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| Phew! That was a lot less expensive than it could |
by ChuckAB |
2005-09-11 16:50:10 |
have been!
Situation:
Having finished mowing the yard, I got out the line trimmer (weed-eater, weed-whacker, etc.) and began trimming. When I got to the air conditioner, my trimming line snagged the A/C control wire The A/C was running.
Well, I then tried to straighten the wire back up when it started shorting out (there were several bare spots in the wire where the insulation had worn/detieriated away) causing the compressor to rapidly cycle.
Then it quit.
Uh-oh.
So my trimming comes to a halt and I start working on repairing the control line. I go inside and turn the thermostat off so unexpected things don't start happening and then go back outside. I trim off the sun-damaged portion of the existing wire and discover that it's too short now to reach the A/C unit. So I grab some telephone wire to create an extension. Since the control wire carries 24 volts, I twist together the 2 pairs in the phone cable (red+green and yellow+black). I hook it all back up, go back inside and flip the switch on the thermostat.
Nothing.
Now the thermostat is flashing an "E" in its LCD display. Spent some time looking for the manual and having found it after about a 20-minute search, can't find anything about a single flashing "E". Reset the switch with the little reset button, disconnect the batteries and reconnect, replace the batteries with fresh ones - all failed.
The wife does a look-up on the web and discovers that this model is no longer supported and no information is available on line (Hunter model 44422). Well, since I put this in not long after I moved in 10 years ago, I'm not really suprised. It worked flawlessly until I screwed it up.
So it's off to Wally World (Wal-Mart) to find a new thermostat.
Found one for about $25US that gives me basic programming capabilities similar to the old one. The biggest difference is that I now have to change between heating and cooling myself. The old one switched on its own.
Well, I pulled the old one off the wall, mounted and wired up the new one's back plate, installed the batteries, programmed the new one and attached it to its backplate.
Nothing - for about a minute. Then the A/C started up normally.
Yea! |
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