Amazing that these places dont have equipment inventories! Where I work, we have thousands of bldgs,and I can look up any bldg and see what kind of toilet paper dispensers they have, lists belts,filters etc! All models,serial #'s,year installed,life expectancy! Not a bad program to have!
Retired, when I worked in a repair shop, we had to sell out the inventory of parts toward the end of the quarter. Otherwise, we had to pay taxes on the inventory that was left over.
You may already be aware of this, but I figured I'd mention... I was always taught to keep the disconnect before the drive to prevent accidental damage to the drive, like mounting everything locally in a fan cooled cabinet. However, if you have to put a disconnect between the drive and the motor, I think you have to reprogram the drive stop configuration to freewheel(instead of the typical ramp) when the dry contact opens, so the drive doesn't try to ramp the motor down. I don't know if every drive manufacturer is the same on this though.
Is there actually a reason for using a controlled stop configuration (ramping or braking) anyway? Coasting to a stop is the most energy efficient (marginal) way and it puts less "stress" on the motor. Depending on the inertia of the load you're driving (not much for a fan), ramping or braking to a stop could actually cause your VFD to trip if it cannot dissipate the energy produced by the motor now acting as generator. That's why VFD's typically get a little warmer when ramping or braking. If your VFD has a brake chopper, you could add a braking resistor to help dissipate that energy.
@@ericmulder5789 sometimes if you let the motor coast to a stop if will over voltage the drive. You need a long controlled ramp down to allow the energy to dissipate or add resistor coils for braking.
" I think you have to reprogram the drive stop configuration to freewheel(instead of the typical ramp) when the dry contact opens, so the drive doesn't try to ramp the motor down." It seems logical that a VFD has a way of detecting the presence of a motor and simply turns itself off when it nolonger detects one. If there is no motor connected anymore that's means either a mechanic is being a bit of a daredevil or the motor has fallen off the roof, both cases are handled best by powering down immediately. But I have seen some shady sh*t in these HVAC videos so I would nbot be surprised if there are techs who put a disconnect switch between the VFD and the motor and actually use it while the VFD is powered. People keep finding new and exciting ways to get near-death experiences...
13:25 - I could even accept to have the VFD on the roof in a separate enclosure, but inside the fan isn't really the best location considering all the grease.
You are absolutely correct....quality control on new equipment and even replacement parts is absolute junk and non existing nowadays. Thats a shame....brand new exhaust and hardware is falling off it......seems like they are doing quality control from a zoom or meet up video call using 3G.....yup looks good from here....send it out. Lol
The presence of grease in the kitchen exhaust airflow is normal. These fans are grease rated. They are designed to collect the grease in a trap. The fans are designed with aluminum for a reason so that if the impeller contacts the body no sparks will be produced to ignite the grease. The presence of grease is not remarkable in any way this is what these things do… They are supposed to be power washed every 3months per NFPA96 fire code.
You mentioned that bigger motor! Alot of my units that always ran from 7.5 hp to 10 hp fans have all gone to 15 hp! Its insane to see a motor that big doing the same amount of work!
It's not because you need the full power of the motor, but the motor bearings have to be able to support the additional load and stress from the wheel.
Ahhh. I have experience with lots of fans even bigger than that and they were often only 0.5-1hp. But they were all either direct drive or had a bearing block mounted on the front that took any load. Really saves on the wire size when they're 100-300ft away. Not restaurant related.
Your Videos are always so detailed and easy to understand. I do enjoy and learn from them quite a lot. Please keep them coming and i keep watching. Blessings!
Great video my dude! I do commercial pm's. I have come behind hood cleaners, and have found the EF hinged completely open 🤦♂️. As soon as I arrived on site, and immediately was asked buy the restaurant manager "Why is there water coming down through my hoods!" It had rained earlier that day. Good lord!
I work in the Coachella valley as a residential technician/installer. There's something about those 100° + days that I miss during the fall winter time. Call me crazy haha.
Greece maintenance is no joke. I worked in a restaurant where it was bought out by a franchise and the new owner decided to save a buck and cut back on greece maintenance, which resulted in a roof fire. That caused the restaurant to be out of commission for almost 1 year.
I used to be a fan cleaner and the time line of when a exhaust system gets cleaned depends on a few things: they type of cooking equipment, the type of food, the capacity on the establishment, the season length, the common weather conditions, and the biggest one of them all is the City Fire Pervention Bylaws
Surprisingly the "max" for those VFD's are actually 80hz. The discrepancy between the motor rating on the name plate of the unit and the name plate on the motor is the VFD differential. The motor has 2 sets of amp ratings the standard use amp ratings and the on a VFD amp ratings. Usually the on a VFD amp is slightly lower.
Also it's highly recommended not to bypass the VFD on a DD motor. They overheat really quickly and permanently ruin the windings within days. At least with CaptiveAire DD and Belt driven are still available BUT if they try to do a direct replacement (quicker turnaround) using the existing information from the job number it will almost always throw out a DD motor where if you go from the ground up (hoods 101 and ducts) you can pic a belt driven option. They could have also asked for the VFD shipped loose instead of unit mount but once "you'll need an electrician" gets said they hear $$$ and choose the cheaper option of unit mount plug and play.
only 80hz ? most of the one i deal with are 300-500hz max. a lot of the motors now have warnings on them not to direct connect to mains. "inverter only".
