Another A/C problem

Dear experts,

The technician had a look and found out that " the starting relay and starting capacitors are burnt and the running capacitor is faulty". He is charging me 450 dollars for the repair. Is this something within the range?

See pics below

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Thanks
 
Since you have been messing with it for a while I would say suck it up and enjoy your cold air. Sometimes ya gotta pay. A boat with no air sucks. Mine went out 5 years ago it was leaking Freon. That afternoon I went and bought a new unit with more BTU's. 1900.00 or so. I had to suck it up but im cool. In FL you need it.
 
Never saw a control box that looked quite like that one. WTF happened in there?
The parts are very inexpensive - you're paying for the labor and profit margin. Total for the parts he's going to replace is probably less than $100. (If he didn't clean-up that mess before finishing-up the job, you have a really lazy technician.)
 
I find it hard to believe that the blower motor, which is driven though a SCR/Triac would draw enough power to throw the breaker. If the unit has a digital control panel, it might show an error code.

I'd recommend monitoring two things, checking the current draw of the air conditioning unit and the voltage at the unit. I'm guessing you probably have a low voltage condition. When the supply voltage is low, the unit has to draw more current to operate. (Ohm's law.) Therefore, I'd go hunting for a low voltage condition. If I were to guess I'd look at your shore power connectors. Perhaps the cord set plugs are loose and not conducting properly. After the unit is operating for a while, is the dockside or boat side connector hot? If so, you probably need a new cord. Also check the power inlet wiring is clean and tight with no corrosion. Then check that the wiring in the A.C. distribution panel is all clean and tight. Finally, check that the wiring connection to the A/C is clean and tight.

I think you're going to find a wiring problem.
 
I think your talking about $100 worth of parts and misc. electrical. If he spent 2-1/2 - 3 hours making the repair then it sounds spot on. Keep in mind that in pretty short order the technician corrected a problem that we have been talking about for a couple of weeks. I would be OK with it if it was something outside my ability to solve in a reasonable amount of time.


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My thoughts about the control box parallel others. If that's an "after" pix...tell the tech to GET THAT CRAP OUT OF THERE!!! Don't mess in his space. He may blow it back on you in a NY minute.

Beyond that, The price is only good if the fix works. Otherwise........ Make sure there is a guarantee.
 
I'll bet the crap you are looking at is the guts out of a major capacitor meltdown prior to the repair. I've never seen all the paper, but the black tar like substance is pretty common on capacitor failures.


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Good thoughts guys.

The repair hasn't been done yet; I asked them for guarantee, potential discount and an explanation of what seems to be a nest. The boat will be off waters for awhile since I now have an issue with the out-drive (investigation in progress!!) but I hope to have the A/C issue sorted this week!!
 
One other small idea to think about once you get this problem resolved. Get your tech guy (or an electrician friend) to install something like one of these near the unit.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/100A-AC-Dig...478083?hash=item2a52205903:g:nHoAAOSwBLlVcXa2

I suspect you have might have an electrical power issue somewhere possibly coming into the boat from the dock (or in the boat itself). You have no real way of knowing what is going on with the electric going into the AC unit without some type of monitor. Using a meter would be time consuming and would take time to set-up. This would let you and your technician have real-time data to work with when the unit is running, and right before it shuts down.
 
Success!!! The AC is now working...

For those of you who said that it was electrical, you were right..... for those of you who said it was the pump, you were right as well.

To make the long story long, the technician replaced the electric parts ( starting relay and capacitors) but still no AC; then he found out that the raw sea water pump motor temperature was a bit high so he asked me to order a new pump/motor at a cost of 600 dollars!!!. It is when I decide to track the problem down and make my own analysis.

I bought a multimeter that gave me also temperature and off I went to the boat to do my study. I tracked amps versus temperature versus time on both pump motor and blower motor ( I still had my doubts about the high temperature on the latter). See the pic below:

IMG_2394.jpg

As you can see the current in AMPS is steady so that wasn't the problem, but looking at the temperature, at 55 deg C ( 131F) on the water pump the system shut down. I dismounted the pump and cleaned the cooling coil by blowing through it; it was blocked!!! I flushed it with water, re-installed it and re-started it again (the horizontal lines show the second run after the pipe was cleaned). Now the temperature at the pump motor was a steady 42 deg C. The AC now works between the min and max setting temps (85 and 87 F).

As for the blower motor, the temperature reaches a level of 83 C (180 F) and stays there. To me is high, but the good thing is that it doesn't smell burnt so it should be OK, though the amps on the plate says 2.9 and I get 3.5.

IMG_2365 (1)plate.jpg

Can I ask a good Samaritan out there to check the temperature of the blower of your unit? My AC is a 9,000 BTU unit working at 120 V.

So, my activity for tomorrow.... phone the technician and tell him....Hey!!! before you ask a customer to buy a new part, you need to explore all potential solutions!!!
 
You checked the amps but didn't check the voltage?? What is your voltage going to the fan? High current draw and warm motor can be indicators of low voltage...Ohm's Law again
 
Good news and that potential raw water pump price is a little high....


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$371 on Amazon​



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dlvwill said:
You checked the amps but didn't check the voltage?? What is your voltage going to the fan? High current draw and warm motor can be indicators of low voltage...Ohm's Law again
Click to expand...

Sorry.... forgot to mention: voltage on the control panel: 125; volts on the blower motor: 117.

Is this an issue? The motor seems to be happy working that hot!!
 
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