Expensive Mousetrap.

[KMCloonan]

Well, we have made it through this summer's heat pretty much unscathed.... Until yesterday.

When it was time to go to bed, I told my wife the upstairs of our house seemed warm, and that the air that was coming out of the air vents was only barely cool. It turns out the AC compressor stopped working and all we were getting was recirculated basement air.

|I took a vacation day today - We had planned to go to the Wisconsin State Fair, but the weather looked pretty steamy, so instead I decided to trouble shoot the AC - based on past experience, I suspected the Start/Run Capacitor. So this morning I removed the access panel on the outside compressor unit, to get a look at the start/run capacitor.

The smell should have given me some idea of what was wrong.... once I removed the access panel, I saw that some poor mouse met his maker when he climbed on the capacitor and shorted it out. Apparently there was a small fire as well that singed a couple wires, and definitely one crispy critter.

I ordered a replacement capacitor through Amazon. Hope it arrives tomorrow. I have been spending time in my workshop in my nice cool basement, but it's tough to come upstairs to the non cooled house.

 

[KenB259]

Happened to me a few weeks ago, mine was a snake

 

[rixstix]

Good luck. The way Amazon works around here, you might have it next week sometime.

 

[Smokey S]

I feel for you, our South Texas heat is horrendous. I went a couple of weeks back and bought 2 spare capacitors. I have two a/c units with the same capacitor. It is inevitable for whatever reason, the capacitor usually goes out during this dreadful time of the year, enjoy the shop time and best of luck on the repair and getting some cool air upstairs…….Smokey

 

[egnald]

I have an electric mousetrap that works pretty much in the same way. It uses a battery and an inductive flyback circuit to charge up a high voltage capacitor. There are a couple of plates on the bottom of the trap. When the mouse completes the connection the cap discharges through the beast. Unlike a starting cap that is essentially connected to the line voltage, the battery and a flyback circuit can't produce enough current to cause any additional cooking of the critter. - Dave

 

[KMCloonan]

I have an electric mousetrap that works pretty much in the same way. It uses a battery and an inductive flyback circuit to charge up a high voltage capacitor. There are a couple of plates on the bottom of the trap. When the mouse completes the connection the cap discharges through the beast. Unlike a starting cap that is essentially connected to the line voltage, the battery and a flyback circuit can't produce enough current to cause any additional cooking of the critter. - Dave

Per Ralph Waldo Emerson: "Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door".

 

[KMCloonan]

I feel for you, our South Texas heat is horrendous. I went a couple of weeks back and bought 2 spare capacitors. I have two a/c units with the same capacitor. It is inevitable for whatever reason, the capacitor usually goes out during this dreadful time of the year, enjoy the shop time and best of luck on the repair and getting some cool air upstairs…….Smokey

Thanks for the tip - the Caps aren't all that expensive. I should order a spare, just in case.

 

[derekdd]

I admire the ability to work around having HVAC guys out.

Our aging system could go at any time.

 

[KMCloonan]

Well, The replacement Capacitor finally arrived (Amazon 1-Day shipping is more like 3-day). I cleaned up the mess a burning mouse makes, trimmed back some of the scorched wires and put new crimped connectors on, and installed the capacitor. Turned on the circuit breaker, which then made a weird humming noise. Went outside and the humming was coming from the compressor. Ugh.

I invited a buddy over - he is an electrical engineer, and he poked and prodded with his multimeter, and said it looks like one of my windings in my compressor must be shot. So now I need to shop for a new compressor. This unit is only 6 years old. In theory the part is warranteed for 10 years, but not the labor to install it. Shaping up to be the most expensive mouse trap I have ever seen.

 

[jrista]

Glad you identified the problem! Ugh, when those little critters die in some inconvenient place, then start to rot... Hate that!!

I do find it a little ironic, somehow, that a device designed to cool entire homes, and has all this evaporative heat-sucking capacity, isn't cooling its own capacitors. I figure, it probably wouldn't take much (just a little loop on the evaporative side of the system) run past the circuit box (and maybe through a little evaporative heatsink unit attached to the circuit box, or even board) to keep it cool on the hot, capacitor-exploding days...