AC question

It was the cap ...

(...)

So fuse holders are there to protect the fuses, eh?

Glad you found it. One RCM attaboy.

--Winston

I had help , talked to an AC guy that the property management company I sometimes work for uses . I didn't know it , but a bad cap can do in a fuse . Breaker would more than likely have tripped from the heat , I was told . But they got cool now , and they are happy .

See my response to Winston .

Remember, I had the same problem (almost) and it too was the cap. The top bulged a bit to automatically disconnect and save the fan motors. I bet you feel good about THAT!

Not as good as my son does ! He's decided to bite the bullet and have a breaker box installed , get rid of the fuses . The fact that his stove is disconnected might have something to do with that ... I moved the AC supply wires over to the stove fuse , ain't no way I'd trust the one it was hooked to . I'd do the install myself , but insurance companies get real funny about non-licensed electricians doing that sort of thing . I'll be going over tomorrow to check the refrigerant charge , see if we need to have it serviced by a "licensed professional" . When I left the low side line was quite warm , but then the temps inside were in the high 90's . We'll see where it's at when it's had time to stabilize a bit .

Actually -- it could. Based on when my compressor cap went bad, what happens is that the motor tries to start, but keeps drawing current until the overheat switch in the compressor opens. It recloses after a certain number of minutes (IIRC, it was about ten minutes or so.) I don't know how long it took to reach that point, but after everything was hot, it took about 15-20 seconds for the overheat switch to open each time. The lights dimmed each time it came on, and brightened when it opened again, which says a lot of current was being drawn.

This is a lot more current -- and for a lot longer -- than the normal starting surge. So it will heat the fuse clips enough to eventually cook off the fuse itself.

Replace the cap -- note that it is a *run* cap, not a starting cap. A starting cap will blow up very quickly in this service.

Mine had two caps in a single package -- something like 45 uF for the compressor cap, and 15 uF for the fan cap. It happened to open at the common ground, so I missed it when trying to measure it in place by disconnecting only one side at a time.

Of course -- air conditioners don't fail (or don't get noticed to fail) when the temperature is other than record high. I've been there too many times.

Good Luck, DoN.

As far as my two bits, this is one of the times that you want to call the pros, unless you already are one.

When a fuse blows, especially something like the AC to an A/C (heh), you first must fix what blew the fuse in the first place. If the socket overheated, then there's some other problem, but I'd still call for a pro.

Good Luck! Richh

And exactly what is wrong with my punctuation and English usage ? I consider my usage of the language to be a cut above most people I know , and am a bit peeved that you think you need to comment .

Feelin' a bit pissy tonight are we ? The response to Winston was that I DID have help in diagnosing the problem .

OK , so you don't like the fact that I put a space between the word and the punctuation . Oh well , learn to deal with it . Been doing it this way for years , and I'll KEEP doing it . If you don't like the way I punctuate , killfile me . -- Snag Learning keeps you young !

Prideful ? PRIDEFUL ?? Bwahahahahahahaha , can't stop laughin' . FYI , I also have a college education , and my wife's a teacher . So there !

(S. M. added lots of bracketed punctuati>>

(big snip)

In reading your posts, I hadn't noticed your punctuation spacing problem until S.M. mentioned it. Don't know how I had overlooked it all these years, it's so glaringly obvious. The first step toward fixing a problem like this is to admit you have a problem. All those extra spaces take time to type, so in the long run you can save yourself time by leaving them out. Also, they make your text harder to read. In a public medium like Usenet, where dozens of people read each post, it is the responsibility of each writer to make his or her post readable. The notion that other people should have to deal with your spacing problem, instead of you fixing it, e.g. by getting a new keyboard or learning how to fix what's broke, is nonsense.

(On a different topic -- if the line before your sig consists exactly of the three characters dash, dash, space, then good newsreader software will recognize the sig lines as such, and automatically not quote them in replies, thus resulting in cleaner and more-easily-read threads.)

Holy cow. Now everyone's an editor.

If you didn't notice it for "all these years," then where is the problem? This isn't Mrs. Stingybottom's English class, and it surprises me how well the language is handled by the great majority of posters here. It doesn't appear that Snag is hampering anyone's reading by adding an extra space in punctuation.

Besides, all of us, myself included, mishandle a common one -- the pair of "m" dashes, as in this phrase (the second of the pair disappearing in this case because it ends a sentence). There should be no space before or after the double-hyphen proxy--like this.

But who cares?

James Waldby wrote: Nothing I really care to repeat .

"Them that can , do . Them that can't , critic ."

Jimmy , if you "didn't notice it" for all this time , where's the problem ? As I told Pissy Chrissy , if you don't like the way I punctuate , killfile me . In over 13 years of posting to usenet , email lists , etc. you are exactly the second person to comment on it . Ain't nobody forcin' you to read it ...

No problem, I can repost it for you:

Seems to me you have your sense of humor turned off at the moment. Apparently you didn't see that the comment about the problem being glaringly obvious, in the context of your exaggerated-spacing post, is facetious. Likewise the sentence after that, and the comment about getting a new keyboard. Ok?

Sorry, Jim, it was too subtle for me, too. I'm used to something closer to slapstick. d8-)

No problem. I suppose the few serious sentences mixed in with the facetious ones might have been misleading. But I was sure that the phrase "dozens of people read each post" would be a dead giveaway, as we are all so used to seeing claims like "thousands of people read each post". Anyway, YABT!

Sorry 'bout that James , I'm not in top form right now . Fighting a bitch of a summer cold , and living up to my G-kids sometimes-nickname of Grumpaw .