@@tweake7175 they can go to 500 but are program locked to a max of 80 for all CaptiveAire fans. You have to get into the program and change a few parameters to be able to go higher but very few fans aren't already at max rpm before getting near 80 which is why they have the hard lockout max of 80
Here in Germany we use no belts, we use no VFDs... just direct driven fans with the right motor, which runs directly from the grid via a motor starter. And guess what... we're still cooking.
You are completely right. That VFD has a 100% chance of failure soon, not even a possibility, but a guarantee in those kind of conditions. I'm sure the VFD manufacturer would not sign off on that sort of placement. The many large capacitors in there cannot take that sort of heat.
You mentioned that it was a chain store. Do they have in-house maintenance that could keep a spare motor since they have several stores? This way on a Friday night, you can call in-house maintenance and they can get a new spare at their convenience. Being a chain, I can see them ordering this same setup many times. By having in-house hold onto it, it spreads the cost of keeping the spare between several locations.
Chris I remember cleaning blower wheels like youmention dirt keeps them balanced like that for while. Then I clean the wheel it's out of balance I'm like huh? But that's what happens like you mentioned like of maintenance. Stay safe thanks.
Thanks for the video and I agree that vfd needs to be inside. BTW: How did you handle the grease drip pan? Without that pan the grease will flow on the roof. The outlet was on the side where the support arms are.
Does a VFD even make sense in this application? It seems like these fans will be set to a constant speed and left alone. Having a soft start is nice though..
does that model of vfd have internal temp sensing? if so you can read off what the temp is and compare that to the manufactures specs. thats a good way to show a customer the work is required.
It does matter between the VFD and the motor. That was factory on this one, but it doesn't hurt to check motor rotation when starting up the fan for the first time.
Phase between breaker and VFD doesn't matter but it matters from VFD to Motor cause it can run backwards. Luckily with those VFDs it's just a matter of switching directions on the control pad and not swapping legs
@@Terayonjf But sometimes swapping two legs at the terminals is much faster done than studying the manual on a specific VFD how to save the change of direction so that it isn't lost after a power outage.
@@stormeagle28 they're all autosave on those VFDs that come with CaptiveAire stuff. All parameters stay unless manually reset, manually changed or swapping for a new VFD. It also has a direction button on the face of the VFD that unless it's attached to a modbus system will flip the rotation and show which direction it's currently in on the screen with a dot near the words forward or reverse. If attached to a modbus it's a little more effort otherwise it's press the rotation button when it's not actively running
The motors have 2 different sets of Amp draws. Standard use amp ratings and VFD amp ratings. They always put the standard use amp rating on the unit tag even though the VFD rating is usually a hair lower. The motors have a SF on the name plate but that's never taken into account when setting up the system. They want it as close to the required CFM while staying below max recommended amps and max recommended rpm of the wheel.
Yup as a cleaner who does them. More you clean it the better.I like see cleaned at least 3 or 4 times a week.yup I totally agree with you. What a good video
Many VFD units can run on single phase, which saves money on supplied power that's single phase. These are especially nice for machine shop equipment that may be such that it's not possible to run on single phase.
Is there a market for temporary replacement fans that can adapt to a variety of curbs and run at a variety of flow & velocity rates? AKA install while you try to procure replacements..?
There is OBVIOUS play in the motor mount. Motor mounts are repairable and replaceable, but at contractor hourly rates it doesn’t take much for the whole fan to get written off.
Can you show a comparison between the 'belt' motor and a direct drive motor? I always thought they are the same, except for the shaft dimensions. I think the supply houses shoud have them in stock..?
Imagine that a company fixing their hoods. Meanwhile I keep having to bring up to several managers that half of my hood is broken and has been for 6 months
IM gonna say you should not mount the WP box on it's back. Always vertical, Vertical will not hold water, and believe me, water will go past the 2 6/32 screws, and later when the shitty foam gasket rots away it will migrate around the cover edges. Right now it is a bathtub, aside from the feed conduit that will drain water into it.
when i ran a restaurant we did our fans once a month, ducts were done every 6 months and AC units were done once a week. Part of kitchen closing was vents over the grill every night and fryers were also done every night plus grease cleaning twice a day. I hate a dirty kitchen and i would rather pay for cleaning than equipment replacement since not only cleaner but cheaper. I just wish other restaurants did these things too.
I would happily dine at any restaurant you ran, sir. Nowadays more than ever before, eateries are filthy, not maintained nor have employees that take pride in their trade.
yup I've seen restaurants where they don't even touch the vent hoods for 6 months at a time and when they do they cant clean them well enough to be considered clean in my book,, also like to add that all filters should be staiinless steel no exceptions , galvanized has to go
However, the drive is derated when it gets hot. Close to 50% so it will need oversized. Also, that dirt and grease, it needs installed in a nema 12 box (boxes with seals). The issue then would be getting rid of drive heat.
Silly question but is it feasible for the restaurant company to stock the direct drive parts in advance in a nearby warehouse or something so you could u pick it up when one goes bad? Is it just not economical to do that?
