Controls

[750 Valve]

Luv your work mark, great suggestion for a separate forum.

Who out there has come across Microm (Guardian) controls? Manufactured in England. I'm interested to know what others opinions are, we are stuck with heaps of sites running both Autograph and Consultant systems and have found newer sites to have high failure rates with case and rack controllers.

[rbartlett]

dodgy english electronics -who ever heard of such a thing?????



http://www.microm-electronics.com/


cheers


richard

[Peter_1]

Who used ever Radord (now Linde) from the UK?
We installed in the past +/- 20 supermarkets with this product.

Ricahrd, I can be wrong but they ar locate in Newburry, isn't it?

We had there contact with Keith and one (Andy?) who left the company for Staeffa or Honeywell?

[750 Valve]

My point exactly marc, poor quality.
The major chains in oz gave them the flick a few years ago on new installs but we're still stuck with hundreds of sites running on it. What do Tesco do when they refurb a site that runs on microm.... I know what I'd like to do to it!
Thought maybe someone might have forked out some cash and integrated its protocol into a new front end program, if I knew anything about programming I'd do it myself, could be a good $$$ spinner.

[750 Valve]

Hey Richard, if you think pomme controls are bad, you should see some of our earlier beginnings in control gear, the only oz company that survived and does quite well in the supermarket industry is Phasefale, have a product called "Presscon" network, Lon based, pretty tidy interface program as well.
www.phasefale.com.au
Anybody used CPC E2 yet? Would want to be better than Einstein... for all its brains, like the rest of us, enjoys a good nap - usually 3am too.

[rbartlett]

Originally posted by Peter_1
Who used ever Radord (now Linde) from the UK?
We installed in the past +/- 20 supermarkets with this product.

Ricahrd, I can be wrong but they ar locate in Newburry, isn't it?

We had there contact with Keith and one (Andy?) who left the company for Staeffa or Honeywell?

yes radford have a big place about 2 miles from my home..

cheers

richard

[Mark]

Hi 750 valve
Microm retro looks and control.Had a few encounters none welcomed im afraid.Not sure when the transition to merge microm and guardian, but have had breakdowns on guardian CMC12L compressor controllers ,relay faults etc .Usually incorporated to take over if pack controller fails.
There are a number of options in the uk on top end monitoring plant, case and coldroom controllers to name a few Elm,CDK,woodley,George Barker,etc .
CDK make a user friendly top end combined with plant,case and coldroom controls ,no thrills easy to use and set up also combined with plantroom and case gas detection can be a early warning system against potential shut down.
Good to hear from you 750 valve
regards mark

[Peter_1]

No one ever worked with Radford?

[WebRam]

we are using RDM and ELM controlers working of a synopsys front end and its a bitch to set up

[WebRam]

just to add, we have it working fine now but had some problems getting the RDM stuff to talk.

I believe that RDM have put a few obstacles in ELMS way LOL

[Peter_1]

Originally posted by markfiddy
Hi peter
Do you mean Radford the case manufactures ?If so they stopped production several years ago (which i expect you are aware of).
regards mark

This is the one

http://www.radford-controls.com/

[rbartlett]

yes that's the one..


cheers

richard

[Mark]

ok peter

Different company .

[chemi-cool]

hi mark,

dont you guys use danfoss?
or the price tag scared you.

chemi

[rbartlett]

both marc and i took a course on the new danfoss supermarket controllers..with so many out there they are all much of a muchness

cheers

richard

[WebRam]

Originally posted by Marc O'Brien
RDM is Scottish, Dez. Carefull what you say

Oh, I know they are Marc I was chatting to their main guy today in Dunfermline

[Mark]

Hi chemi-cool
It is standard to be stocked up with Danfoss spares i have found the failure rate a lot less than rival brands.I would rather fit Danfoss first call ,than go back when the component fails prematurely .
Danfoss is used alot on supermarket installations many of the case manufactures insist on it.
The price in comparison to a re-call ,warrants the original reason for purchase.

regards mark

[Peter_1]

Originally posted by chemi-cool
hi mark,

dont you guys use danfoss?
or the price tag scared you.

chemi

Software of Danfoss is not user friendly (they didn't listen to the techs in the field, they developed a product like they think it should be and not what a tech should do), graphical.. they never heard of it or not comparable to others, you have to read all the values in rows and columns, expensive compared to other also qualitative branches, you need a whole book to set all the parameters for there AKC controllers,

I used in the past Staeffa-Siemens, Eliwell, Dixell, many times Danfoss and Radford,

I compare it for example with Radford (Linde): nice graphics, fast response via the phone when interrogating the system, intuitive set up and environment, very reliable, software can be tailor made (at low prices) for special applications (try this once with Danfoss) for example a spiral freezer with additional probes and special made screens, a completely mix setup of NTC, PT100 en 4-20 mA en 0-10 V inputs, or open/close contacts, good and fast support, fast learning curve, they adapt there product to the actual market needs, every evaporator always has 3 probes (Air in and out and coil which is very useful for determining faults via telemetering), free upgrades from Radford direct into the unit, cold gas or hot gas defrosting standard, all electronic expansion valves are connectible, sending parameters wireless is possible, backup logged parameters for at least 10 years,....

