Ämne: Nibe F2016 - Mjukstart / Kompressor

[lammy]

Hej and apologies for the choice of language, but I hope I can get some good advice here, as heat pumps are still quite rare in my country.

I have a Nibe F2016 Air/Water heat pump which has stopped producing any heat. The control panel does not report any alarm. On investigation I have found that the Soft Start module (a CARLO GAVAZZI - RSBS2325A2V12C24) is flashing the red alarm LED 5 times, which translates to "End of Ramp" alarm. I understand this means the compressor has failed to start within the expected time of 1 second.

Upon closer inspection I see that the "Main winding" (R) terminal on the Soft Start module is burnt/melted. It looks like this thing got too hot. But the wire is still connected.

So my question is, how confident can I be that this fault is purely the soft start module, as opposed to the compressor itself? My instinct is to replace the Soft Start with an equivalent one (maybe the 32A version instead of 25A). But I would like to check that the compressor is still working, because if I have to replace that I will probably get somebody to do the whole job for me.

Is there a safe way for me to bypass the soft start so I can test the compressor? Take the wire from the burnt R terminal and connect it to L? Or will I do more damage? I do have a basic multimeter I can use to test things. Or should I not bother with that, and just get a new Soft Start?

Many thanks

[HBerggren]

Feel free to bypass the softstart. Try to move the all the phase cables to the corresponding output terminal, or put them together in the way you like - so you bypass the soft starter.
Make sure that your circulator is running and turn on the power. See if the compressor is running great with expected phase power. Some difference is ok.

[Carl N]

I should say that you should not run the compressor any longer time like this.
You can bypass the soft start and test that the compressor is running, but don't run it for heating the house like this, it is only for testing.

It is the R-L that you should connect to bypass the soft start.

[lammy]

Thank you both for your assistance. I connected R and L as suggested and the compressor starts up. What a relief! As suggested I have turned it straight back off. I will now order an RSBS2332A2V23C24HP to replace the soft start. This seems to match the spec of the existing one but is rated to 32A instead of just 23A (I hear on another forum that Nibe started fitting the 32A version as standard because of this problem), and includes some auxiliary ports that I don't need.

Hopefully you won't hear anything else from me on this topic!

[HBerggren]

Thank god that you did follow Carl's suggestion. I could not imagine that it was a 1-phase machine. I did only think it was like mine, and had an older soft start type. Hope that it will keep going with new soft start.