I never saw a Lenze VFD fail in the last 3 decades, but mounted in this stupid area I am not sure how long even a Lenze may work until it begins to fail. Every VFD belongs in a closed cabinet away from all the greasy air or even better in a room inside the building with AC, in the basement or at least not hotter than 25°C in this room. This will make the VFDs last several decades if sized properly.
Brother where you learn all of this?? I know the basics like electricity, changing belts, greasing bearings, but Id like to know more about the the vrv controls and exhaust hood controls
didn't need a new pulley on that double belted fan , it looked fine , its one of those types you can adjust with a set screw.. just needed adjustment. but I'm not there so I could be wrong, the evaporative coolers were old make up air units, that's what they used to use until they realized that extra humidity in a humid kithchen was a bad idea,, that VFD motor was very pretty but it won't last in thst heat and that grease , A basic 1 hp DAyton motor is the way to go .
captive aire is always a pain. idk if its who commissions it or the sparks who wire it up but im always finding them rotating backwards. and as far as the rating plate thats the service factor amp rating.
@@stormeagle28 you should only need a single fan for the Venturi effect, it uses the moving air from the fan to pull additional air from a separate source. I think it would be an interesting way to reduce the amount of cleaning necessary, but I'm guessing it would be much less efficient.
in a way these fans do the same thing , they pull the air out from the exhaust drive it up then down.and up again at which point it mixes with additional air. it's really the most efficient cost affective design possible, they tried many other types in the past but the experimenting with design phase has been over for decades,,
If the winds are not abnormally high and it's still tearing the metal capping off, the installer isn't doing their job correctly... If you're bothered by the flying metal, you might want to give Building Code Enforcement a call and let them know that the capping on that building may not have been installed according to Minimum Code Requirements...
Hey Chris, a little more Apocalype Now? the horror, the horror,the horror. What going on with all the solar panels. A one dollar beer sound good to me. Love you buddy.
The only way I can think of to get a fan to run when the motor fails late in the day/evening is to have those motors in stock. Which is not going to be cheap.
Off topic but a question. I follow a lot of tradesmen and small businesses channels. Were you the one given a shout out for sending a shirt to a Wisconsin concrete contractor Victory something, within the past week? Pretty cool if it was.
What were the designers thinking putting a fan cooled electronic motor control in an environment that fills with grease? Possibly some of these fans are installed in just an air-flow ventilation clean exhaust application? Otherwise the electronic controls are in a very bad spot. The engineers should really also be thinking about serviceability and not put things in hi-failure places or make things inaccessible to the techs. I'd love to take one of those designer guys with me ad say " Here's the tools.... Show me how you fix it!. It's almost like they don't give a damn or want the customer to just replace it. Another expensive throwaway.
I’ve always wondered why the a/c drains are piped over to a roof drain, or down through the building to a drain, on all these restaurants you work at. Up here in Canada they all just dump onto the roof near the unit.
water on a roof for prolong periods of time will find its way through said roof and with the added weight of the equipment its not long before you see some kind of symptoms or consequenses of water infiltration ,, in metal roofs for instance you start rusting out the frame joists , or in other instances mold takes hold and its a smelly mess, on more advanced cases it ruins the entire roof structure. I have personally seen all these scenerios ,,, so a $5 pvc pipe diverting the water onto a gutter is fairly good prevenatative insurance in my book
A good friend of mine just finished HVAC school. What tool should I get him as a graduation gift (sub $100)? Looking for something that is helpful and most techs don't think about getting
A decent set of knee pads, a padded lid for a 5 gallon bucket (for use as a seat) and a good summer hat. All good quality of life needed 'tools' for a new journeyman or apprentice.
Chains are far more dangerous if they snap and can damage the fan/motor/housing all at once. chain drive would be loud and have more vibration at speed. chains require much more maintenance
You didn’t put any effort into diagnosing the actual root cause of that fan instability. You just assumed it’s because it’s dirty. I can tell just from watching your video that the source of the problem is a broken motor mount. These motor mount plates are very thin and susceptible to fatigue cracking caused by embrittlement from years of vibration… and yes that vibration is from running dirty so I agree with you that dirty operation is the root cause of the root cause. Some small businesses cant afford to just default to emergency replacement and shutdown waiting for parts, don’t ask me how I know… Give me some 1/8” thick corner braces and strapping and 1/4” tap screws and 2 hours on the roof at 1am in a blizzard at -20 degC and I could have that fan running smooth again… don’t ask me how I know… 😉 Yes… this is a temporary repair… but it is good enough to keep the doors open and defer the replacement for several months so that the business can put together the funding for the job etc. You said You didn’t see anything physically wrong with that fan… well… you have to get your hands dirty for that… put the camera down get your hands in that grease laden dirt and find the cracks or breaks in the motor mount plate. They can be hard to see… from the play in the mount when you put your hands on the motor my guess is it is a horizontal crack beneath the motor, underneath the layer of filth. As a former structural engineer I am unimpressed with the fans with this type of motor mount. The steel is very thin and lacks gussets or stiffeners where it would count to avoid this mode of failure. They build them bare minumum to make them light and cheap. If you run an exhaust fan well past its normal service life you discover these sorts of modes of failure. Cheers!
