have we lost the plot?

[worthington]

hi fellow members of the most interesting,invasive,annoying & totally absorbing way to earn a living.i am interested to find out if i am a lone voice crying out in the wilderness.
HAVE WE LOST THE PLOT?
why is the ongoing tendency to computerize and electronically enhance everthing?speaking as a service engineer it does nothing for reliability(i admit it does look pretty),the amount of time we spend changing crappy probes & other electronic goodies
totally loses sight of our previous reputation for reliability.
whenever i rip out one of these electronic marvels,& go back to basics i.e.defrost clock,danfoss tev.etc the reliability factor is increased ten fold.whenever i return to sites where i have done this,the CUSTOMER requests i convert the rest of their equipment!
have the boffins lost sight of the fact that we are in buisiness to provide a reliable service,not to win awards or display how clever we are by spouting off about some obscure effect that only 6 people in the world REALLY understand???

[subzero*psia]

I am with you on that. I love getting equipment that is all jacked up with digital controls... and converting it to simpler electro-mechanical controls. They actually perform work then!

I would agree that low voltage digital control packs have their place... but not for the average joe's out there that won't even read the instruction manual in the first place!

For average user's I can see using digital "accessories" but not control packs. By accessories I mean temperature read-outs and recorders etc.

I've seen too many times where bids are let for wiring an establishment and of course it goes to the lowest bidder. Only 3 wires being pulled for equipment that requires 4 wires and the installers make the connection anyway... etc.... you can kiss the boards good-bye!

[WebRam]

good points.

I know everyone can tall horror stories about probes but here is my thoughts.

I have supervised deep cleans in major supermarkets and one of the tastks would be to change a bunch of probes.

Before the shift would start I would sit down with the 2 engineers and work out the plan for the coming shift. We would allow a cerrtain amount of time for each case and allot a time for each probe.

As we were going through the cases, we would find probe after prode that had been joined inside a case !!! In other words, the service engineer had arrived on the job, Identified a faulty prode and changed the probe, but instead of fitting a complete probe (all the way to the box) they would cut the wires and join them inside the hostile area!! Is it any wonder that we get a fantastic amount of probe failures?

[Abe]

I came across a set of probes the other day inside a freezer room. Probes were "joined" inside the room. Result, frozen solid and covered in a block of ice. System went haywire
I replaced probes with join to the control box made outside of the box.

[Gibson]

Worthington, Consider if you will, the wave toward digitalization of control systems has been slow to start but is rapidly building in the HVAC&R industry.

In the late seventies, Honeywell, Ranco and others introduced stand alone unitary controllers about the same time the programmable room thermostat hit the market.
Since then, everybody and their brothers got into the manufacture of cheap electronic HVAC&R controls.

Over the years, the major control manufacturers in this part of the world have developed their own proprietary systems and most of them have opened service departments. They employ HVAC&R Techs to service the equipment/buildings their control systems are installed in.

They sell control systems to equipment manufacurers, building owners and property managers. They want you to buy their electromechanical replacement components (Honeywell, Johnson/Penn) while they sell their electronics to your customers and compete with you. Would you use one of your immediate competitors as a supplier?

The only way to compete with the major control companies is to beat them at their own game. Learn how to service their electronic controls better than they can. Sell their stuff cheaper as the result of your superior knowlege of HVAC&R systems and how to apply their technology. Obtain as much information as you can, study it and sell the stuff!

There is really good money in energy management and controls, especially when offered as a sideline product to the services you are providing your clients.

The www is a great help in obtaining information from the manufacturers.