Our overseas engineer carried out technical support for a Marbella chiller repair recently. The trip was arranged for him to carry out training for our engineer from The Spanish Office. The site was an exclusive gated community with a fitness suite and a social club…
Marbella Chiller Repair- Plunge Pool
Part of this facility comprises a sauna and a cold water plunge pool. This plunge pool is kept at 8°C with the use of a chiller. The chiller was found to be in fault by the onsite maintenance engineer, so he arranged a Call Out…
Sensor Failure during Marbella Chiller Repair
The fault message was reported to be E1 which suggests the failure of the Water In sensor. The chiller, in the picture, is bespoke with the chilled water pump being located behind the chiller.
Dusty Connection
Pedro, our Spanish engineer is looking pleased with himself in the picture because he noticed a dusty connection. He used our in house chemical, formulated in our laboratory at Head Office, to clear out the dust. This is because our chemical can be used with electrical wiring and terminals. Our overseas engineer is pointing at him in approval as he is pleased that he notices things like this.
Misdiagnosis
A lower skilled engineer would just have changed the sensor. This may have therefore required another visit to site because of the same issue. Customers do not like extra visits and neither do we as we can’t charge for a mis diagnosed fault. We have a high customer retention rate at Maximus Chillers because we have very diligent and thorough engineers. This is just part of what we call the MAXIMUS ADVANTAGE™ Any Chiller- Any Problem- Any Part- Any Refrigerant- Anywhere.
Tighten Wiring during Marbella Chiller Repair
As a matter of course, all of the wiring on the chiller and the compressor terminals were tightened. Some terminals could be tightened a little, but none of them were found to be loose.
0161 237 3727
service@maximuschillers.com
NTC Sensor
The sensors on this chiller are the NTC (Negative Temperature Coefficient) type. That is to say that when the sensors are warmed, the resistance drops. The resistance at the plant room temperature of 25°C was referenced against our chart for that particular sensor. The reading checked out okay, but it could have been that the sensor had an intermittent fault…
Possible Intermittent Fault
An example of this would be a broken wire in the sensor that intermittently disconnects. Should this happen, the sensor would read off the scale and so generate the E1 fault. Therefore, the sensor was changed using our car stock…
Mobile Workshop for Marbella Chiller Repair
This car stock of a range of commonly used parts and materials can often remove the need for a return visit. This saves you- the customer money!
Test Operation
The new sensor resistance checked out against our chart. Also, the temperature reading on the screen of the controller checked out against our calibrated digital thermometer. With the chiller running, the chilled water started coming down to temperature and so it was time to move onto the next phase of the visit…
Site Survey during Marbella Chiller Repair
The rest of the plant is located behind the curved wall at the top of the building in the photo. This plant comprises of…
Swimming Pool Heat Pump
This is a chiller with an air-cooling evaporator and a water cooled condenser. The condenser is the part of the plant being used to heat the pool. The heat energy absorbed from the ambient air and the heat energy added to the refrigerant system from the compressor, warms the water passing through the condenser from the pool. This is a very efficient use of electricity and is becoming more and more popular due to environmental concerns.
0161 370 7193
service@maximuschillers.com
DX Units
All 5 floors of the building are heated and cooled by 2 large DX units which are also located on the roof. The onsite engineer cleans the filters of the fan coil units at periodic intervals and also checks for faults.
Run Testing
These units can be run tested at 100% for 15 minutes to see if there is a refrigerant shortage, or if any of the valves are stuck. This is done by programming the main PCB with push button service settings. The correct setting can be selected by pressing the button, in service mode, a pre determined amount of times.
Check Valves
There are check valves in the DX units which are used for the reverse cycling of the machine. These can become stuck which causes a malfunction to occur.
Reversing Valve
This valve is also known as a 4-way valve and reverses the flow of refrigerant, changing the mode from heating to cooling. This valve can also stick, again causing a malfunction to occur. When this fault occurs, the refrigerant partly goes in the desired direction and also back feeds in the wrong direction. This causes the complete malfunction of the plant. The repair requires the valving off of the system and the swap out of the valve.
EEVs
Each fan coil has an expansion valve which can shut down completely. This removes the need for a separate solenoid valve to stop the refrigerant passing through during an off cycle.
Heat Mode
In this mode, the expansion valve is wide open and so does not restrict the flow of the refrigerant. This is because the heat exchanger in the fan coil is condensing a high pressure, hot, discharge gas into a subcooled liquid.
Cool Mode
In this mode, the expansion valve uses a sensor on the inlet and a sensor on the outlet of the evaporator to regulate the superheat. A low pressure, cold, liquid/ vapour mix is being boiled off in the evaporator and so absorbing the latent heat from the building.
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