Replacement gfci an power cord for portable Airconditioner

General lounge
1

So of course the day before I go out of town, the A/C unit dies and when I return to the office, it’s 35C in there from the equipment running with only a window fan for cooling. Not fun, turned on the intake fans to pull in cold outside air and filled the evaporative cooler and within a few hours it’s back to a much more comforable 27C. With those running overnight, it’s now 24C.

So basically it looks like the GFCI melted, as did the 3 outlet power bar and the extension cord. Luckily I caught it before it set anything on fire.

You can see pics here

http://i.imgur.com/5QmNmIj.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/fg6FFfI.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/1YVt0Vl.jpg

The GFCI unit is labelled

Tower Mfg Corp
Catalog Number 30380
15A 120VAC 1800w

http://www.towermfg.com/lcdi.htm

I’ve got a call into the parts department for Royal Sovereign to see if they have the replacement power cable with GFCI, failing that can anyone recommend where I can get a replacement locally?

I was initially thinking of just cutting the cord a few inches below the bad unit and installing a new one, assuming I can get one locally. But given how hot the unit was and the various melting effects across the various power connections, I’m thinking I likely need to either cut off 1 to 2 feet of the power cable or replace it altogether along with the GFCI.

Or should I not bother as this unit will likely still be unsafe to use? It’s been powered on and running (cycling the compressor on and off as needed) for about 5 years now. I’ve only had to replace the lower fan blade unit 2 or 3 times now and it’s otherwise just kept chugging along.

If it was warm enough that Costco had their yearly A/C unit sale (which is where I originally bought it), I’d just go buy a replacement unit as this one has definitely gotten noisier over the years. But alas that’s probably 3-4 weeks away as I was told when I called Costco. Basically nobody actually has any stock locally and it’s typically 2 weeks for shipping. Also the choices are pretty slim picking and the prices are high. I paid $350 including shipping for this 12000btu unit.

The current unit has 2 hoses and self evaporates, I would NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER buy a portable unit that requires you to drain water from a resevoir, that’s just so 20th century :wink: Ditto for single hose units, not so efficient.

Any comments and suggestions.

2

The usual disclaimers about getting an electrician to do it etc.

I would look at Home Depot for an extension cord with a GFCI on the end of it (check the AWG is the same) cut the socket off it and replace the entire power cable.

BTW never put high current appliances on power strips, they should always go directly into the wall or if absolutely necessary, via an extension of minimum length (no coils etc of excess) to a dedicated outlet. High current = heaters, motors like big power tools, a/c units, etc.

3

My opinions are unpopular… but…
I’d open the unit, take out the existing power cord, and wire in a new, thicker power cable, with enough length to go straight to the outlet, no gfci. They (quite obviously, as evidenced by your failure) get in the way.

This advice is likely to get you killed and break any insurance contracts, but you’ll be cool, so yay for that.

4

DOH!

Turns out this was my fault and matches Tom K’s comments about keeping the
A/C on a dedicated plug/extension.

Originally I had the GFCI plugged directly into a dedicated high wattage
extension cord. It’s been like that for the past 4.5 years.

Some time around 6 months ago, I added the 3 outlet plug to the extension
cord, one socket went to the GFCI and the other went to my laser printer. I
can’t for the life of me remember why I thought that was appropriate at the
time. This was around the time I had an electrician add some additional
circuits to run the a/c, printer and upses so there were enough dedicated
circuits to go around…

Anyhow, it was soon thereafer that I stared having issues with the printer
where it would go to sleep and not wake up when a job was sent, I had to
power it off and back on before I could print again each day.

Since the printer is now plugged into a cable on it’s own, that problem has
gone away.

I was able to order a replacement GFCI and cable from Royal Sovereign, they
even offered it as a freebie, I still had to pay for shipping though and
since I wanted it for this weekend, that freebie cost me $40, up from the
normal $22.

So I’ll install it this weekend and hopefully be back to cooler temps, though
using the evaporative cooler this past week has actually been okay given the
lower ambient temps.

Given the significant electricity cost savings in NOT running the A/C, might
try and avoid using the A/C as long as possible.

5

Well you know that saying about you get what you pay for…?

The “free” new cable with GFCI comes with the wrong kind of terminals, it has
the circular style that you put a screw through rather than the battery
terminals like you would find on say a UPS. See pics below

http://i.imgur.com/WsrGk7t.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/kfs5zG3.jpg

So, 2 problems/questions

  1. do we have any of the correct terminals at the space I could buy or would
    I need to go buy some at Lee’s or Main. I only need 3.

  2. do we have working soldering irons with the correct wattage to solder the
    new terminals and the correct solder? I don’t think my little adjustable
    temp Weller is up to soldering 14 AWG cabling and connectors.

  3. Lastly I know the space is open around 11am tomorrow (Saturday Apr 04) for
    the 3d printing and Laser Cutter training. Assuming I can’t make it down
    during that time, anyone going to have the space open on Sunday during the
    day?

  4. As you can see in this pic

http://i.imgur.com/sZIQwqE.jpg

there’s caked in dust in the fins on both the upper and lower heat exchange
fins and I can’t really get the vaccuum crevice tool in close enough to pull
it out so need recommendation for a good type of brush to use for this sort
of thing. It’s got to be stiff enough to catch and pull out the dust mats,
but not so stiff that it damages the very soft metal of the fins. Both the
upper and lower set of heat exchange fins had a nice thick mat over them, now
just in spots that I can’t quite reach.

I thought about using a toothbrush, but given the clearance in some places
something like a small paintbrush would be easier to manouver into place.

6

Not sure if your unit is movable, but we have an air compressor at the
space that on a reasonable pressure setting should be able to clear those
fins.

7

Good idea, suggest doing it in the loading dock to keep the dust away from everything.

8

It’s movable, but that would be a PITA in it’s current partially dismantled
state and given the amount of work to dismantle it, I’m not inclined to put
it back together to transport it.

I have compressed air cans and if I tie the spraying with my 3M Tech Vac, I
should be able to keep the dust down to a reasonable level at my office.

Though with that said, I’d be concerned about blowing the dust deeper into
the fins…

9

Use crimp connectors, we have a set of them in all different sizes and styles at the space, the blue ones are for 16-14AWG. If we don’t have the size/style you need they are easy to find at places like Canadian tire.

We also have a really good crimper at the space designed for these connectors.

10

Garthomite, comments in line below.

11

Fourth attempt to get this to the list now that I know it can’t handle inline
comments.

Crimp connectors work well for this sort of thing? I would have assumed a
solder connection would be required, but looking at the existing connectors
on the A/C, they all appear to be crimped.

Those (blue ones) sound like the right sized ones, but I’ll cut one from the
existing
cabling to bring with me to verify.

Where would I find the crimper and connectors in the space as I haven’t been
to the new location yet. And only made it down to the previous location a
couple times.

I’m thinking of coming down in the next hour or so.

As a member I assume I just throw some money into the donation box for the
connectors I
use?

12

Thanks to Garth for helping me find the crimper and connectors, A/C unit is back up and running nicely.