Airwell - not so cool

[Duffers]

I'm into my third summer with an Airwell/Emailair Ducted GC34RCC (outdoor) and DS35RCF (Indoor) system. Its OK heating in winter (Although the
compressor is very noisy)
First summer - thermal cutouts when it got hot, fried capacitor in the indoor unit fan motor, remote receiver IR receiver component caput.
Replaced failed units and got it working.
Second summer - thermal cutouts, Indoor unit failed. Transformer on STORM2 PCB failed (would you believe it) replaced it with another from
an old cassette player. Got it all working again.
Third summer - thermal cutout - compressor trips when ambient gets above 40. Increased the air flow to the unit which was not great
by raising the roof in the car port where it lives. It's always tripped out previously but I would like to fix it, even if its just
for a few months. Any suggestions? Thus far my thoughts are:
Maybe I need to have the gas charge checked since the cut out may be a high pressure/high temp trip?
Maybe I need to clean the outdoor unit heat exchanger element.
How do I know its calibrated correctly - i.e. it may cut out at 50C for all I know. Maybe I should monitor the temp in the unit whilst running.
ANy suggestions gratefully received.

[shiftykat74]

sounds like you have either too much gas causing a high pressure trip, but that would mean that someone has put gas into it and put too much in. most likely not enough gas. compressors need cold refrigerant vapour coming back down the suction pipe to cool the compressor during operation or it will overheat and cause a fault.

[Duffers]

Thanks, I had the gas checked about two years ago by a an AC maintainer who said it was OK. I didn't see him do it and he was pretty quick to get away and charged me top dollar. Thing is - how common is it for gas to escape? I would have thought if there was a leak the refrigerant gas would all escape pretty quickly and that would be obvious. And isn't it a Montreal Protocol issue to allow R22 to escape anyway?

[shiftykat74]

gas leaks are common, especially on the pipe flare fittings. leaks may be small enough to only leak a few grams of gas a year which isn't much when you consider that a/c units have between 3 - 10 kg's in them depending on capacity. if there is a leak on a system, the repairer must repair the leak before topping up the gas. also the a/c may have always been a bit short of gas from new.it may only be 100 or 200 grams low. not sure where your from but in aus we have a lot of "installers" running around that have got no idea how a/c works. so if your getting it checked make sure they are a fridgie. cheers.