98 degrees upstairs, ac stopped working at 8am.
98 degrees upstairs, ac stopped working at 8am.
Those aren't supposed to be round on top.
120 comments
-
-
What is that?
-
It's a large capacitor. They are used in those big outdoor AC units to kick start the
fancompressor. Being outdoors and subject to large temperature changes and vibrations for years they inevitably fail.https://static.homeguide.com/assets/images/content/homeguide-technician-replacing-ac-capacitor.jpg
-
I'm assuming that it's some sort of component from the air conditioner, but damned if I know what it is. Looks like power plugs on it, and someone else mentioned "caps", so maybe a capacitor, though I wasn't aware that there was some kind of plug standard for large removable capacitors.
kagis
Yeah, this capacitor looks similar.
EDIT: Apparently air conditioners can use large capacitors:
https://www.amazon.com/Capacitor-Conditioner-Multi-Purpose-Capacitor-5-Warranty/dp/B092ZQ3Y3N
Capacitor for Air Conditioner 5 uf MFD 370 or 440 Volt VAC, Multi-Purpose Round Capacitor for AC Motor Run or Fan Motor Start or Condenser Straight
EDIT2: Oh, I bet I know what it's for, given the "Fan Motor Start" and what I assume is a misspelled "Condenser Start" text on the Amazon listing. Some hardware will draw a lot of juice when starting up. Laser printers are prone to this, for example. The references above are to mechanical things, moving components, and maybe one need extra power to overcome static friction, to get the parts in motion initially; once moving, they face (lesser) kinetic friction. One option is to just draw a ton of power from the line, but then that increases the peak power demands of a device. Another option, gentler on whatever circuit or external power source is providing the power, is to charge a capacitor for a bit and that'll let you create a big surge of available power for a moment without having to have higher peak demands on the external power source. Adds to device cost, but limits its peak draw.
-
Not quite- these motor capacitors provide a phase shift for a second set of windings. Without it, the motor will just hum and not rotate.
You are describing bulk or filter capacitors that go from supply to common on a DC circuit, parallel to the load. These motor caps are on AC and in series with the load.
-
-
-
At last it's an inexpensive and easy fix. Just buy another capacitor with the same specs and swap them out. Better yet, buy two! Keep one as a backup.
-
Don't buy an electrolytic capacitor as back up and store then over a long time. They will degrade and will be bad when you finally need them.
MKP/MKT capacitors are an exception since they don't degrade the same.
-
Eh, they do age but a spare capacitor sitting in a likely climate controlled building and not being used isn't going to age nearly as quickly as the one in use likely in the outdoors. Will it be as good as a brand new one? No. But it will be damn near as good and it will be on hand when you need it.
At the same time though, if a motor kills start components often enough that you need to keep a spare on hand then there is something wrong with that motor or your power source.
-
-
If there are other start components then those should also be swapped. One component failing can weaken the others, especially the start relay.
-
-
As much as that sucks, you clearly already know the fix and are working on it. Grats to you for having the skills bro. Please work safe, 2 phase electricity doesn't play around.
-
What am I looking at?
-
Motor capacitor for an A/C compressor. A $15 part that a service company is going to charge $400 for a guy missing most of his teeth to replace in 2 minutes.
-
When I used to fix cars for a dealership we would sometimes have the service advisor ask us to do work for free. "Come on, it'll just take you ten minutes!"
I'd tell them that they can do it themselves if it only takes ten minutes. "But I don't know how to do that!"
You're not just paying for the part, you're paying for the knowledge, time, and tools of the technician.
-
for a guy missing most of his teeth to replace in 2 minutes
A good reminder to not test unknown capacitors with the tip of your tongue.
-
It's going to depend on the area, but it shouldn't cost quite that much for residential work. Hell, I'm a commercial refrigeration/hvac mechanic and my bill would still be less for that repair. You actually made me curious so I priced it out. TLDR if you don't want to read below it comes out to $310 before taxes. So unless you're in a stupidly expensive area your price should be under that for this repair from a residential HVAC tech. My best guess is that it would cost about $250 in my somewhat low cost of living area if done properly by a residential tech.
