Dehumidifier

[DARKSIDER]

Advice needed or pointed in the right direction I'm using a ebac 2400 dehumidifier in one bedroom been good up to now but noticed a burning smell coming out of it today I bought it second hand last year but now I think it needs replacing I'm thinking about one of these two but don't know a lot about them first one is... DeLonghi 14L DEX14 Dehumidifier with Humidistat great for up to 3 bed home DEX14 ..second is Ebac 18 L Dehumidifier Electronic Controls up to 5 bed house 1 Year Warranty..... both of fleabay they are both more than what I need but I'm thinking maybes overkill is sometimes good please advice and much appreciated

 

[Loc Dog]

A bigger one should not be a problem if it has humidistat, and you do not overload circuit breaker. You would not want on same circuit as HID lighting, unless it only ran when lights out.

 

[Mikell]

Try cleaning the air filtres first, may be an overworked fan.

 

[Loc Dog]

Try cleaning the air filtres first, may be an overworked fan.

Or dirty fan blades. Also some dw40 on spindle, and cleaning it.

 

[n_d_ledz]

Try cleaning the air filtres first, may be an overworked fan.

Filters and coils if you can reach them... I have brought a few of those stand alone room AC's back to life, just getting the crap off of the coils!

 

[DemonTrich]

I use key board cleaner spray on my coils. Works great.

 

[Ignor_Amus]

Please know that WD40 is NOT a good lubricant. You can use it to help de-gum and clean, but use a proper lube oil afterwards.

For motors that run on cheap plastic bearings (like a lot of low-voltage axial fans), a drop or two of automatic transmission fluid works really well, believe it or not. It's harmless to plastics, which is a distinct advantage. Some plastics don't play well with oil.

Cleaning evaporator coils with a can of computer duster or compressed air works well enough, but if you want to thoroughly clean them, buy a spray can of foaming coil cleaner from an HVAC supply house. The cleaner they are, the better the heat transfer - which saves electricity and lengthens the life of the unit since it doesn't need to work as hard.

 

[queequeg152]

Please know that WD40 is NOT a good lubricant. You can use it to help de-gum and clean, but use a proper lube oil afterwards.

For motors that run on cheap plastic bearings (like a lot of low-voltage axial fans), a drop or two of automatic transmission fluid works really well, believe it or not. It's harmless to plastics, which is a distinct advantage. Some plastics don't play well with oil.

Cleaning evaporator coils with a can of computer duster or compressed air works well enough, but if you want to thoroughly clean them, buy a spray can of foaming coil cleaner from an HVAC supply house. The cleaner they are, the better the heat transfer - which saves electricity and lengthens the life of the unit since it doesn't need to work as hard.

yup. wd-40 is what i call a "blaster lube"? if that makes any sense... i use it to move shit out of motors etc. lol i remember when i was a kid and had these RC cars with brushed motors... you were supposed to wash them out all the time to keep the grit from fucking up the brushes and the commutator bars.

the amount of shit that came out when you blasted the motor was always satisfying...

but yea, i use drops of air compressor oil to re oil the bronze bushings and shit in all my fans.

these bushings are usually whats called "oilite" scintered bronze though. technically they dont need much lube throughout their lifetime becasue they are impregnated with oil from the factory.

but when you let the bushing get cramed full of shit, you end up heating the fuck out of these bushings, and the heat drives out alot of the lubricant, so a few drops is always a good idea.

shielded bearings on the other hand should not be blasted out with wd-40 unless you have the tools to remove the shield and replace the grease.

regarding cleaning the cleaning of condenser coils and evap coils... please be careful with this.

YES this is absolutly a good idea, these things need cleaning like 2x a year, but remember that on alot of cheap equipment, its impossible to access the backside(side facing opposite airflow) of the evaporator or condensor... this means you cant push out the dust and shit easily, trying to do so will just push the shit into the coil farther.

pushing shit farther into the coil is OK, if the fins are straight, and have a big enough gap, but most small equipment evaporators will have straight fins with zig zag fins inbetween... you cannot push dust and dirt through the zig zag fins very easily.

for this situation where you are working from the suction side, and the fins are not wide straight fins you do the following.

1st. vacuum the loose shit, remove what you can without bending any fins.

