Unplanned Upgrade

I really should have installed a larger air dryer years ago anyway. I am sure I've been right on the edge of catastrophe many times.

Okay, all I think I feel putting my hand on the compressor in the dryer is heat building up, and the vibration from the fan. I seem to recall I could feel the pump a little more aggressively doing its thing than that. I also didn't feel any temperature differential in the refrigerant lines.

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The fairly inexpensive tool I find most useful for line voltage troubleshooting is a clamp-on ammeter, since it measures through wire insulation and shows if devices are drawing normal, abnormal or no current, which voltage measurement doesn't.

This is a more expensive instrument that gives me almost X-Ray vision:

Going a step further, these plus voltage sensing can detect when something isn't drawing the current it should.

Its not turning, but it is generating heat. I suspect its a candidate for what is generically called compressor burn out. Usually they trip breakers, but not always.

If I really need to run some air I can probably swap in the other HF unit in an hour or less. Probably take me as long to get it down and unboxed as to swap it in. I'd rather wait until the newer bigger unit arrives, but that might be a week. I do have a decent roll around compressor from CH I've had for over 30 years now. My wife and I bought it at Price Club a long time ago. Its adequate for airing up tires, running an impact, or even painting if you stop once in a while to let it catch back up. I recently wired in a new Pumptrol pressure switch and made a new handle for rolling it around. That was what my heating and bending post was about.)

If I can hold out until the new dryer is here I'll probably sell the new in box old HF dryer on the shelf.

Its not turning, but it is generating heat. I suspect its a candidate for what is generically called compressor burn out. Usually they trip breakers, but not always.

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It may be drawing "locked rotor current" which I would (quickly) measure, due to either mechanical binding or failure in the start circuit; relay, capacitor or contacts. On my old Maytag it's around 40A, if the start switch doesn't close. I shut it off, kick the motor until the switch clicks, then it starts normally.

I bought a few inexpensive thermal breakers for car audio that testing showed would open at their rating one time, then the contacts apparently burned and caused the breaker to heat up and trip at lower and lower currents. The AC + DC-rated Carlings I put in my solar battery system open consistently and repeatedly within the specification.

Before the crackdown on Freon I was trained to build industrial refrigeration including brazing tubing, but I didn't have much practical experience before recovery equipment became mandatory.

I learned to service refrigeration from a mail order course my dad took. He learned to fix refrigeration because we lived far from town, and if we didn't fix it ourselves it wouldn't get fixed. My dad had a buddy named Paul Drudge who ran a refrigeration business out of Gila Bend (55 miles away) who would come out, and he taught my dad a lot, but when Paul retired we were on our own. Nobody wanted to drive 68 miles (from Yuma) to service a country grocery store.

My dad was doing all of our refrigeration work when I started reading the course and taking the quizzes book by book. I might have been 12. I think I was 13 or 14 the first time I got down the manifold set and diagnosed the refrigeration unit for or meat display case, and topped it off by myself when my dad was in town on a supply/parts run.

Just so you know if you have a unit that takes R22 or now R410A and a service company says it could be fixed and topped off, but they can't get those refrigerants anymore they are lying. It is not illegal for them to service those units. The price has skyrocketed for the older refrigerants, but it is not illegal to use the existing stock. R12 is about gone, but R22 and definitely R410A stockpiles are still available. They just want to sell you a new system. Yes, new systems might technically be more efficient, but the reality is they also don't work as well. Computer controlled variable speed sounds great on paper, but give me me a simple expansion valve, some motors, and an old Honeywell mercury tilt switch round thermostat any day.

It might be ten grand for a refrigeration company to install a new system, that could be properly repaired for less than one. Oh, and they typically seal up those old units and sell them off to companies in Mexico who repair and install them.

I am NOT a refrigeration tech, but I do have a decent modern analog manifold set, a couple vacuum pumps, and a recovery pump. It is possible to get refrigerant, and "theoretically" if I were to replace a burned out compressor on a 4 or 5 ton AC unit I would buy a recovery tank and pump out the system rather than venting to atmosphere like some DIYers might do. Then I would hand off the tank to a buddy of mine who has the right licenses and let him increase his inventory of tanks by one. "Theoretically," the cost of the tank would just be classed among my consumable costs if I were to do that, "theoretically."

FYI, If you were to, "theoretically," do that yourself remember that modern refrigerants generate acids in a compressor burnout environment, and they need to be disposed of. Not reused. Yes, there are acid neutralizers, but I wouldn't trust them 100% with a new pump. I would use the acid neutralizer oil additive anyway in case I couldn't completely flush the rest of the system, but I would not pump that "burnout" refrigerant back into my repaired system.