I assume the bearings on the old fan were fine because they were getting greased regularly? 🤣 Not crazy about putting the VFD inside the fan. Heat, dust, grease... "Let's put an expensive part in an environment where it will fail prematurely, during a chip shortage." 👌 We don't have to worry about grease buildup one of our exhaust fans at work. I first noticed it wasn't working in October 2021, and here we are just about to enter November 2022, STILL hasn't even been looked at. Our ceiling tiles over the ovens are a beautiful golden brown. 🤮
Gotta wonder about the longevity of a drive mounted that way(it's back downward). Not very good for convection cooling flow. But, sure the fan company did it so it must be right???
@@Morberis Drives do. Lenze is very weak on documentation. No sane VFD Mfg. will show that you can mount them on a horizontal plane. That's a silly way to mount the thing.
@@nhzxboi I don't know why I read your first comment as bring about motors instead of drives. My bad Yeah environmental rated drives are usually passively cooled. I agree, seems like a terrible spot for it. Either it's not getting any active air circulation and the passive is sub-optimal or it's getting covered in grease. I wonder how hot it gets in there in the middle of the day. And yeah I have experience with lenze... Worst drives I've worked with. Absolutely backwards control over a network.
Relocation of the vfd is bad for the drive , farther away from motor is going to create large amounts of emf and losses especially with a high carrier frequency
How would the cleaning cost, say every 6 months or so, compare to letting it go and replacing every 10 years, or however old that thing is? I'm thinking like a commercial slumlord here. They usually just want it to run until it dies and deal with it then.
By the way, I like your podcast/social media, has the you tube corp sent a three million dollar roylty check? I would not worry about it. I guess it is going to be the matrix reloaded, but welcome to the USA.
Hi UK will you something called an inverter and power factor correction this cuts down the amount of power you actually use roughly 25% on a 3-phase machine you will save a lot of money
0:23 I don’t think that sounds like a helicopter… it’s just probably tapping against something on the inside. and those bolts will come loose anytime soon
It’s ridiculous how poorly built and maintained these things seem to be! Anyway new to your videos and I love this stuff. Keep it up man and you just got yourself a new sub.
Vfds can vary in operating temperature. I have reused boards using same vfd model and have saved time on programming and down time. Powder coat oven in my case and vfd was for the recirculation fan.
I did program new board as well, took time getting parameters for that build with its bad display I couldn't pull info, but in the end I got them schematics, vfd parameters, and they have old original board incase of a dead vfd and no one can program it.
But if you think of it as in energy efficiency how much energy efficient is running back-and-forth to the supply house when you could have an on the truck standard part that could be swapped. Saving time money and gas. Sure it might be more efficient but if the maintenance isn't more efficient as well....
Amazing that these places dont have equipment inventories! Where I work, we have thousands of bldgs,and I can look up any bldg and see what kind of toilet paper dispensers they have, lists belts,filters etc! All models,serial #'s,year installed,life expectancy! Not a bad program to have!
Sounds very useful, What software(s) do you use?
Alot of the places I work use Asset tag numbers. Which is mainly government facilities and hospitals.
it's expensive. most companies these days keeps their inventory to a minimum
Retired, when I worked in a repair shop, we had to sell out the inventory of parts toward the end of the quarter. Otherwise, we had to pay taxes on the inventory that was left over.
i can tell you have never owned or probably worked at a restaurant.
You may already be aware of this, but I figured I'd mention...
I was always taught to keep the disconnect before the drive to prevent accidental damage to the drive, like mounting everything locally in a fan cooled cabinet. However, if you have to put a disconnect between the drive and the motor, I think you have to reprogram the drive stop configuration to freewheel(instead of the typical ramp) when the dry contact opens, so the drive doesn't try to ramp the motor down. I don't know if every drive manufacturer is the same on this though.
Is there actually a reason for using a controlled stop configuration (ramping or braking) anyway? Coasting to a stop is the most energy efficient (marginal) way and it puts less "stress" on the motor.
Depending on the inertia of the load you're driving (not much for a fan), ramping or braking to a stop could actually cause your VFD to trip if it cannot dissipate the energy produced by the motor now acting as generator. That's why VFD's typically get a little warmer when ramping or braking. If your VFD has a brake chopper, you could add a braking resistor to help dissipate that energy.
@@ericmulder5789 sometimes if you let the motor coast to a stop if will over voltage the drive. You need a long controlled ramp down to allow the energy to dissipate or add resistor coils for braking.
" I think you have to reprogram the drive stop configuration to freewheel(instead of the typical ramp) when the dry contact opens, so the drive doesn't try to ramp the motor down."
It seems logical that a VFD has a way of detecting the presence of a motor and simply turns itself off when it nolonger detects one. If there is no motor connected anymore that's means either a mechanic is being a bit of a daredevil or the motor has fallen off the roof, both cases are handled best by powering down immediately.
But I have seen some shady sh*t in these HVAC videos so I would nbot be surprised if there are techs who put a disconnect switch between the VFD and the motor and actually use it while the VFD is powered. People keep finding new and exciting ways to get near-death experiences...
Sort of hilarious that fan manufacturers expect a VFD to survive in that environment. If that lasts two years I'd be shocked.
13:25 - I could even accept to have the VFD on the roof in a separate enclosure, but inside the fan isn't really the best location considering all the grease.