2nd, as mentioned above, use a can of heavy foaming cleaner and maby a light brushing up and down to loosen the shit. the foam will try to 'lift' the packed in shit.

3rd. vacuum out the foam and the shit the foam lifted out, and repeat as many times as necessary.

4th, when the aluminum is clean and decent looking, give the coil a spray with a few ounces to water to remove residual cleaner. if its a no rinse foam, you can stop there, but if the foam requires a rinse, you need to clean out the drip pan and flush out all the foam that has splattered elsewhere.

5th, use a cheapo fin comb or carefully use a small screw driver to lift up any flattened fins. crushed fins cannot be fixed easily, but you might want to try if you have the time just be careful not to make shit worse... even like 10% crushed fins will not matter that much unless the crushed fins are 100% blocked... have you ever seen a hail damaged condensing unit? most work fine,
but fins bent over almost 100% block the flow of air and must be fixed. have you ever seen an ac unit that some kid ran his fingers across? these units are fucked because this blocks a big portion of the condenser flow and must be combed asap.

when you do have full access to the down stream face you can skip the foam, and just use a very light jet of water to push out the dust and shit.
foam is still needed for shit thats accumulated really tough dirt or algae or grease, but for just dust and hair and shit you can usually just jet it all out with a light stream from a hose nozzle or even a hand spray bottle.

 

[Ignor_Amus]

Gotta agree with everything queequeg152 said, and his post is worth reading twice.

An excellent point about treating different types of bearings appropriately. Make sure you know what your equipment is made with. "Know it before you blow it". (Sort of a good general principal to follow for a lot of things. )

Air tool / compressor oil = excellent choice.

Don't go melting grease out of roller bearings unless you can re-pack it properly. And that does NOT mean using that white lithium grease spray crap! It has its place, but not in motor bearings.

And if you realllllllyy want to get sintered brass bushings back into good shape to keep them squeak-free as long as possible, use electronics cleaner spray (or automotive brake cleaner, but NOT carb cleaner!) to get the gunk out, let it dry, repeat several times, then oil them up. That will allow the oil will seep into the pores better. If there's enough space showing on the shaft, or if the shaft is exposed on the ends, you may be able to jury-rig something like a Q-tip head saturated in oil so it lightly contacts the shaft - it will act like a reservoir and wick oil onto the shaft as it runs. You can then easily just keep re-oiling your reservoir to keep that squealing pig quiet.

And when playing around with fins, be gentle and patient!

 

[queequeg152]

And if you realllllllyy want to get sintered brass bushings back into good shape to keep them squeak-free as long as possible, use electronics cleaner spray (or automotive brake cleaner, but NOT carb cleaner!) to get the gunk out, let it dry, repeat several times, then oil them up. That will allow the oil will seep into the pores better. If there's enough space showing on the shaft, or if the shaft is exposed on the ends, you may be able to jury-rig something like a Q-tip head saturated in oil so it lightly contacts the shaft - it will act like a reservoir and wick oil onto the shaft as it runs. You can then easily just keep re-oiling your reservoir to keep that squealing pig quiet.

And when playing around with fins, be gentle and patient!

not to derail the thread...

i once read- from some old machine restorer-that you could actually bake these non catalogue custom oilite bushings in a kiln to burn out all of the old oil and turn the carbon into carbon monoxide.

he then said you put them in a bell jar in a puddle of light weight "sewing machine" oil, pull a vacuum for a few hours, and voila. they are back to new.

idk how much of that is true, but it makes sense. you can actually clean carbon soot residue from inside lab glassware like alihn condensers in a similar manner, but without pure oxygen it takes for-fucking-ever.

ive also heard you can just torch them with an oxygen rich acetylene flame ( not to melting point obiviously), and re oil them by setting them onto a rubber mat, and literally pushing oil in by using your thumb as a plunger.

lol OP, sorry for the random aside... just thought it was interesting.

 

[DARKSIDER]

Thanks for all the good advice lads realy appreciate it but I'm to lazy to do all that hard work anyhow to late now I pulled the trigger and bought a new DeLonghi 14L DEX14 Dehumidifier with Humidistat once again thanks guys ...

 

[queequeg152]

please dont just throw away the old dehuy... put it up on craigslist as scrap or something.

the refrigerant needs to be recovered properly, and most scrap people know how to do this properly.