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Hard Start Relay,Honest Answer Please

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Techman
Techman Member Posts: 2,144
in A-C, Heat Pumps & Refrigeration
Just a quick Q here for all of you honest tech's. How many of you  tech's open up the potential relay to check the contacts condition? And the condition of the coil ?  I do, I do,every year!!! Who else?

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  • Empire_2
    Empire_2 Member Posts: 2,343
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    I can honestly say:

    I don't open the relay, BUT, I do check to see just how long the Contacts take to open and at what amperage.  I have seen in the past, a relay with contacts welded shut and thus over heat the compressor.  I actually took the place of the relay and disengaged the start cap my self, it worked great.  It's a neat experience if you ever run into it.  Energise your load and manually remove 1 lead from the relay of the start cap. You have now just become the Potential relay...



    Mike T.
  • ddlong1286@yahoo.com
    ddlong1286@yahoo.com Member Posts: 139
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    Relays

    Don here,

    Anytime I run into a start Cap bad, I replace the pot. relay. Same with a bad Run Cap. It just became a habit. If the one or both of the caps are bad, then more than likely the relay is bad. Especially if there is any age on the system. I give the customer the option, but why should they worry about something else going wrong a few days later? 99.9% of the time the customer says ok!



    I did/do this when opening up frost free refrigerators and working on the defrost componants. If the heater is bad, then recommend replacing the defrost terminator. If the customer doesn't want to, fine, make a not and hope they don't have problems done the road.

    Don in MO
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