York Water cooled solid state starter?

[Dave the Fridge]

Hi all, i have a problem with a York YS model open drive screw chiller with a water cooled solid state starter. I been notified by the client that the chiller has never operated at all since being installed for more than 45 mins. I have resolved the problem with no water cooling the solid state starter, and thus has been running for 3 weeks with no problems. It is now tripping out again on overheat of the starter but the panel is cold. Has anyone found this problem before, i would be most greatful for your ideas and replys as i am heading up to site again on monday night (26/03/07) to check over again.

Regards

[absrbrtek]

The starters are normally reliable. You need to use the York coolant fluid in the cooling circuit and make sure the htex is cleaned when you punch the tubes. Sounds like you may have a bad pump now from the loop running dry.

[Dave the Fridge]

Thanks for the advice, i will check that out when i get back to site tomorrow night. I know the pump was changed by the last company 7 months ago, which looked after this site. I was going to give it a good run again tomorrow and check temperatures etc. I have info on the starters but i need a good play with it i think. Thanks again.

Regards.

[Dave the Fridge]

I have also been thinking that the solid state starter panel needs say panel fans installed to help remove heat etc. I have another York YS Chiller in my area which has panel fans installed. Do you think that could also help?

Regards.

[absrbrtek]

Worked on many York SSS aplications, never seen fans in them on the newer versions.

I have also been thinking that the solid state starter panel needs say panel fans installed to help remove heat etc. I have another York YS Chiller in my area which has panel fans installed. Do you think that could also help?

Regards.

[Dave the Fridge]

Hi,
I have been back to site and have results. Firstly i completely striped down the coolant loop pipework running through the solid state starter and found it completely blocked up solid!! also found inside the solid state itself very blocked up on red / Yellow phase. Again cleaned out and flushed through also replacing the coolant in the loop. Re-connected the coolant circuit and left it running, and so far all looks good. Thanks again for the advice.

Just need to get a ' SSS model' manual.

Regards

[Electrocoolman]

A couple of pennies worth.....not familiar with the solid state starters in question but....

Surely they are only used for STARTING, and should only be generating heat during this phase of control. Once the motor is up to speed, is the starter still generating excessive heat?
I would have thought that if this is the case, then there might be a fault on the unit.

Looking into this further, there are indeed two types of soft starter with different ratings....AC53a is for starters that are NOT bypassed, and AC53b is for starters that are.
Initially I would have thought that the bypass would have been standard...ie. contactor closes after delay once the motor is up to speed.

A test that might be worth doing is to see what the L-L output voltage is and compare with the L-L input voltage. Alternatively, measure the voltage drop across I/P to O/P for each phase. One phase might be different if a SCR is faulty....hence heating up?

Another thought....heat = wasted power.


Heres a link about soft starters worth looking at:
http://www.fairford.co.uk/downloads/fd841404_QFE.pdf
It could be that the starter has 'optimisation' function, hence heat will be generated.