Friday, September 10, 2010

Blinking Aircon

My air conditioner is acting up. It is old, and despite being checked several times, it doesn't cool the house down very quickly - in fact, it takes hours. The solution offered to me by the maitenance men was simple - just leave it on all the time. Ignoring the energy waste, there turns out to be one problem with that solution. Not only is the unit not strong, it randomly turns itself off. So often I will come home to the apartment well over 30 degrees, and it will take 3 or 4 hours to cool it down.

So finally I had a huge pow-wow with the aircon A/S man and the building maintanance men. Lots of checking, phone calls to the repair center, not taking, voltage and current measurements, and the result? They don't know what is wrong.

But wait - the unit has a diagnostic function built in. When it turns itself off, it will blink one of two LED lamps (the right or the left one), some number of times - say once, twice, or maybe three times. If I note this error code, they will know what is wrong. Seems easy?




Well, it only blinks this code for 1/3 of a second!!!!! I have to catch it JUST as it is turning off. Since it only turns off maybe 1 or 2 times per day, it will be next to impossible. Oh well, I'm going home now to watch the aircon.

Translation: aircon = air conditioner
A/S = After Service = After Sales Service
30 deg C = 86 deg F

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