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Air Con: $1697 for an on/off switch

blog.hopefullyuseful.com

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Re: Air Con: $1697 for an on/off switch

#51

Post by jamil7 »

Nursie wrote: post #39
cbanek wrote: post #17

This is when smart gets stupid. I'm a bit worried about this with my nest and other smart devices, but even with normal air conditioners there are a few stupid simple problems that will cost you hundreds of dollars! A couple of weeks ago my AC blower fan stopped working, the compressor would run. I went up and found out that the capacitor was bad, and took a picture of it, buying a replacement. Took about 15 minutes…

The great thing about Australia is that that is probably illegal here. We've got some pretty fucked up protectionist rules about what you can and can't do in/to your own home. It's nuts. Now, nobody is actually watching most of the time, so you're usually fine, but it's as stupid as being illegal to replace a tap or existing light fitting. Every so often state governments review the rules and get swamped by trade ass…

Australia is definitely one of the most rule-obsessed countries, even in comparison to Germany, where I’ve lived for the last decade or so. Parts of my parent’s house back home are heritage listed, some rules make sense and some are bizarre, especially regarding the garden.

Re: Air Con: $1697 for an on/off switch

#52

Post by dexterdog »

biggc wrote: post #38
SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I highly recommend people who live in hot environments to keep a spare capacitor on hand. Even if you know how to fix it, if the AC dies when your local HVAC supply store is closed (eg not between 7am-7pm Monday through Saturday usually) you’re either stuck paying out the nose to a contractor who has one on hand during emergency hours or you’re sweating it out waiting for the store to open. While they are readily ava…

How big can these capacitors be? Does replacing it require any safety precautions besides turning off the power?

Turn off the power or pull the local disconnect. Also, short out the capacitor before touching it. You can do that by connecting the terminals with your screwdriver. There are plenty of yt vids explaining the process.

Re: Air Con: $1697 for an on/off switch

#53

Post by cbanek »

biggc wrote: post #38
SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I highly recommend people who live in hot environments to keep a spare capacitor on hand. Even if you know how to fix it, if the AC dies when your local HVAC supply store is closed (eg not between 7am-7pm Monday through Saturday usually) you’re either stuck paying out the nose to a contractor who has one on hand during emergency hours or you’re sweating it out waiting for the store to open. While they are readily ava…

How big can these capacitors be? Does replacing it require any safety precautions besides turning off the power?

it's recommended to give it some time if it's been running and to short across the terminals with something, like a screwdriver that has a non conducting handle. It's nothing too ridiculous.

Re: Air Con: $1697 for an on/off switch

#54

Post by fein »

> Forcing customers to replace an entire system just because the cheapest component failed might be really profitable

Just had to deal with this recently. My gas oven control panel died and one would think to replace the control panel ($300 ish part), but I had my doubts. Pulled everything apart and hooked up a meter to what should be the power coming from the cord, no continuity. Took apart everything on the top two levels of the stovetop to find a thermal switch buried under there that had failed. That thermal switch is forever OOS (was $35 at least for a replacement if you could find one), so I hopped on amazon and bought a 5 pack of microwave thermal safety switches with the same cutoff temps for $6 that fit the push connectors. 10 year old higher end gas oven was fixed for about $1 in parts.

Probably would have been at least $200 from an appliance repair company just for the labor of having to take apart the entire stovetop to get there. Not sure how many people would even bother although it was about $2k new.

Re: Air Con: $1697 for an on/off switch

#55

Post by nehz »

ranebo wrote: post #41
kalleboo wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "PoE"[0] board was also a USB device wired onto the pins for the single USB port on the board. USB is not a multidrop bus - if you directly wire two devices to a single USB port it will not work, you need an active USB hub. [0]quotes because looking at that FTDI chip though my bet is it's actually serial over Cat5...

