mitsubishi chiller

anyone else having problems with their chillers on mits wire fa10, or fx20? replaced ours 18 months ago, now this one is giving us problems. Ever have a HVAC technician recharge the freon? Machine shuts down when tempeture difference between water and ambient gets too great. is there a better chiller I can buy? Mits does not make or sevice the sealed unit they sell with the machine. out of stock with new improved version. RJT

On my fx 10 my chiller acts up also. It errors out and i have to power down to clear the error. What error do u get?

I think it is 03, caused by the water temp being too high compared to ambient tempeture. It is not cooling fast enough or effeciently enough. Is that what yours is doing?

Our chillers freeze up. We have to pull them away from the wall during the winter. I ended up wrapping heat tape around the reservoir on it to keep it from freezing over the weekends when the shop temp is low, and the machines are off or idle more. If there were that many problems with that chiller than mits would be fixing it for you. Call mits, they might have an answer.

Husker

They are the first ones we called. Thier answer was it is a sealed unit, they do not service it, buy another one. They have a new improved one but none in stock. Wait till next month for stock to come in. Meanwhile, my machine won't run. Had an HVAC tech look at it. Found a burned wire and it is running agian. Hopefully optimistic. I don't want to buy this same one that lasted only 18 months. We keep our shop at 70 degrees year round. Never heard of one freezing up. RJT

There are aftermarket replacements, Remcor makes a good one. I've not had any problems with the one on my FX10K.

Some people run into problems in the summer. They put their chillers in an un-airconditioned utility room, where the tempature could be 90 degrees. The chillers are not designed to be able to work in that kind of environment.

I have my chillers and transformers in a different room from my machines, but that room is kept at the normal shop temperatures of +- 5 degrees. This helps me maintain +- 2 in the EDM room.

Cheers!

Roy Solomon

Where are you keepin the chillers? I had the same problems when I kept the chillers in a separate room where the air temp got over 95 degrees daily and it would shut down. When I moved them into the air conditioned area where the machines were(78 degree airr temp) the problems ended. Those chilleres are not meant to work in uncontrolled environments!

We keep ours righ at the machine, 70 degrees year round. I think we have solved the problem, just a loose wire supplying power. Thanks for the atfermarket suggestions. I will keep it in mind if we have future problems.

Before I had the brainstorm to buy a manufacturing company, I was a HVAC tec. The chiller shouldn’t be hurt by keeping them in a room that is 95 degrees; it may shorten its life a little but nothing drastic. Chillers and condensing units run all the time down south in temps higher than that. That said, your efficiency will be diminished greatly so it’s not a good idea. You really should consider ducting the air exhaust outside, this would cut the heat in the room down by half or better. My suggestion would be to keep it in the room with the EDM, duct the exhaust, and air-condition the room, this will give you the most efficiency and longevity for the chiller. I have heard of people not ducting the exhaust and just using the AC to get rid of the heat, this is money down the drain. My EDM’s chiller puts out 40,000 BTUs of heat I was told; for every 12,000 BTUs you need 1 ton of AC, so I would need a 3.5 ton unit just to remove the heat from the chiller then you need to cool the room and a little extra for the heat given off by the computer. The electric company would be your new best friend.

RJT, glad to hear you found your problem; 95% of AC problems are electrical.

Good luck.
Ed

We exhaust our dust collecter system in our grinding department through a filter and return the heated or air conditioned air back into that room. Using that logic, would exhasting heated air in the winter not cause my heating bill to go up? Wouln't I need a return? I can't figure how I would be ahead to exhast the air off the chiller. What am I missing?

Sorry about that, yes in the winter you would want to keep the air inside but in the summer get it out side. I see you say your room is 75 year round which is fine but how do you achieve this in the summer?

Thanks
Ed

Not a HVAC guy but usually when you exaust air, hot or cold you have to bring in replacement air from outside, I tried it with my 1200 cfm dust collector, in summer it sucked out the A.C. bringing in hot outside air,in winter the heat. Now I have return duct like RJT says it helps. Only way is to add more A.C. in summer.If you exaust the hot air you are also exausting the A.C. and drawing in heat as makeup air, would use a very small fan if you are going to do it. I have a similar problem with my sinker chiller,puts out a lot of heat. A similar problem, friend had a small icecream shop, he had 5 tons of A.C. a 3 ton for normal then they would turn on a 2ton on hot and busy days to keep up with the 3 soft serve machines and freezers or they would screw up also.

Never had a problem with the chillers on the mahcines at the shop I work at only thing we do is during the summer we turn them so the hot air blows outside, and in the winter we turn them so they help heat the shop

Again, I wasn’t clear on what I was talking about. To do this right you would run a duct from the chiller out side, this air will be hot only. Yes with a 1200 cfm fan you would need to have make up air but not for the chiller unless you building is really airtight. In the ductwork you just need to provide a way to blow the air inside in the winter.

Ed