ABOUT THIS PROJECT
Here at Orlando we like to breathe new life into old plant.
- It can be as simple as just fixing a single point of failure that has previously inhibited its reliability.
- We see it as a form of ‘Up-Cycling’, saving heavy CO2 manufacturing costs for replacement equipment.
- For sudden failures of plant, we can offer retrofit options to give a business time to budget and find resources for future replacement; we give you a little breathing space.
- But most of all, we truly leave things running much, much better and more efficiently than when we found them.
For the Ministry of Justice, we were asked to do a condition report on an old Climate Chiller. The main failure point were the controls. Being over 20 years old with the doubling up of electromechanical backup control WITH Digital Control was just a formula for disaster. We proposed a control retrofit from the Carel PcO5+ range of controllers using adapted generic chiller control software; the adaption is carried out all in-house.
We successfully retrofitted the controls and removed all the redundant hardware, relays, thermostats and failed MCB’s. There was a single reliability issue with Compressor 1, it tripped on Over Temperature Safety Klixon. We had to return and investigate the compressor. We could find no issues with the contactors, refrigerant charge, current draw and Oil Analysis.
We surmised that the compressors Overheat Klixon may have been weakened by the compressor being run outside its safe running envelope before the retrofit. We noted that the trip happened at high loads during pull-downs at morning start-up. Looking at a site log the Chilled Water Temperature would creep up overnight and exceed 25 DegC before the chiller start-up in the morning, especially after weekend shut-downs.
We carried out a small software change to inhibit the compressors going to full load if the Chilled Water Leaving Temperature exceeded 15.0 DegC; standard fair for most chiller manufacturers nowadays. Since then we have not had any further problems on site, you are fully supported by us from start to finish, whatever surprises pop up during any works.
