N8N wrote:

On Oct 27, 1:19 pm, Doug McLaren wrote:

So, last week, we found that the air conditioner wasn't working. The
inside blower was working, but it was blowing room-temperature air.

I tracked the problem down to the big (50 A) circuit breaker being
blown. I switched it back, and it immediately blew again (well, in
about a second) and I heard a noise from the outside A/C unit (on the
other side of the house, so I couldn't see it.)

So I got my wife to do the circuit breaker again while I was watching
the outside unit. The motor glowed or sparked or something -- light
came out. I wasn't that close, so I'm not sure exactly which. I'm
also note sure what the fan did.

It was raining, so I left things off, went inside.

I came back out the next day, sunny skies, and tried it again, this
time being close to the unit so I could see exactly what happened.
And it started up fine, no problems. Turning it off again, I saw that
the fan spun pretty freely -- it doesn't seem to have problems with
the bearings (as I've had in other appliances.)

So now it seems fine. But I'm reluctant to actually turn it on. Yes,
the circuit breakers will protect me from future problems, but I don't
like relying on it.

I'm not much of a handyman, but I could replace the motor and/or
condensor easily enough -- it's easily accessible. And of course I'll
have everything off and the circuit breaker off if I try. This is
about 10 years old, and living in Texas, it gets a lot of use.

But should I? Or should I just check that water isn't getting in
somewhere?

--
Doug McLaren,


If it coughs when raining and works when dry, I would definitely
suspect a water intrusion issue. However you may want to have an HVAC
guy look at it anyway - a 50A, 240VAC circuit can knock you back a bit
if you're not careful. Depends on your comfort level working with
this stuff.

Rather that "comfort level" it might have been better to write
"knowledge and experience".

Fools rush in where......

Jeff

--
Jeffry Wisnia
(W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE)
The speed of light is 1.8*10e12 furlongs per fortnight.