Price breakdown-
We upcharge a bit on parts depending on their cost (cheaper parts are upcharged more) but we also get a discounted price from the supply house so the actual upcharge amount is a bit weird to calculate. We do have one of these caps in our system (its 440V instead but oversizing doesn't hurt) and our unit price (markup included) on it is $25. If this system has other start components then you would want to change those as well but I don't know what this system looks like so I'm going to assume that only this cap is needed. Depending on the distance from the shop we charge a one time truck charge. However the main reason we have variable truck charges is because we're more specialized and some of our customers are over 200 miles from our shop. Odds are for residential work you'd be working with a local company and for local work we charge our minimum truck charge of $45. If this was durring business hours then we charge $120 per hour. Afterhours rates are much higher of course but usually nobody is calling a tech afterhours to work on residential AC. Drive times to and from the site are included in the billed hours.
As far as time required a quick cap swap could easily be within our 1 hour minimum depending on drive time to the site but with this situation I would guess 2 hours may be more likely for reasons I'm about to explain. The cap is obviously bulged so any tech worth their salt would pinpoint it immediately. Of course any tech worth their salt is also going to check out the other components to ensure that there isn't a reason the cap blew. That means checking contactors, compressor windings, and ither caps. Once the new cap is installed that also means checking running amps and inrush current. While you're at it you'll want to at least check refrigerant line temps because that'll give you a rough read on the system charge and state of the coils. For this unit I wouldn't be hooking gauges up unless something was off with the temps and couldn't be easily explained. It's also just a good idea to watch the system run for a bit and make sure it cycles on/off correctly to make sure it's not short cycling or something. With all that you could be looking at an hour onsite. Depending on the system and the delays you can't really shave that down much if the tech is going to be able to see the unit run. If you cut out watching the system run basically entirely you can shave 30min off that but that's also a sure fire way to get a callback for something you didn't catch. The bigger issue though is that this is a dual value cap. It isn't going to be standard van stock and until the tech gets onsite they won't know what cap they need. So you're looking at that tech also having to make a trip back to the shop to pick up the correct cap. I carry universal caps in my van but those are much more expensive so they're really only for emergency repairs or to temporarily run a system if we need to order a specific cap. So if we assume 15min from the shop to the customer and the tech has to make that trip 4 times (out to customer, back to get part, back to customer, and back to shop when done) then were looking at an hour just in drive time.
So in total we have 2 hours of $120 per hour labor + $45 truck charge + $25 part = $310 plus relevant taxes.
-
I used to work as an ac parts coordinator in a very affluent area. I know what they cost and those bills these people were paying were disgusting!
-
-
-
Once you po you can’t stop
-
Once you pop you can't
stopstart
-
-
Yep, if your condenser unit outside just won't turn on it's always a good idea to check this capacitor. I think it was just last year that I replaced the one in my unit installed in 2015. I went through a few capacitors with the ancient system before that!
-
Everyone should get awnings instead of bruteforcing the heat away. The insulation in your walls works both ways: it doesn't let heat out in the winter and inside in the summer. However, the sun's radiation passes through windows without much holding it back (without awnings or external curtains) and directly heats your home from the inside. So your house is basically a greenhouse when there's nothing covering your windows.
-
Happy cake day.
My HOA would not approve of awnings.
We do have the latest version of low-E Windows. They're shockingly effective.
I really want to get motorized blinds, and motorized forced air vents, as it sits now, we more or less just leave all the windows covered. Given it's not as effective from the inside, But even reducing the direct IR mission makes a big difference.
-
-
This is me, today. House is 88 F. Service won't arrive until Monday.
-
Last year mine conked out during a 100+° day. I tried everything! I'm talking cold(ground was still hot so it was actually a cool shower) then frozen water bottles in my pits, crotch, and neck. I ended up going to a cheap motel for the night and discover my door knob was actually hotter inside than out.
-
Yeah, I identify with this. Outside is cooler than inside. I would do a motel but 3 dogs is a no-go for places near me. They won't stay outside either, silly things want to be inside with me.
-
-
-
Yea, always keep spares of caps
-
And be grateful it's not something so much more expensive to fix!
-
-
Good luck? I would just go to a convenience store and spend my there if this happened to me... also like 38c(~100f) right now here
-
Im sure OP knows what they are doing here but for those that don't, be careful with capacitors. Especially larger ones like these and bigger as they can hold quite a charge for some time after being unplugged. I personally watched someone shock the shit out of themselves with this exact type of AC capacitors. They were showing someone corrosion on the terminals, bridged the connection and ended up putting his arm through a wall from the jolt.
-
Yeah, they're not to be trifled with. If the one I pulled out was actually capable of still holding voltage, it would have been more of a worry.