The grease will help ensure you have to by new a vfd regularly hence more replacement $$$ LOL
You are absolutely correct....quality control on new equipment and even replacement parts is absolute junk and non existing nowadays. Thats a shame....brand new exhaust and hardware is falling off it......seems like they are doing quality control from a zoom or meet up video call using 3G.....yup looks good from here....send it out. Lol
You ever thought about adding Cleaning Services & Roofing Services & Electrician Services to your company?
Aside from damaging the fans, that grease build up is a hell of a fire hazard! I hope their insurance company hasn't found your videos!
When that shit-hole restaurant burns to the ground it won't be from a grease fire im the hood...
The presence of grease in the kitchen exhaust airflow is normal. These fans are grease rated. They are designed to collect the grease in a trap. The fans are designed with aluminum for a reason so that if the impeller contacts the body no sparks will be produced to ignite the grease.
The presence of grease is not remarkable in any way this is what these things do… They are supposed to be power washed every 3months per NFPA96 fire code.
You mentioned that bigger motor! Alot of my units that always ran from 7.5 hp to 10 hp fans have all gone to 15 hp! Its insane to see a motor that big doing the same amount of work!
It's not because you need the full power of the motor, but the motor bearings have to be able to support the additional load and stress from the wheel.
Ahhh. I have experience with lots of fans even bigger than that and they were often only 0.5-1hp. But they were all either direct drive or had a bearing block mounted on the front that took any load.
Really saves on the wire size when they're 100-300ft away.
Not restaurant related.
Maybe the motor will last longer.
Your Videos are always so detailed and easy to understand.
I do enjoy and learn from them
quite a lot. Please keep them coming and i keep watching. Blessings!
Great video my dude! I do commercial pm's. I have come behind hood cleaners, and have found the EF hinged completely open 🤦♂️. As soon as I arrived on site, and immediately was asked buy the restaurant manager "Why is there water coming down through my hoods!" It had rained earlier that day. Good lord!
I work in the Coachella valley as a residential technician/installer. There's something about those 100° + days that I miss during the fall winter time. Call me crazy haha.
Greece maintenance is no joke. I worked in a restaurant where it was bought out by a franchise and the new owner decided to save a buck and cut back on greece maintenance, which resulted in a roof fire.
That caused the restaurant to be out of commission for almost 1 year.
I used to be a fan cleaner and the time line of when a exhaust system gets cleaned depends on a few things: they type of cooking equipment, the type of food, the capacity on the establishment, the season length, the common weather conditions, and the biggest one of them all is the City Fire Pervention Bylaws
How do you clean those? Brushes and solvent? Looks like a nightmare
@@volvo09 degreaser and a hot steam pressure washer
Surprisingly the "max" for those VFD's are actually 80hz. The discrepancy between the motor rating on the name plate of the unit and the name plate on the motor is the VFD differential. The motor has 2 sets of amp ratings the standard use amp ratings and the on a VFD amp ratings. Usually the on a VFD amp is slightly lower.
Also it's highly recommended not to bypass the VFD on a DD motor. They overheat really quickly and permanently ruin the windings within days. At least with CaptiveAire DD and Belt driven are still available BUT if they try to do a direct replacement (quicker turnaround) using the existing information from the job number it will almost always throw out a DD motor where if you go from the ground up (hoods 101 and ducts) you can pic a belt driven option. They could have also asked for the VFD shipped loose instead of unit mount but once "you'll need an electrician" gets said they hear $$$ and choose the cheaper option of unit mount plug and play.
only 80hz ? most of the one i deal with are 300-500hz max.
a lot of the motors now have warnings on them not to direct connect to mains. "inverter only".
@@tweake7175 they can go to 500 but are program locked to a max of 80 for all CaptiveAire fans. You have to get into the program and change a few parameters to be able to go higher but very few fans aren't already at max rpm before getting near 80 which is why they have the hard lockout max of 80
@@Terayonjf thx for the explanation 👍
Hey - US people are learning about direct driven fans finally. No more belt issues, but maybe VFD issues... we'll see.
belts are cheaper than VFDs... so having the VFD on the roof is stupid
Here in Germany we use no belts, we use no VFDs... just direct driven fans with the right motor, which runs directly from the grid via a motor starter. And guess what... we're still cooking.
You are completely right. That VFD has a 100% chance of failure soon, not even a possibility, but a guarantee in those kind of conditions. I'm sure the VFD manufacturer would not sign off on that sort of placement. The many large capacitors in there cannot take that sort of heat.
This video makes me want to watch grease cleaning videos
Agreed, would be interesting to see
You mentioned that it was a chain store. Do they have in-house maintenance that could keep a spare motor since they have several stores? This way on a Friday night, you can call in-house maintenance and they can get a new spare at their convenience. Being a chain, I can see them ordering this same setup many times. By having in-house hold onto it, it spreads the cost of keeping the spare between several locations.
Chris I remember cleaning blower wheels like youmention dirt keeps them balanced like that for while. Then I clean the wheel it's out of balance I'm like huh? But that's what happens like you mentioned like of maintenance. Stay safe thanks.
Thanks for the video and I agree that vfd needs to be inside. BTW: How did you handle the grease drip pan? Without that pan the grease will flow on the roof. The outlet was on the side where the support arms are.
