Just when I thought I was out...

An ac's main purpose is to cool, dehumidification is secondary, a straight dehumidifier will always remove more moisture. An ac itself will put out between 1 and 2 pounds of water per ton, per hour.

 

"There have to be mini split dehumidifiers. Or some such thing. We can't be the first people to want this."

Don't think they make them for mini splits but they are called heat pipes. Common on large commercial applications. You can also do it in a residential system but it's usually more cost effective to just get a whole house dehumidifier.

Another way to do it with a residential system is to go with a variable speed blower motor. These systems are high end and very expensive. I'd hit you for about 25/30 grand to do a complete system, ducts and all from the ground up.

 

That makes a lot of sense. A purpose built dehumidifier will be more effective at lowering RH than an AC.

That's a lotta dough-ray-mee.

 

I let it run over night and at 9:30 this morning it was iced solid.

got a 220 timer. The plug was wrong. I made an adapter from Homie Deport parts. Testing now.

 

If your fan is no longer hitting the water in the pan and the intake airflow is unrestricted then you have a refrigerant leak or you kinked a line somehow when you installed it. Usually those window shakers don't have schrader valves so you're probably fucked.

Read this.....

https://asm-air.com/airconditioning/air-conditioner-freezing-up/

 

Right on thank you. I skimmed it looks good. I'm heading over now. Wonder if the timer worked?

Hope I'm not fucked. LOL universal hope

 

They make saddle valves but they usually don't seal all the way and then you have more than one leak, but, at least you're able to recharge it... but then you need access to the right refrigerant and some gauges.

Hopefully your unit doesn't reset its temp when it loses power, a lot of window shakers do that.

 

I'm here. About to go look. Drum roll...

 

Fucked.

Gotta read that link you posted more closely tonight. For now I just switch it to fan only and the ice melts in a few minutes. Then I'm back in biz.

Tonight I'm staying to make sure the thing shuts off when the lights go off. It's been in the low 60s at night outside I was hoping that running it at night was the prob.

The rh hasn't been high when lights are on. It's possible the rh goes way up at night.

Ugh

 

What's more important than it shutting of is this; if it runs continually does it go below the set point of the room? It can run 24x7 as long as it's only maintaining the room temp and not freeze up. It will only freeze up if it's below 60 ish AND you set it to some low number that it will never make AND it actually makes it so cold in the room (around 70ish and below) that the evap coil sees it as a "no load" condition. ( this only applies to summer, whole different thing in winter, then you need a head pressure control to cycle the outdoor fan on and off)

I've seen also where a metering device on the high side of the refrigerant line will become just restricted enough to mimick a low refrigerant condition.

Time to pony up some bucks I'm afraid cause in my professional opinion You have too much on the line to keep monkeying around unless you get lucky and fix it. It won't be cheap either way so why throw good money after bad?

 

If I have to I will. But a few things. I didn't sync the timer for the ac with the timers for the lights exactly. It's possible the ac kicked on an hour before the lights came on.

Also I noticed the rh high last night was 85. I checked the setting on the night exhaust fan and it is set to come on at 70. If it's cooler than that the exhaust fan won't come on to exchange the room air. The ac was set to 68.

Min temp in the last 24 hrs was 61. Max temp was 101. Min rh was 24. Max rh was 99.

There was only a thin layer of frost this morning. Much less than days before. The thing runs all day with no frost at all.

 

The humidity is just that and nothing more. Something is causing the refrigerant across the coil to be 32 degrees or less. That is the only way it can freeze. If it runs all day with no issues then it may be that the night conditions are such that it's freezing, but bottom line the refrigerant is below 32f across the coil. Put a thermometer at the intake, then put it at the output, you should only have a 18 to 22 degree split if it's working right. A high split, like 23 and above is caused by restricted airflow, a low split, below 18 is caused by restriction or incorrect charge. There's more to it, but that's the basics.

Also, the split will follow the room, meaning 70 in, 50 out... 90 in 70 out (approx.)

 

So I adjusted the timers to match, and turned the room exhaust fan to run all nigh. This morning no frost, but I noticed that there were water droplets on a few spots i had mashed flat. As the day went on there was more and more water. So I took a razor and fixed the fins as best I could. I also noticed the autocool function doesn't reset itself after power off.

It's working fine right now.

 

When the evap coil was freezing up was all of it freezing or only the top half?

 

Only the top half was freezing. It's been in the 50's at night if that matters.

 

Top half usually indicates a refrigerant leak. I'd keep my on it. What are the room numbers and oat when you are running it?

 

I have 2 temp/ rh things hanging under the lights right at the canopy. They read 86-88. The sensor for the co2 monitor has a temp and rh sensor too. It reads lower 75-85 but it's not in a hot spot.

No ice this morning. I think I got it licked.

 

Maybe not. No frost for two days, then this morning, thin frost on half the grill. Top half. Same as always.

I didn't fix all the donkey prints in the fins. Here's before



And here's after



I think I need to fix them all the spots. I just did the worst. If for nothing other than to buy time until I replace it with a properly sized minisplit.