It's all normal electrical safety, Trip the breaker, pull the shut off at the disconnect by the condenser outside, take a picture of the wiring on the cap, ground each terminal with a screwdriver, pull the wires off with insulated pliers. Replace the cap, put the wires back where they belong. Reconnect the disconnect, turn the breaker back on, use the thermostat to call for cooling.
It would be good form to replace the contactor If you have one, but they're a little harder to find and it's not usually necessary.
-
-
Until you can fix it, open the windows, curtains and blinds at night and shut them during the day.
-
For an european that sounds unbearable, but i have to translate to celcius
-
At 98.6 it would be the same temperature in my anus as it is in my air.
-
About 37
-
-
Have you tried unplugging it and plugging it back in?
-
Looking at the power draw from 8am to 1pm, it did that itself every 5 minutes.
replaced the cap, it's chill now.
-
That's pretty cool.
-
-
-
This was me on Sunday... And then also on Monday after replacing the cap and then realizing that the fan motor was janky (which might be what caused the cap to fail)
-
realizing that the fan motor was janky (which might be what caused the cap to fail)
Yep, that is often the case. I'm a hvac/refrigeration tech and I'd say about 20% of the time I have to replace start components, it's because the motor in question is starting to fail.
-
-
When you go upstairs do you constantly hear “Give Me Just One Night” or something in the background?
-
I do but unfortunately the announcer just keeps talking right up to the post.
-
-
-
mine went out in July in Phoenix, AZ. The 3rd closest Ace had 1 in stock for my unit.
-
Well there's your problem right there!
-
It was! Came right back!
-
-
I've seen so many HVAC repair trucks on the roads this week.
-
As a refrigeration/HVAC guy, the past couple months have been hell. Most of our crew has been working over 60 hours a week for two months straight and we still aren't even close to keeping up. We're having to heavily triage calls. Hell, I just finally got dispatched to a prison the other day where aparently a whole cell block had been mostly without AC for an entire week. Normally a call like that would get someone dispatched same day but we just don't have the people. I work with guys that have been doing this for decades and even they say that the current volume of tickets is unprecedented.
-
-
Is that a Dell. Lol.
-
Rofl, might as well be. Was just hope after I replace it It doesn't swell again just like dell.
-
-
My 20 year old AC breaks once a year, at this point it's the ship of theseus. One year it's the capacitor on condensor, then condensor fan motor, then fan motor that circulates air instead, then circuit board that controls all HVAC functions, then capacitor for circulation fan. Every year, when the heat hits strong, something breaks, I have become proficient in diagnosting HVAC system at this point.
-
A quick tip if you want to minimize the number of repairs. If a motor dies, replace all the start components as well. The old ones might be fully functional and even test good but when the motor quit it likely weakened them. Similarly, if one start component fails then just replace all of them for the same reason. A failing start cap or run cap can really beat up the start relay so even if it works temporarily, it will often fail later. Also if you notice that you keep having to replace start components for a particular motor then that motorcis starting to fail. We see that all the time with compressors in particular. A hard start kit can help in that case but it shouldn't be considered a fix.
-
The breakages happen a year apart when the summer heat gets bad, if we were going to replace a lot of components at once, at that point we could have just got a new system entirely as this one is really old
-
-
I feel so dumb sitting here thinking you were talking about the connections. Like yeah they're supposed to be round for ease of insertion. But also could tell something was off cause they usually point in parallel directions. Then I noticed the black dome they are attached to.
Please bring this to a proper site for disposal, that thing is like a flaming poison bomb at this point.
120 comments
36.5°c for people who use sane units ;)
I hate were i live, it's our coldest time in the year and tomorrow's high is 32.
36 is normal during the hot time of year along with massive humidity too
As much as I like the metric system, temperature in the world is the one place where I prefer Fahrenheit. Having to care about decimal points on a thermostat just seems like trying too hard. "Oh honey, could you turn the thermostat down to 21.1C?"
You know that 100 is hot as balls. You know 0 is cold AF. 0C is 32F. That's not really that cold, I'm shoveling snow in a t-shirt. 0F is really that cold. It is almost more akin to a percent of comfort scale than a measurement of temperature.
It is an interesting thought experiment though, as anyone using a given measurement scale gets used to it over time. I've been doing dual for a while to better intuit fuzzy translations in my head without having to run a formula every time.
Just an opinion of course, and not trying to have some flagrant discussion. I'd gladly switch to Celsius if we ever finally left Freedom Units. Thus far, the only places you see it in the US is in science, medical, and pop companies selling 16.9fl oz (just shy of 500ml) beverages instead of 20, so they can milk their bubble sugar water for all the profits.