My dad had a buddy named Paul Drudge who ran a refrigeration business out of Gila Bend (55 miles away) who would come out, and he taught my dad a lot, but when Paul retired we were on our own. Nobody wanted to drive 68 miles (from Yuma) to service a country grocery store.

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Were you somewhere around Mohawk, Dateland or Kofa?

Paul also got us started in the satellite TV business. Basically my first exposure to communication contracting work. We used to drive to Phoenix, and pick up systems from Echosphere. They had a store in Phoenix, and manufactured dishes in a facility out west of Buckeye.

A couple miles north of Dateland.

Figured you might take out your compass and draw a couple circles. LOL.

Paul also got us started in the satellite TV business. Basically my first exposure to communication contracting work. We used to drive to Phoenix, and pick up systems from Echosphere. They had a store in Phoenix, and manufactured dishes in a facility out west of Buckeye.

My dad had a buddy named Paul Drudge who ran a refrigeration business out of Gila Bend (55 miles away) who would come out, and he taught my dad a lot, but when Paul retired we were on our own. Nobody wanted to drive 68 miles (from Yuma) to service a country grocery store.

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Were you somewhere around Mohawk, Dateland or Kofa?

They could have been trying to make the landing field at Dateland. Just north of the freeway (I8) is that big training base runway I talked about in another post. If its the same plane they were two miles north of the runway when they hit. I wonder if their names are on the monument north of the rail road tracks about 9-10 miles from there.

There is a small pyramid monument in the desert north of the Gila River, and North of the "north line" railroad tracks that has a plaque with the names of soldiers who died training in that area during WWII.

Desert training including aircraft, tank corp, and infantry were conducted in that area. Near the air field just a few hundred feet from Ave 64E going north from I8 is a place we all called "the bunker." It was a wood, concrete and dirt structure used for sighting in the machine guns on airplanes while tied down to the pad in front of the opening.

I was about ready to go ahead and swap in my spare unit when I got an email notification the new 75CFM dryer will be arriving tomorrow.

I wonder if it would be worth my while to plumb in the backup unit inside the machine room for redundancy? It would only be drying already dried air anyway.

Or I could make a rolling service cart for my plasma cutter and put it on the bottom of the cart with the baby plasma on top.

I rarely use the plasma cutter. I usually use one of the OA torches instead. I usually only use the plasma on aluminum when I saw won't do.

After they medically retired Dad from working at Hill AFB in '76 he opened an AC/R repair business . A large part of his business was servicing farm equipment . Often sitting in a field several miles from the nearest highway and frequently a hundred miles from town . There's a LOT of dry wheat acreage in western Box Elder County Utahaha . And you ain't farmin' 4,000 acres on an open tractor in that climate .

When I was still running The Security Consultant I got a referral from the manufacturer to service a burglar alarm system for a country grocery store in Wenden Arizona. It is 128 miles from where my office was at the time. I called them and explained I'd have to charge them mileage. I just couldn't take 2/3 of a day to drive up and back to see them and do what they needed for the cost of a service call. I also explained that if I didn't have whatever they needed I might need to make two trips. I'd be as prepared as I could be, but no promises. Their response was they didn't care as long as I was actually willing to show up and fix it. I fixed it. I wound up doing a handful of various service calls over the years for them. Often if I needed to go to Phoenix for something I'd take 95 to I10 instead of I8 t0 85 and just charge them for the miles off the freeway. They were happy to have somebody who would come out and fix things. I have mixed feelings about it, but I'm kinda glad I never told them I could have fixed almost anything in the store.

I wonder if it would be worth my while to plumb in the backup unit inside the machine room for redundancy? It would only be drying already dried air anyway. Bob La Londe

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You could plumb it in with disconnect fittings such as unions and flex hose and make a straight pipe replacement from the piece cut out to quickly swap in if you need the dryer elsewhere. I did that with a tempering tank in the water heater's feed line and swapped when a weld on the tank began to leak.

It's a Monel (copper+nickel) electric water heater tank with mild steel angle welded on as supports, contamination which apparently saved it from recycling at the scrapyard. Some day I may grind or etch out the rusty steel and TIG the holes with nickel or Nickels.

Dad didn't have your self-restraint . If he saw a problem he could fix he'd let the client know and offer to do the repair . And save the client a charge for another repairman . He had more business than he could handle sometimes .