Yes, exactly! I was just curious as to what was in his refridgeration circuit that would require one. Typically I only see SSRs on resistive loads.
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And now that I take the time to think for a second, youâre right, thatâs not the right tool for most of the jobs on the task list except killing the main power⌠unless I decide to roll a motor controller from first principles. It wouldnât be the first time.
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I wouldnât recommend an SSR for that either Iâm afraid. They tend to leak voltage which can be kind of sketchy for troubleshooting. Theyâre also pretty unnecessary and have lower MTTFd than guided contact contactors
Well, after a week of back and forth, Huber NA turned out to be as helpful as I expected.
After quoting us three different things that were incorrect, they eventually came back with âoops, we donât actually have one of those on the shelf and theyâre EOL, so you are SOL.â
So Iâm sitting down with the electrical schematic and this thread is likely going to turn into âhow to rip out your Polystat CC3 and replace it with off the shelf controls so your huber can actually be a chiller again if the controls toastâ 101 & 201.
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sounds about right i hate to say. for my personal experience Huber has always given me great customer service, even though they do charge quite a bit and push for sending in for service on things i can repair myself.
UNTIL the last couple months. iâve had two units in with them, getting very very spotty communications about them from like 3 diff techs. iâve come to learn theyâre pretty short staffed at the moment, to where their technical director is actually on the floor repairing units too. i think theyâre really trying theyre just stretched really thin on crucial people, so canât keep up with orders, canât keep parts stocked (i imagine covid didnât help that part, supply chains and etc)
definitely here for the solutions being suggested, super interested to see the self-fix process. thanks for sharing
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We had a similar experience. A few of our units lost the ability to heat but wouldnât produce any error code. Huberâs support was friendly and knowledgeable enough, but it dragged on over several weeks. Our representative said that at the time, they were giving higher priority to big pharma, especially vaccine manufacturers. When a tech finally came out to investigate the issue was quickly dismissed as non-warranty and we were left without a solution.
Hi Guys, My name is Cannon with Huber. I can promise we have always tried to make it work. Sorry for the board mounted microchip obsoletion on this unit. We really did globally try to find a board and confirm part numbers. We are just seriously unable to get them anymore. We still keep 9 pin laptops around to talk to any survivors of the 80âs we find. Good luck with the rewire if you need parts you know the email.
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How complete a schematic do you have? Shouldnât be terribly tough to delete the controls and just turn it into an on/off machine. Are the expansion valves electronic or mechanical?
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The schematic is marginal at best, and we were warned that it has a significant chance of being incorrect. Weâve already identified at least a couple of places where that is the case.
And of course, itâs in German. I donât know what Iâd do without online translation services.
Unsure on the expansion valves, Iâll try to figure that out when I start digging into it.
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Canât you just trick the compressor to turn on and just run? Iâm sure you can setup a relay for when it reaches a temperature setpoint you like, unless you want it to just run, and switch it off.
Make sure to put a timer in there too so that the compressor doesnât slug and damage itself if restarted again within a certain timeframe. Much newer Unistats lack this feature, ask me how I know.
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The manufacturer notified you of this deficiency by immediately rectifying the problem before you were even aware of it?
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I think Iâve got a handle on this one now. Managed to select an electrical schematic that appears to be darn close to the thing that weâve got in front of us.
@SidViscous as far as my incompetent eyes can tell, I believe those are mechanical expansion valves?
Here are some 1k word substitutes and a short video showing the guts.
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Yeah so this looks to be your TXV and itâs mechanical:
Is there really only one compressor in that unit? Whatâs the refrigerant? There are a bunch of solenoids that Iâm not sure about their purpose. The only thing you couldnât just jump open would be an oil return solenoid. I donât see vapor/liquid injection on that compressor so you shouldnât need to worry about that (and it would be mechanical as well). Assuming you just want this thing to be as cold as possible all the time, Iâd just say jump the solenoids open and wire a switch to a contactor to power the compressor. Find the existing high pressure cutout switch and wire that in line with the switch for the contactor (a timer relay here thatâs delay-before-make is helpful to keep the system from short cycling if it gets too hot). And hard wire the circulator on. Just make sure you keep load on it otherwise you may freeze your glycol but thatâs usually not much of an issue. If you need actual temp control I can help with that too.
TLDR: remove everything from the controls other than the HPC.
Also, Iâm fairly unimpressed by the construction of this chiller (although maybe itâs just aged). Shitty chinese jet pump for a circulator, nobody brushed the flux off the brazed joints, just seems a little half assed for what was a very âtop of the lineâ unit.
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