No one calls out decimals in Celsius. Unless you are measuring your kids fever. 38.1 vs 38.5 vs 38.9 you know that it's time to ready the metamizole if it keeps creeping up like that
0°C is the frost point of water. If you know it will dip below that during the night, you can prepare your plants, driveway, kids (I'm sorry my love summer is over), pets, clothes, etc the day prior.
-40° is -40° though, doesn't matter if it's F or C. The best part of both scales.
Copying this post I made elsewhere recently:
I used to say this. But being a curious person, and one willing to test my own hypothesis, I decided to learn Celsius. Like, spend enough time with it to intuitively understand it, so that I could compare the two.
Almost six years later, I haven’t switched back. I much prefer Celsius for weather. Having 0° at freezing is far more useful than I suspected it would be, and having less granular degrees gives them more meaning, which makes understanding them easier.
Seriously, I struggle to express just how useful below-freezing temperatures being negative is. -5°C means so much more to me than 23°F, and that’s after thirty years of using Fahrenheit and only six of using Celsius.
Edit: this isn’t to discount what you’re saying, just to offer my own opinion on the matter. Having experienced both, I much prefer Celsius. But obviously everyone will have their own opinions.
I often hear americans (even scientists) say that they prefer the Fahrenheit scale for weather forecasts, but I believe the perceived higher accuracy is an illusion. Forecasts aren't that accurate for any given micro climate.
For example, I don't care if my weather forecast says 26°C or 28°C, I know it's "short sleeves" weather and when I look at a few graphs at the end of the day, it's been 25.6°C two meters above ground 100 meters south of me and 27.3°C in the garden, but only for 5 minutes etc.
Nah, I agree 100%. Celsius is wonderful for computers and science, but the human-tolerable range is far too small. Fahrenheit is a human-based scale, with 0-100 basically corresponding to a percentage of how much heat a person is able to/forced to hold onto. At 0, you’re not really able to hold onto any heat; you quickly reach hypothermia. At 100, you’re forced to keep nearly all of your heat, and are only able to vent trace amounts; you quickly reach hyperthermia.
It turns out, people function best when they’re keeping 40-70% of their heat (depending on how they’re acclimatized, which is determined by how much brown fat they have), so those are the temperatures that are most comfortable for us.
Thank you! 😃
Imagine having to use a decimal to account for a lower resolution measurement.
I’m team metric for everything but temperature when relating to human environments.
Imagine replying to a comment 36 hours after the fact and not even having a cursory look at the comment chain to see what else has been said.
We don't use decimals in everyday life, you don't need to.
You do realize the reason fahrenheit is set up that way, is based on the human perception of temperature. 0-100 is the general range or cold to hot. Of course some inhabited areas end up outside that range a bit, because humans are adaptable but generally speaking it allows for far more graduation in every day real world scenarios. Metric is good for science, but not ideal for casual everyday usage of hot and cold.
Your body doesn't really care what the boiling point or freezing point of water is. But you should and generally do need to preemptively plan for environments outside the fahrenheit scale.
That is not why fahrenheit works the way it does. This is something Americans have appropriated as a silly and poor excuse for using it. "cold" and "hot" are completely arbitrary and subjective terms, and the 0-100 range is as arbitrary.
That will come as a surprise to the billions of people using it every day for exactly that purpose. You are projecting your own ignorance over billions of people, because you yourself have no idea how it works.
Yes it does.
No, the human perception of temperature thing is a myth. Originally 0F is the freezing temperature of a brine solution, and 90F was Fahrenheit's estimation on the average human body temperature, and then the scale was adjusted so that it fit in better with Celsius reference points (freezing/boiling points of water).
Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit
You do realize that Celsius is set up based on known, objective, & measurable data points instead of subjective things like "hot" and "cold".
The 9 and 100 in F is a completely random range, where 0 is a random solution freezing point and 100 was an estimation. Tell me how it's better than C, tied to water, the main stuff we all need to live in this planet and probably also for aliens in other planets.
I personally would use Kelvin for science, Celsius is much more useful for everyday things like whether it will rain or snow, whether the paths will be icy, how hot it will be according to the weather report and how hot to make stuff when boiling water or cooking. Kelvin is great for not having negative temperatures which don't make sense.
If that was true, then we wouldn't see people bitching about the cold while I'm out in a t-shirt and jeans in 50°F weather. Seems fucking stupid to base a measurement system on something so subjective.