Team-BHP - The home / office air-conditioner thread

Thanks @sandeepmohan @sagarpadaki! I am actually worried about having to remove the clothes on the line every time before operating the Ac during daytime, than about the condensation itself. And yes, the other Samsung unit also has copper pipes. For this particular room, I previously had a Samsung window unit, so there was no such issue!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gansan (Post 4800026)

I am actually worried about having to remove the clothes on the line every time before operating the Ac during daytime, than about the condensation itself.

Keep it simple and attach a funnel with plastic ties under the place that is dripping and drive a hose pipe to divert the water. Other thing you can do is also use a tray, drill a hole and fix a run off pipe to that. You get these water can dispensers with a tap, that is another option if you saw off half of it to make it fit under your ODU.

It is not the insulation: the condensation will be forming on the valve unit itself. How to stop it? Insulate the valve, and any adjacent open-to-the-air pipe. With what? I have to leave this to your imagination. Some kind of foam strips? Something that traps air which is what does the actual insulating.

I happened to search for the portable ACs and found that Bluestar has one.

They look convenient just because of their portability.
But my major concerns are:
1. Their cooling efficiency
2. Durability
3. Noise

Anyone happened to purchase/use the portable AC? (any manufacturer)

Quote:

Originally Posted by pkulkarni.2106 (Post 4802381)

Portable AC's are not as efficient compared to the traditional split ones. There is compromise of space and NVH which leads to slow and insufficient cooling. We had one in our office from Lloyd brand. It used to work well only in conjunction with the central AC of the building. As a standalone it was not good at all.

See if you can demo one from a store for a day. It will help you see if it suits your requirements.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sagarpadaki (Post 4802822)

Portable AC's are not as efficient compared to the traditional split ones. There is compromise of space and NVH which leads to slow and insufficient cooling.

That's why I was skeptical about these.
May be this is the reason why these portable ACs are not as popular as the traditional split/window ACs.

Thanks for your advice!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom (Post 4799712)

(5th May)

Bedroom AC, our old Daikin is showing an odd fault. It runs for a while (the first couple of times, it was for an hour or so, now it is for a few seconds) and shuts itself down.
... We hope to see [the engineers] at 10.00am tomorrow.

Engineer came as promised. He cannot bring a helper as more than one-on-a-bike invites trouble. He diagnosed fault with control board. He told us that both spares sources and board-level-repair shops are still closed, which is giving them great difficulty.

He took the board away.

He has returned early this evening, fitted the repaired board and all is well again.

We have labour-only AMC on that machine: cost of repair was Rs1,750.

I don't have to do this again tonight...

The home / office air-conditioner thread-dsc07727a.jpg

Yes I bought the Bluestar portable AC. Cooling is just about adequate. Mine is two years old with no issues. Noise level is low, in fact lower than window AC. They have a demo center near Queens road (opposite Congress Office) so I tried it out before purchasing. Even the power bill is comparable to window AC

Quote:

Originally Posted by pkulkarni.2106 (Post 4802381)

I happened to search for the portable ACs and found that Bluestar has one.
They look convenient just because of their portability.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom (Post 4802937)

He has returned early this evening, fitted the repaired board and all is well again.

Previously, this machine was very "accurate." If you set the control at 25C, the room temperature would drop to 25C or very close. Now I seem to have to select one or two degrees less on the control to get the temperature I want. Maybe they replaced some electronic component with a different value?

Anyway, will recalibrate self to fit in. No point in trying to do anything else.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom (Post 4802937)

Engineer came as promised. He took the board away

This happened for 2 Split A/Cs at my sister's apartment at Mumbai, this morning. The technician was visiting a neighbors place and sister requested him to repair the water leakage issue with the Room A/C. The guy says some problem with the board and rips the board of the Room and Hall A/C and left saying will be back in couple of days!

Does 'board' have to do anything with the water dripping issues on the A/C OR is he taking them for a ride? :confused:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom (Post 4804270)

Anyway, will recalibrate self to fit in.

Could it be the heat that is causing you to feel this way? I am running my ac at 20° to have a good night's sleep these days.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JMaruru (Post 4804409)

Does 'board' have to do anything with the water dripping issues on the A/C OR is he taking them for a ride? :confused:

I think he is definitely taking her for a ride. I do not believe water will drip due to the board. It is clogged fins and clogged outlet, which is common if the air con is not serviced for long.

For water dripping, I'd check that the drain tube is not blocked, and I'd look for ice or excess condensation on the indoor fins. Oh, having cleaned the filters, of course.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JMaruru (Post 4804409)

... Does 'board' have to do anything with the water dripping issues on the A/C OR is he taking them for a ride? :confused:

It sounds strange. At least with our machine, it was obviously a power/control issue, and it is now fixed. Also, although this machine is not covered for parts, it is an AMC, company is well know to us, and bought the other two ACs off them.

We'd still use the local guy, who sold us this second-hand Daikin at a time when funds were short for anything new. Trouble is he's too good, and has become too popular and therefore hard to get hold of.

Quote:

Originally Posted by diyguy (Post 4804476)

Could it be the heat that is causing you to feel this way?

Even though it is cool for May (that might end this weekend), yes, I have felt the increase and been in need of more AC! But I don't go only by feeling: I check the thermometer, and it is by that that our machine seems to need to be at previous-1.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom (Post 4804270)

Previously, this machine was very "accurate." If you set the control at 25C, the room temperature would drop to 25C or very close.
Anyway, will recalibrate self to fit in. No point in trying to do anything else.

Temperature setting in ACs are not precise as we want them to be. There is a matter of temperature hysteresis, which simply put the difference between the set temperature and the turn on temperature. Earlier mechanical thermostats had nearly 5 C difference while the modern microprocessor has a lower hysteresis.
Another thing is the difference between the grill temperature and the room temperature. The difference typically would be about 9 C depending upon a number of factors - positioning of the IDU, heat loss for the room, number of occupants, heat producing objects and the frequency of door opening.
Bottomline is something may have changed in your case - even the way the sensor is clamped to the evaporator. In one case, the customer had wrapped the sensor in foam which kept the compressor running most of the time - resulting in iced IDU.

All that is true and I know it. My car AC is always set to 22: an actual temperature of 22 would make me uncomfortably cold.

You have missed the point that I am talking about the same machine, before and after repair, results based on thermometer reading. It has changed.

It doesn't matter. As I said, I'll recalibrate myself. But it used to be the only one of our machines where set temperature and resultant temperature were more or less aligned. Now it isn't. Less convenient.

Especially as I have to deal with my wife's extreme fussiness about being even a little bit too warm in the night!