I think it is some sort of serial comm over cat5. My only concern was getting the thing working again :) But if still interested here is a close up of the chip side of the POE connector: https://blog.hopefullyuseful.com/blog/advantage-air-ezone-ta...

Cheers, I am looking at this for our system but it is still working so I didn't want to mess it up, but was planning for the eventuality... I've been reverse engineering the app, so your post has cleared a few things up for me :)

The plan is to get rid of the tablet and put a Amazon echo hub or HA on a tablet that directly controls the aircon in the future

Re: Air Con: $1697 for an on/off switch

#56

Post by XorNot »

cbanek wrote: post #17

This is when smart gets stupid. I'm a bit worried about this with my nest and other smart devices, but even with normal air conditioners there are a few stupid simple problems that will cost you hundreds of dollars! A couple of weeks ago my AC blower fan stopped working, the compressor would run. I went up and found out that the capacitor was bad, and took a picture of it, buying a replacement. Took about 15 minutes…

The nice thing about my Mitsubishi Heavy Industry units is I've got a bunch of MHI-AC-Ctrl[1] modules tucked into them talking to the service interface with Home Assistant. The neat thing is it doesn't just control it, it also makes all the internal sensors and codes available.

What I think we really need to do though is make publishing these control standards mandatory under right-to-repair laws - no one should need to be reverse engineering them, you bring a product to market you have to provide the complete spec for it's software interface and data.

Do that, and I bet we'd find in a few years every new appliance would support a common serial port standard and come with a code page in the manual for it (ironically the prevalence of Tuya-smart stuff has come very close to making this happen, but they go to absurd lengths to lock you out of the wi-fi microcontrollers).

[1] https://github.com/absalom-muc/MHI-AC-Ctrl

Re: Air Con: $1697 for an on/off switch

#57

Post by girvo »

Lammy wrote: post #23
lelandfe wrote: post #4

> For whatever reason (I suspect some sort of storage failure) everyone’s tablets die around the same time. What a fun, completely coincidental quirk that that time appears to fall outside the warranty window, hey?

Very convenient for them and also easy to accomplish by buying the cheapest parts. It's probably eMMC-based and writing a logfile constantly. Source: every Android that has ever died on me in this exact way (four and counting)

Yep this is nearly guaranteed. Kills so many IoT things, logging the world and eMMC write limits being garbage.

Re: Air Con: $1697 for an on/off switch

#58

Post by bsder »

Nursie wrote: post #15

Well that's getting a bookmark! We had an Advantage Air system installed last year, and the cheap, low-powered nature of the tablet was immediately obvious. Nice to know it can fairly easily be replaced with any old device or phone as and when it craps out.

I would probably replace it now while everything is working.

You know that tablet is cheap and is going to die. Figure out the procedure to replace it with something that doesn't suck before you've lost your heat/air conditioning.

Re: Air Con: $1697 for an on/off switch

#59

Post by thaumasiotes »

lelandfe wrote: post #4

> For whatever reason (I suspect some sort of storage failure) everyone’s tablets die around the same time. What a fun, completely coincidental quirk that that time appears to fall outside the warranty window, hey?

> What a fun, completely coincidental quirk that that time appears to fall outside the warranty window, hey?

Isn't that the point of the warranty? They tell you they think the product will last for X years, and then it lasts about X years, just like they warranted.

Re: Air Con: $1697 for an on/off switch

#60

Post by nick__m »

biggc wrote: post #38
SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I highly recommend people who live in hot environments to keep a spare capacitor on hand. Even if you know how to fix it, if the AC dies when your local HVAC supply store is closed (eg not between 7am-7pm Monday through Saturday usually) you’re either stuck paying out the nose to a contractor who has one on hand during emergency hours or you’re sweating it out waiting for the store to open. While they are readily ava…

How big can these capacitors be? Does replacing it require any safety precautions besides turning off the power?

to be safe short it with a screwdriver (unplug the unit before), unlike a lion battery it won't explode.
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