40
  And if there's any way you can, maybe you can shield an area away so you, you're not judging it, you're, you know, covered up with some non-conductive material. So you cover up maybe this high power section you have here on the left side. If you don't need to work in that area, cover it up with something, whatever you have, it could be just a, just a piece of cardboard could help you.
• 0:41
  What is this? Oh, that's a disconnect for the compressor. What is, this is the contactor. So they actually really do know what it is, but they get overwhelmed. With looking at the whole picture. So for me just breaking down every single component, what they already know is the, is really the game changer.
• 0:42
  And if there is something that you don't know, that's when you take that 15 minutes and learn it, you know snap a photo of something that you come across that you don't know out there in the field. Like, what is this? So I'm gonna snap a photo of it on. When I go home tonight, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take my 15 minutes and I'm gonna learn what this is and what it, what it does.
• 0:43
  You have to, you have to know how to use a meter. But I've been watching, I've said this before, I've been watching some YouTube videos on electrical safety and stuff, and I've seen multiple
• 0:44
  Oh yeah, we have a number of cases. A good thing you say about the meter because you should never trust your meter either. So before you wanna test anything with your meter test that your meter is actually working. So connect it to a known good source, see that you get, get the reading you are expecting and then you can do the, the, the seal vault testing on, on, on your locked off circuit.
• 0:45
  and make sure you are using the right meter for the job because they have different classes of instrument and it depending on, on, on the breakthrough voltage for that instrument. So if you, if you, if you're measuring out a 600 volt system, what is, what is you using? 690 or 680 or something like that, and your meter is only, only, only good for, for 400 volt, then you might have a very unpleasant experience with that meter.
• 0:46
  But then I started buying Fluke. That was the one I used. I used ro, I used a lot of different ones, but I just liked going with Fluke. But I went and I. Tried to use amps going across the circuit, not through the circuit, and blew the fuse in my meter. I didn't know what, you know what I mean? Because I didn't understand how to use, how to test amps properly with leads versus using an amp clamp.
• 0:47
  So like Andrew said, you need to get the overview, overview, use those 10 minutes with the wiring diagram so we don't turn off a valve. That might end up in a, when you have left the. Place and gone home and eating dinner, then the HP switch is tripping or safety valves are blowing or, so you need to understand what you're working on, not just jump jump into it.
• 0:48
  I've had la ladders, blow off roof. I know we're talking about electrical, but just for example, I'm up on the roof and my ladder blows down like that could have hit someone. You know what I mean? Who gave, like, I was upset at the time, I couldn't get off the roof, but it was my own fault. So safety is so, so important and that we're gonna push this in the community consistently because I want you guys to be safe out there.
• 0:49
  And yeah, and, and, and always work safe. You know, slow. Slow is good. In this case, slow is fast because you don't wanna, you don't wanna, you don't wanna break anything just because you need to rush anything or kill yourself or damage some components just because you wanna rush it because you're working on the clock.
• 0:50
  That's where my confidence my understanding just totally increased. And that 15 minutes wasn't really 15 minutes. I'm gonna be honest with you. It ended up turning into probably an hour. Just because I wanted to fully understand. Once you start getting into it, you're like, oh, okay. So then you just asking yourself more questions.
• 0:51
  You know what I mean? That's one of the things that is a step up for yourself. So you get better. So you grow. So you feel confident, you feel confidence in your work that you do and just always strive to be better. I think that's one of the big things. That's what we do. A lot of people in the community, that's why they come to the community.