The grease will flow out and seal the roof leaks and feed the local fauna. Everybody wins 👌😀
Does a VFD even make sense in this application? It seems like these fans will be set to a constant speed and left alone. Having a soft start is nice though..
does that model of vfd have internal temp sensing? if so you can read off what the temp is and compare that to the manufactures specs. thats a good way to show a customer the work is required.
Another great video bro keep up the hard work
Ozone breaks down the rubber on the belts. It's also very rough on tires as well.
Phase rotation does not matter when using VFDs. (Although, it is a good praction to have the rotation matching wire color or terminal numbers).
It does matter between the VFD and the motor. That was factory on this one, but it doesn't hurt to check motor rotation when starting up the fan for the first time.
@@stormeagle28 Bah. If it's spinning the wrong way just change it in the vfd settings.
Phase between breaker and VFD doesn't matter but it matters from VFD to Motor cause it can run backwards. Luckily with those VFDs it's just a matter of switching directions on the control pad and not swapping legs
@@Terayonjf But sometimes swapping two legs at the terminals is much faster done than studying the manual on a specific VFD how to save the change of direction so that it isn't lost after a power outage.
@@stormeagle28 they're all autosave on those VFDs that come with CaptiveAire stuff. All parameters stay unless manually reset, manually changed or swapping for a new VFD. It also has a direction button on the face of the VFD that unless it's attached to a modbus system will flip the rotation and show which direction it's currently in on the screen with a dot near the words forward or reverse. If attached to a modbus it's a little more effort otherwise it's press the rotation button when it's not actively running
Great and professional info. as usual. Thanks Chris.
I love ypur videos!
dream job
The extra .8A is possibly from the VFD.
Maybe, but at 240V, that's almost 200W of apparent power. (Probably more since it's 3 phase) It makes me wonder if VFD really makes things efficient.
Great video chris
Good staff Chris
Greece one
But that is restaurant work that for sure
Your videos are very informative and entertaining.
I’m guessing captive aire uses the service factor for their rating of amp draw of the fan motor. Did the motor have a service factor on the nameplate?
The motors have 2 different sets of Amp draws. Standard use amp ratings and VFD amp ratings. They always put the standard use amp rating on the unit tag even though the VFD rating is usually a hair lower. The motors have a SF on the name plate but that's never taken into account when setting up the system. They want it as close to the required CFM while staying below max recommended amps and max recommended rpm of the wheel.
Yup as a cleaner who does them. More you clean it the better.I like see cleaned at least 3 or 4 times a week.yup I totally agree with you. What a good video
Many VFD units can run on single phase, which saves money on supplied power that's single phase. These are especially nice for machine shop equipment that may be such that it's not possible to run on single phase.
Is there a market for temporary replacement fans that can adapt to a variety of curbs and run at a variety of flow & velocity rates? AKA install while you try to procure replacements..?
There is OBVIOUS play in the motor mount.
Motor mounts are repairable and replaceable, but at contractor hourly rates it doesn’t take much for the whole fan to get written off.
Can you show a comparison between the 'belt' motor and a direct drive motor? I always thought they are the same, except for the shaft dimensions. I think the supply houses shoud have them in stock..?
Imagine that a company fixing their hoods. Meanwhile I keep having to bring up to several managers that half of my hood is broken and has been for 6 months
IM gonna say you should not mount the WP box on it's back. Always vertical, Vertical will not hold water, and believe me, water will go past the 2 6/32 screws, and later when the shitty foam gasket rots away it will migrate around the cover edges. Right now it is a bathtub, aside from the feed conduit that will drain water into it.
To be fair it never rains there, like never.
when i ran a restaurant we did our fans once a month, ducts were done every 6 months and AC units were done once a week. Part of kitchen closing was vents over the grill every night and fryers were also done every night plus grease cleaning twice a day. I hate a dirty kitchen and i would rather pay for cleaning than equipment replacement since not only cleaner but cheaper. I just wish other restaurants did these things too.
I would happily dine at any restaurant you ran, sir. Nowadays more than ever before, eateries are filthy, not maintained nor have employees that take pride in their trade.
yup I've seen restaurants where they don't even touch the vent hoods for 6 months at a time and when they do they cant clean them well enough to be considered clean in my book,, also like to add that all filters should be staiinless steel no exceptions , galvanized has to go
8:27 havent you check filter in kitchen make sure it not clogged up most likely filter can cause it go out of balance because it fighting for air
Lemme get a couple of those swamp coolers lol! My garage gets hot in the summer
We use those Lenze drives in hot cabinets without a lot of issues. Not outside though.
However, the drive is derated when it gets hot. Close to 50% so it will need oversized. Also, that dirt and grease, it needs installed in a nema 12 box (boxes with seals). The issue then would be getting rid of drive heat.
Silly question but is it feasible for the restaurant company to stock the direct drive parts in advance in a nearby warehouse or something so you could u pick it up when one goes bad? Is it just not economical to do that?
I never saw a Lenze VFD fail in the last 3 decades, but mounted in this stupid area I am not sure how long even a Lenze may work until it begins to fail. Every VFD belongs in a closed cabinet away from all the greasy air or even better in a room inside the building with AC, in the basement or at least not hotter than 25°C in this room. This will make the VFDs last several decades if sized properly.