With Danfoss, you need every time a special controller for this.

Even without a special course or books, every tech who can work wit a computer and Windows can work in 15 minutes with the program and set up all the needed parameters...

Hey, I don't earn nothing for this if you may think this.

Reason why Danfoss is used sometimes is not always because they have the best product. Sometimes they lobby a lot, I know this from 1st hand.

Is Maneurop (Danfoss a good product)? Not for me anymore. It changed al ot after they took over Maneurop.

Are their small hermetic compressors a good product? I think they are but they're expensive and there excist also other good products.

[chemi-cool]

I dont get it peter,

you dont have to like danfoss but what have you got against maneurop?

very good and reliable compressors - not the scrolls. I use them most of the time.

chemi

[Peter_1]

Chemi,

I have nothing against Danfoss: we use TEV, SV, Driers, sight glasses, KVP, KVR, from Danfoss... but not their electronics.

On the other hand, we installed some Maneurops 10 - 15 years ago.
After Danfoss took over the company, they changed something in the concept and we often had compressors with severe damage in a short time. It seems that they changed something inside the compressor.

Then you start to look for another machine, Copeland started then also with their scrolls which we then and still used with good result and never came back to Maneurop.
A good friend of me (with whom I worked together 4 years and was before that the technical spokesman of the Belgium Copeland distributor) works now in The Belgium Danfoss head office and he said that they had much more failures with Maneurop then Copeland but this can be due to the techs who install them.

Like yesterday, we had a broken compressor (broken piston or so , took 120 AMP - demand cooling -R22- freezer) which my techs installed 10- 12 years ago.
When they had shut down the service valves and removed the compressor, they saw in the entrance of the body a plastic cap of 1 5/8 " with a schraeder nipple in the center of it!! They must have used this to solder the tube with nitrogen and forgot to remove it. Not to be proud of this. Luckily the client hasn't seen this.

I was a little bit to rude when saying that it's not a good product. I haven't used it anymore for a long time, so it was not quit correct to say this.

[rbartlett]

i believe that they took out the shield that would allow the compressors to run full of liquid..

remember maneurop made a big deal about the liquid slugging thing when they first came on the market..but they now no longer recommend liq charging or slugging.

however as far as tev's, valves, driers etcgoes i like danfoss -

far more than the prof's product :-/

or in fact any of the other american producers

(why does anything america produce seem like it's stuck in a timewarp??)

cheers

richard

[Peter_1]

Especially the design, probably not their good function.
Electrical cupboard wiring is also most of the time old fashion.

[chemi-cool]

well,
I have thet nasty habit of find out WHY they broke down.

so, I cut open every shell of anhermetic over 5 hp.

last one was a copland, broken what ever holds the pitons.

all suctsion valves were fine . the broken part was from ALUMINIUM. I would expect steel.

I guess I will stick to maneurop, good and reliable. not 100%
but 98%. works for me just fine.

chemi

[750 Valve]

At least Im not the only one then, Danfoss TXVs, EPRs and sols **** all over the yankee manufacturer's.
When our customers gave Microm the flick Danfoss replaced them on there specs for rack and case control. Used there gear everywhere now, price is good, so good CPC were selling nothing over here. They just dropped their prices, now we're about to use the new Einstein E2. It's all about $$$.
Danfoss Akcess is really basic, we use AKC55 microprocesser and AKC164 liq pulse case controls, very reliable. They've just gone through a change from the old school US style I/O cards to the Euro style comms modules with snap together connectors to join I/O cards together, bit of fine tuning went on. One good thing, if we whinge enough that they need something extra written into the program then the big boffins over in the US will punch out a new version with the appropriate adjustments. Try doing this with CPC! Microm used to do it for us but the quality is crud.
Also Peter, what front end do you use for the AKC case controllers? Only reason I ask is that the AKC55 has on board graphing, its called History, mind you its better viewed from a PC or laptop.

[Bones]

hehe.. came accross a conatainer the other day which had been retrofitted out with a new dixell controller (first one i have come accross yet). freezer room was slowerly rising in temp, a quick check inside sure enough the coil was turing into a huge lump of ice (been pretty humid here the last few months), my bos said ok... so how do we start defrost? i grabbed the instructions read for a minute and held in the snow flake button i think it was for 5 seconds and viola!

photocopied the programable intructions for a rainy day, kirbys was plugging these controls over here fairly well... anyone else found them easy/hard to get around??

[Mark]

Hi Bones

Was the container in a supermarket Lol

Regards Mark

[chemi-cool]

hi bones,

go to www.dixell.com and download all the instuctions for the controller.

chemi

[Bones]

thanks chemi, loading site up now to see what they have got to say for themselves ;-)

container was at a local wholesale lamb slaughter house... (Mandalong Lamb) they supply the best grain fed lambs in the country... catered for russel crowe's wedding ;-)