Remote analysis & Remotely Applied Changes Resolve Fault. Saving on Repeat Call Out fees & Wasteful Energy Usage in Hong Kong.

Equipment fault with iced up coil

Resolve a longstanding issue with a case that was suffering from icing up. On first observations of the data it had a low evaporator temperature during a defrost, the evaporator temperature was only just rising above zero. This was causing the case to ice up after several days of operation.
Although the case was iced up it was still able to maintain a product temperature initially (and anyone probing the case at this time would see it as ok at this early stage), however eventually it would not be able to maintain the required temperature and put the food at risk, whilst also using far too much energy in trying.

The Solution

LoweConex rule-based logic automatically pushed multiple remote defrosts commands to the unit when the case had iced allowing the refrigeration unit to continue operating at temperature and preserve energy, allowing a window for further investigation using
the data sphere.

LoweConex visibility setting was configured for ‘Defrost Mode’ and noted that it was set to 0 (electrical defrost), many Freezers use this setting as during a defrost the unit can use the heater to allow warm air to pass through the evaporator to clear it of ice, the controller is capable of being setup for several different types of defrost mode, electrical defrost being one of them.

Last night at approx. 6PM we remotely changed the setting of the ‘Defrost Mode’ to 1 (Hot Gas Defrost).

Following this setting change we can clearly see the evaporator going up to 18 degrees which will now prevent the unit from icing up in future.

The Results

Without the visibility of data and remote intervention this case could have been left like this and the coil would have iced up on a regular basis.

The usual fix for this would have been for an engineer to have attended the site and manually defrosted the case. This action would have left the case working for a while but eventually icing up again, requiring a return visit by the engineer. Now this setting can be applied estate wide to any cabinet that has the same meta-data as the refrigeration unit discussed in this case
study.