Customer: Does anyone remember a Helipad on the roof? Where's the Helicopter?
Brother where you learn all of this?? I know the basics like electricity, changing belts, greasing bearings, but Id like to know more about the the vrv controls and exhaust hood controls
Seeing that poor VFD inside the motor compartment of that fan
Holy smokes, which person came up with idea?
That’s a setup for failure
didn't need a new pulley on that double belted fan , it looked fine , its one of those types you can adjust with a set screw.. just needed adjustment. but I'm not there so I could be wrong, the evaporative coolers were old make up air units, that's what they used to use until they realized that extra humidity in a humid kithchen was a bad idea,, that VFD motor was very pretty but it won't last in thst heat and that grease , A basic 1 hp DAyton motor is the way to go .
Where do you order super hinges from? Allied and united here said they cant get them
5:53 SHEAVE dammit!!!!!!!!!!!! LOL
captive aire is always a pain. idk if its who commissions it or the sparks who wire it up but im always finding them rotating backwards. and as far as the rating plate thats the service factor amp rating.
Are there any exhaust fans that use the Venturi effect? So that the fan blades are not in the air stream themselves.
Not really because you then need another fan to get the Venturi effect going. There is no free lunch.
@@stormeagle28 you should only need a single fan for the Venturi effect, it uses the moving air from the fan to pull additional air from a separate source. I think it would be an interesting way to reduce the amount of cleaning necessary, but I'm guessing it would be much less efficient.
in a way these fans do the same thing , they pull the air out from the exhaust drive it up then down.and up again at which point it mixes with additional air. it's really the most efficient cost affective design possible, they tried many other types in the past but the experimenting with design phase has been over for decades,,
Do all of the newer ones have a VFD?
If the winds are not abnormally high and it's still tearing the metal capping off, the installer isn't doing their job correctly...
If you're bothered by the flying metal, you might want to give Building Code Enforcement a call and let them know that the capping on that building may not have been installed according to Minimum Code Requirements...
Is it possible the name plate amperage includes the VFD logic, etc ?
Hey Chris, a little more Apocalype Now? the horror, the horror,the horror. What going on with all the solar panels. A one dollar beer sound good to me. Love you buddy.
by the way, God was telling Jesus the powerball is up to 1 billion dollars this week.
The only way I can think of to get a fan to run when the motor fails late in the day/evening is to have those motors in stock. Which is not going to be cheap.
Off topic but a question. I follow a lot of tradesmen and small businesses channels. Were you the one given a shout out for sending a shirt to a Wisconsin concrete contractor Victory something, within the past week? Pretty cool if it was.
During replacement of a roof ventilator which is so large he needs a crane Chris says “I’m not a big fan.”
Very good video 👍
What were the designers thinking putting a fan cooled electronic motor control in an environment that fills with grease? Possibly some of these fans are installed in just an air-flow ventilation clean exhaust application? Otherwise the electronic controls are in a very bad spot. The engineers should really also be thinking about serviceability and not put things in hi-failure places or make things inaccessible to the techs. I'd love to take one of those designer guys with me ad say " Here's the tools.... Show me how you fix it!. It's almost like they don't give a damn or want the customer to just replace it. Another expensive throwaway.
The cable on the load side of a VFD has to be shielded and is limited in length according to the VFD, FYI.
The "extra" .6 amps is probably for the VFD's power draw?
Having a vfd in the vent hood, super hot greasy spot... How long does that vfd last? I imagine not terribly long.
I’ve always wondered why the a/c drains are piped over to a roof drain, or down through the building to a drain, on all these restaurants you work at. Up here in Canada they all just dump onto the roof near the unit.
water on a roof for prolong periods of time will find its way through said roof and with the added weight of the equipment its not long before you see some kind of symptoms or consequenses of water infiltration ,, in metal roofs for instance you start rusting out the frame joists , or in other instances mold takes hold and its a smelly mess, on more advanced cases it ruins the entire roof structure. I have personally seen all these scenerios ,,, so a $5 pvc pipe diverting the water onto a gutter is fairly good prevenatative insurance in my book
I do not miss restaurant work.
Well at least it was still attached and "functional" when you arrived. 🤪
2:31 I would not survive there 😱
A good friend of mine just finished HVAC school. What tool should I get him as a graduation gift (sub $100)? Looking for something that is helpful and most techs don't think about getting
A decent set of knee pads, a padded lid for a 5 gallon bucket (for use as a seat) and a good summer hat. All good quality of life needed 'tools' for a new journeyman or apprentice.
Are there any chain driven fans? Don't chains last longer?
Chains are far more dangerous if they snap and can damage the fan/motor/housing all at once.
chain drive would be loud and have more vibration at speed.
chains require much more maintenance
When an exhaust fan comes on…what triggers a makeup air unit to run? And are fire alarms usually interlocked in those circuits. ?
Better be careful, or the exhaust fan just may fly away!
Or implode the restaurant like in the movie poltergeist.
