Trane Provides Dealer Support in Time of Change

Eric Weiss: As a Field Service Representative, I spend most of my time working with contractors, technicians and dealers in a training capacity, to make sure they’re attending training classes, are up-to-speed on the latest Trane products, and that they understand the challenges they will encounter in the field. 

Today, our Trane Comfort Specialists and regular dealers are trying to keep up with the changes, not just with A2L refrigerants, but in increased efficiency products. PSC (Permanent Split Capacity) motors are now giving way to inverter technology. This trend started with gas furnaces about seven years ago due to a Department of Energy requirement to attain better blower efficiency. Then it transitiond to air handler and package unit platforms, and is becoming more popular with compressor drives. 

PSC motors are fairly consistent from one manufacturer to another. However, in the inverter world, that game changes.  Every concept will be similar related to filtering processes to clean up the power, and there will be capacitors to store the power, and some kind of control logic to drive that three-phase motor. But the layout and discharge time will be different. You look at a variable speed motor and it may say to wait two, five or up to 20 minutes after shutdown before working on it. With Trane’s inverter systems, we try to discharge within two minutes and we’ll either incorporate resistors to discharge as heat within the drive, or maybe use the compressor windings. With items like that — not only with the layout or where to check voltages, or the location of sensors — the HVAC manufacturer can put a lot of logic into an inverter system for protection, reliability and to make life easier for the technician. 

CB: Trane’s ComfortLink II “Plug-and-Play” control was introduced in 2011 as an in-home monitor and aid to greater HVAC system efficiency by providing a better communication path between the thermostat and the indoor and outdoor HVAC units. How is it helping today’s technicians?

EW: For example, during rain, with lower tecmperatures and no excessive heat load, relative humidity can be diffult to manage. But with a true Plug-and-Play communicating system, the thermostat can see relative humidity and ramp the system down to a lower air flow. Airflow is important for system performance, homeowner comfort and dehumidification, but it changes every week. Some weeks it’s hot and dry and we want to increase airflow above 400 CFM per ton. Then when rain comes we want to ramp it down to 300 CFM. Trane product platforms with the Comfort Link Communicating System can do that today. ComfortLink is smart enough to sense that it’s dry, and time to run in a strong, sensible capacity or of it’s humid, to switch to latent capacity. That impacts the compressor speed-to-blower-speed relationship, to maximize homeowner comfort and minimize the troubling situation for the technician of, “where should I set the airflow?”