Condenser fans, slow down with age or just work until they don't? My system seems to be struggling a bit and while the fan doesn't seem slow it doesn't just doesn't feel like it's pumping the volume of air I seem to remember. 10yr old unit fwiw
Reduced airflow is usually down to a restriction of some sort. Dirty coils, extremely dirty air filter, or coil icing if refrigerant levels are low.
Thinking the same. New one will be here tomorrow. Current one is 5 plus years old so silly not to replace for under 20 bucks
My bad. I should have paid more attention. I have seen the occasional condenser fan blade get loose on the shaft and do a bit of freewheeling. Not that likely, but easy to check.
I've had the Basement RV AC out several times in the last 2 seasons. It has like 5 capacitors- 2 compressors so each has a run cap and start cap. And interior and exterior fan with run cap / start cap. The Amazon ones are generally shit and last one year at best. They go out of tolerance and the symptoms return with hard starting, etc. I finally ran some wires so that I can replace them without taking the whole unit out from under the RV every time. This year I bought made in USA ones, hopefully they will hold up better. You can check the fan motor with a meter and amp clamp to see how much it's pulling, that lets you know if it's ok or not. Thank god for Jason Waters- (STK 1000 racer) He's an AC guy so I've had to ask him questions at the track probably 3-4 weekends now.
While it wasn't doing the typical no start no run from a bad capacitor I did pop a new one in and it seems better. Might have been just about to fail and causing some short cycling? For the 15 bucks a cap costs I'm going to just start replacing annually
I use https://www.mouser.com/c/passive-components/capacitors/motor-start-capacitors-motor-run-capacitors/ easy order process
Tangent Q: if a "typical" residential AC system is low on freon/empty and does not cool the air at all, how many pounds of freon are typically needed? It happened here, and the tech loaded only two pounds. Sound right? It does cool, but the temperature delta is not as much as I'd like to see it.
The general guideline used when calculating the amount of Freon in a residential A/C unit is 2-4 pounds per ton of cooling. For example, if you install a new A/C system rated for a five-ton load, the system will require 10-20 pounds of refrigerant.
If you have a decent multimeter you can test them. Set it to microfarads (uF) and test between poles. You should have less than 5% tolerance.