You didn’t put any effort into diagnosing the actual root cause of that fan instability. You just assumed it’s because it’s dirty. I can tell just from watching your video that the source of the problem is a broken motor mount. These motor mount plates are very thin and susceptible to fatigue cracking caused by embrittlement from years of vibration… and yes that vibration is from running dirty so I agree with you that dirty operation is the root cause of the root cause. Some small businesses cant afford to just default to emergency replacement and shutdown waiting for parts, don’t ask me how I know…
Give me some 1/8” thick corner braces and strapping and 1/4” tap screws and 2 hours on the roof at 1am in a blizzard at -20 degC and I could have that fan running smooth again… don’t ask me how I know… 😉
Yes… this is a temporary repair… but it is good enough to keep the doors open and defer the replacement for several months so that the business can put together the funding for the job etc.
You said You didn’t see anything physically wrong with that fan… well… you have to get your hands dirty for that… put the camera down get your hands in that grease laden dirt and find the cracks or breaks in the motor mount plate. They can be hard to see… from the play in the mount when you put your hands on the motor my guess is it is a horizontal crack beneath the motor, underneath the layer of filth.
As a former structural engineer I am unimpressed with the fans with this type of motor mount. The steel is very thin and lacks gussets or stiffeners where it would count to avoid this mode of failure. They build them bare minumum to make them light and cheap. If you run an exhaust fan well past its normal service life you discover these sorts of modes of failure.
Cheers!
I'm guessing the motor current rating of 6amps is at "230v" rating and the 208v rating is 6.6(rounded) is what captive air listed?
From the missing nuts, the mismatched VFD and motor maxima and the general jankiness of this fan, I assume they fail every few years.. crazy
I assume the bearings on the old fan were fine because they were getting greased regularly? 🤣
Not crazy about putting the VFD inside the fan. Heat, dust, grease... "Let's put an expensive part in an environment where it will fail prematurely, during a chip shortage." 👌
We don't have to worry about grease buildup one of our exhaust fans at work. I first noticed it wasn't working in October 2021, and here we are just about to enter November 2022, STILL hasn't even been looked at. Our ceiling tiles over the ovens are a beautiful golden brown. 🤮
Gotta wonder about the longevity of a drive mounted that way(it's back downward). Not very good for convection cooling flow. But, sure the fan company did it so it must be right???
Nah. Motors do not rely on passive convective cooling
@@Morberis Drives do. Lenze is very weak on documentation. No sane VFD Mfg. will show that you can mount them on a horizontal plane. That's a silly way to mount the thing.
@@nhzxboi I don't know why I read your first comment as bring about motors instead of drives. My bad
Yeah environmental rated drives are usually passively cooled. I agree, seems like a terrible spot for it. Either it's not getting any active air circulation and the passive is sub-optimal or it's getting covered in grease. I wonder how hot it gets in there in the middle of the day.
And yeah I have experience with lenze... Worst drives I've worked with. Absolutely backwards control over a network.
Relocation of the vfd is bad for the drive , farther away from motor is going to create large amounts of emf and losses especially with a high carrier frequency
Wow, you can really see the vibration from far away
Watching this in a blizzard
Greaae burns nice too.
How would the cleaning cost, say every 6 months or so, compare to letting it go and replacing every 10 years, or however old that thing is? I'm thinking like a commercial slumlord here. They usually just want it to run until it dies and deal with it then.
By the way, I like your podcast/social media, has the you tube corp sent a three million dollar roylty check? I would not worry about it. I guess it is going to be the matrix reloaded, but welcome to the USA.
by the way, God was telling Jesus the powerball is up to 1 billion dollars this week.
This fan sounds like my 1999 Honda 300EX idling lol
Hi UK will you something called an inverter and power factor correction this cuts down the amount of power you actually use roughly 25% on a 3-phase machine you will save a lot of money
Spaghetti condensate lines 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Best part about the loose nuts and screws is that if you look at the fan's data plate, it has a QC Passed sticker below it.
0:23 I don’t think that sounds like a helicopter… it’s just probably tapping against something on the inside. and those bolts will come loose anytime soon
Those vibrations are intense. probably the wheels or the bearings, or some obstruction that’s causing it to vibrate intensely.
nice hinges
Need to steam clean the blades. Grease is like concrete on them.
So I’m not the only one who had problems with QC from captive air
Awesome video and job 👍👍😊😊👌🙌🍀🇭🇷
As long as it doesn't cost money..
I wonder why HVAC hasnt gone to serpentine belts like the auto world. Longer lasting, more surface area, and pulleys don't wear out like v-belts.
It sounds like my washing machine on a spin cycle!
It’s ridiculous how poorly built and maintained these things seem to be! Anyway new to your videos and I love this stuff. Keep it up man and you just got yourself a new sub.
In corporate speak "preventative maintenance" is a bad word.
A little surprised that there is no cover for vfd
Vfds can vary in operating temperature. I have reused boards using same vfd model and have saved time on programming and down time. Powder coat oven in my case and vfd was for the recirculation fan.
I did program new board as well, took time getting parameters for that build with its bad display I couldn't pull info, but in the end I got them schematics, vfd parameters, and they have old original board incase of a dead vfd and no one can program it.
But if you think of it as in energy efficiency how much energy efficient is running back-and-forth to the supply house when you could have an on the truck standard part that could be swapped. Saving time money and gas. Sure it might be more efficient but if the maintenance isn't more efficient as well....