An interesting little over current rig you got; wish I had the knowledge to build such things....
My problem is getting to the indoor units blower wheel. Shine a flashlight up inside the output vents. The squirrel cage nature prevents easy physical cleaning if you can even reach a brush up there.
I use a coil cleaner product at the change in seasons, twice a year. Just spray on fins with filter mesh removed.
Outdoors I use another outdoor coil cleaner, pretty much lime away, and hose it off before winter; fall harvest and leaves are the issue. It's condensing all winter so self cleans pretty much. I'll touch it up with a radiator fin comb straightener too.
One thing to consider - although I'm not sure how you measure the effect - is that these units generally require full open air above them and a snow roof obviously restricts that; maybe removing the tin roof for the summer would suffice.
I noticed this years Fujitsu units feature smart outdoor pan defrost, so there is no longer much of an electric penalty in harsh winter conditions. In order to boost effeciency gains, both Mits and Fuji indoor wall units have grown in size to house a larger coil in their latest gens.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Xringer
The DIY over-current shut-off circuit measures the current, if it goes to 10A (2.4KW), it shuts off the power for 70 seconds.
This keeps the Sanyo from accidentally zooming up to 3.6KW+ and putting too much strain on the system.
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I have not wash-cleaned the Indoor units yet. I keep an eye on the filters and keep them clean, all year round. I measure their performance and so far nothing is degrading. The filters can be soap and water washed, when needed.
I have added foam seals around the edges of the filters to keep dust out of the coils.
Sanyo #1 has been going off it's meds once in a while and has to be shut completely (breaker-open) down for a full reset. I think it might be the controller aging and getting erratic. But BTU vs watts, it's unchanged.
I have been manually cleaning outdoor units. I use a soft brush to remove the bio-matter from the air intake side of the coils.
Then, I use a leaf blower on the out-put side, to push air (backwards) into the coils, this blows out the dust and smaller bio-matter chunks.
I try to avoid back-spinning the main fan blades too fast..
Since I fear that might generate voltage from the motor, that will feedback into the MOSFETs that control the motor..
Maybe next time I used the backward air clean, I'll tie down the blades.
I'm pretty sure the back-spin won't cause any harm, but don't want to chance it on this old design..
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