The realization of how easily things can go awry is astonishing. Call it the repercussions of Murphy’s Law or another natural inclination towards chaos, but almost all industrial activities without proper guidance and standard practices can result in issues. Furthermore, even with these considerations in play, problems can still arise. AMCA 202-17 – Troubleshooting, a guide produced by Air Movement and Control Association International, incorporates past experience from end users, fan manufacturers, and independent third parties to help troubleshoot problems during fan installations.
AMCA 202-17 – Troubleshooting serves as a guide that can be used to identify the root cause of different problems with both new and existing fan installations, covering aerodynamic, noise, vibration, and mechanical issues. This is through the document’s diagnostic approach for identifying and fixing relatively common problems.
According to AMCA 202-17 – Troubleshooting, the user should initiate this procedure by consulting the manufacturer-supplied installation and operation manuals for the fan, drive components, and appurtenances. Following this, users should refer to the “Master Troubleshooting Annexes”, Annexes A through H, which each designate a different subject that the user can correlate with the apparent problem. Through this, the user is provided with several probable causes of the issue.
For example, in Annex A, “Noise”, section A-9 is for the motor, so it should be referred to if the user is hearing a sound coming from the fan’s motor. For this issue, the standard lists the following probable causes: lead-in cable not secure, AC hum in motor or relay, starting relay chatter, noisy motor bearings, single-phasing a three-phase motor, low voltage, cooling fan striking shroud, or poor motor/inverter match.
If the cause of the trouble is not found in the Annexes, AMCA 202-17 – Troubleshooting states that the user should proceed through the System Checklist, which helps to further address the problem and allow for suitable corrective action to be taken, as each item in the checklist includes a different action that can assist the user. Since poor system performance can arise from a variety of causes, such as improper installation of the fan or damage in handling or transit, it is important to consider many possibilities. The items in the System Checklist are aided by figures and diagrams.
After going through the checklist, if the problem still has not been solved, users should contact the representative of the fan manufacturer, providing them with the results of the system checklist, as well as additional information listed in AMCA 202-17 – Troubleshooting. The fan manufacturer or their representative should then be expected to analyze the information submitted. Through this analysis, and possibly an onsite inspection, the manufacturer should likely be able to identify the problem.
Additional information on conducting the troubleshooting activities is detailed in the standard.
AMCA 202-17 – Troubleshooting is available on the ANSI Webstore.
