Acadia user croup hits home run!

Happyacadiaowner

A google group of some 82 people mixed between those looking to sue - and those looking to fix and those just desperate for help had hit the ball out of the park.  We havephsyched out how to make our Acadia's rock solid - andrespore thier good performance.

Two technical people gabe Josephs of Josephs LLC and david Friedman - a former high tech executive of Computervision - a fortune 500 company of the 80's have totally identified and are well underway toward extensive life testing inexpensive mods that remove a horribly flawed bristol designed starting circuit that they forced on Duane Hallowell which has two teriible problems. (take a look at the google group posts) The first is that there is a horrible contact failure mechanism which after a year os lso of life leads to a sequence of events starting with blown start caps and ending with blown compressors. A semond and more ominous issue being addressed is that despite operation within the starting parameters of the Twin Single compressors used,  the extremely high torque applied by the 364 UF start cap which was specified by Bristol in order to guarantee very fast switching of the Twin Single from cyl-1 to cyl-2 modes.  BUT WAI A MINUTE!  The Acadia logic design imposes a wait of 3 minutes between starts - allowing the compressor head pressure to bleed to 150 psi - and I have calculated that this allows a start ccap of 150 Uf to be used - which when controlled by the USMR part by ICM which was desinged specifically for that task - we feel that a trivial and simple fix is at hand.  i rewired my own failed unit in uncer 1/2 hour and it was restored from a total non operative condition that would have led to compressor failure if I had continued asking it to run - to perfect performance.

A complete victory in my opinon would be if Bristol,  the FMGMJ group led by Matt Haydinger that installed 1200 in NJ  and our Google group worked together to ablolutely certify that that my simple but solidly engineered fix will work forever and has not glitches.

Unfortunately I must report that the application group at Bristol under John Tolbert has in my opinion stonewalled me either due to ignorance or deciet.  they insist that the only authorized or legal solutions are to keep using the high torque dual relay/dual/contactor circuit which they agree has a built infailure mode,  but quite amazingly state with no embarrasment that what they want people to do is to replumb their systems - add a as yet designed delay circuit that wil fire a "dump" solenoid and use PTCR srating which very gently oozes the motor up to speed.  Of course for new systems that is a fantastic system - and will make the compessor live forever,  but in my professional opinon constitutes overkill and is more of a smokescreen for bristol product issues than a serious file fix.  My lst conversation with John Tolbert ended with me agreeing to design the needed logic to fire the dump valve at the end of each compressor run - and to get an estimate from several plumbers for how much they would charge to dump and save the refrigerant - reblumb adding the needed dump path and check valve - and compare that to my 20 minute rewiring and use of UMSR ($29 part) to correclty disconnect a small 150 uf start cap delivering abiut 1/2 max torque to the motor.  My considerable engineering sjudgement (BSEE RPI, MSEE NYU,  Ms Management MIT,  12 patents, and GM product technology and badge nunber two at Computervision was a NYSE fortune 500 company of the 80;s)  says that my fix is much cheaper and entirely adequate.

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To John Tolbert - Head of Application Engineering at Bristol, and Matt Haydinger - CEO FMGNJ

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<em><strong>Failure breeds anger and lack of cooperation.  Success breeds good publicity and good results. Lets agree to cooperate and achieve success.</strong></em> 

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And I know it can be done!

When at Computervision - I designed and sold a business contract between Computervison,  then by far the leading Cad/Cam vendor and a major fortune 500 company on the NYSE,  and the budding Sun Microsystems.  I drafted a deal whereby all players won, and this deal signed by myself, Vinod Koshla CEO of Sun, Andy Bechelstein VP engineering of Sun,  Bill Joy (creator of Sun's Unix system)  put  Sun on the map  and bought CV a few more years of leadership.

I think that I can create an equally compelling case for a working arrangement between the Acadia Hallowell Google group,  FMGNJ,  and Bristol Co.,  that will over the next few weeks leave all of us in a much better place than we are today.

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The goals of  technical and business cooperation between these groups would be:

1.  Agreement on a technical solution and easy engineering ECO to make the compressor systems used in the Acadia's rock solid,  and which can be retrofit to existing Acadia's without re-plumbing.  The basis of this "fix' would be an agreement that there is a starting circuit that will reliably start the TS compressors used,  but will lower the starting torque taking advantage of the minimum 3 minute dwell time between restarts that bleeds compressor head pressure to about 150 psi.  Bristol will cooperate in the testing needed to allow their "stamp of approval".

2.  Cooperation and sharing of failure data and analysis between the FMGNJ and the data now being sorted out among the Acadia Google group covering all Acadia issues of reliability and efficiency.  ( Things like icing as well as compressor issues )

3.  Since the Acadia user group has uniformly reported (given quality HVAC install and maintenance ) energy efficiency as promised by Hallowell an objective would be to determine why FMGNJ is not achieving good efficiency and to help make their systems perform as designed.

4.  The efforts  and accomplishments of this group will enable spreading of the word to the larger HVAC community that the Acadia works and is maintainable if certain reasonable changes are made. This will be great publicity for FMGNJ who will be able to proudly proclaim it  was part of an effort aiding a large community outside of their direct business interest.  Clearly FMGNJ are great public citizens!

5.  Bristol will benefit greatly once again given the very positive publicity that the actions of this group will achieve and publicize.  Bristol - with no actual warranty obligation bent over backwards to help the secondary stakeholders who bought Acadia's.  What a great company!  And the technical component of the Google group will agree to entirely distance itself from any hint of complaint or desire for compensation or suit.

 

The alternative to this very positive set of outcomes might be that: 1)  The total community of 2000 users outside of FMGNJ who have no resources to get help from Bristol and don't know about the Google Group effort totally lose their Acadia investment,  2) The homes at Fort Dix continue to show less than rock solid reliability or energy efficiency,  and 3) A slowly creeping negative publicity cloud sweeps the net, tarnishing the reputation of Bristol and the Twin Single compressor line.  Complaints emerge that the dual relay/dual contactor starting circuit required to use high torque starts has a pernicious failure mechanism, and other reports suface that the T-81 line shows an alarming  tendency to mechanically fail when started using high torque methods totally within the parameters of the specification sheets for the two cylinder modes.

 

Matt, and John --- please call me at 978-505-5581 tomorrow to discuss my plan.

I spent a stormy hour with John on the phone and agreed to design and price the needed eequalized start - but feeling very agitated that Bristol is not being a quality user oriented company and is rather acting only so as to prevent any damages claims.  Hopefully John's boss - the VP of engeering who has been handled the ball - will be a bit more cooperative.

icesailor

?

What am I missing?

meplumber

They are missing something Ice.

Look guys.  I am 40 miles from the former Hallowell Plant.  I went to a handful of their show and tell sessions.  The problem lies in compressor design.



It is a matter of physics.  Perhaps the good Dr. Silverstein can expound, but here is my $.02 worth from about 25 yrs of working on heat pumps.



Regardless of magical snake oil mystery design, the fact of the matter is that below about 7 btu/lb enthalpy, it is almost impossible to exchange heat with the outside air.  I posed this question to Hallowell's engineers and got the biggest bunch of BS you have ever heard.  I will say that the ones that were unfortunately installed in Northern and Eastern Maine do not work and never did.  The ones that managed to produce some heat, absolutely ate the compressors.



The Japanese mini split manufacturers have been able to run their heat pump packages down to 10 btu/lb but they tell me that the threshold is near that point.  So, if you live in the Northeast or MidWest, you spend most of January and February at or below the enthalpy threshold.  When you need the heat the most.



I hope I am wrong, but in my professional opinion you and many others were sold a Lemon.



Good Luck.