Griffiths A/C: Great products - Even Better Service.

[mthomas58]

Another great service/support experience with Griff this week that I just had to share. We are all guilty of *****ing about problems or poor service in our daily grinds, but we often don't take the time to recognize great experiences. So, on the brink of this summer's A/C season I just had to share. (As a discalimer, I am not on the payroll - just a satisfied customer who now stays cool in the summer).

The LED light on my Kuehl Variable Fan Speed Controller failed on Tuesday. Check this out:

Email to Griff 10:37AM Wednesday

Greetings Charlie,

Hope all is well with you. I have just picked up responsibility for SC in addition to GA at work and will be traveling there frequently. I am told by many that Columbia, SC is hotter and more humid than Atlanta, therefore, I am glad to be Griffiths A/C equipped!

Had an A/C incident yesterday that I want to run by you. While returning home from a Columbia yesterday there was a loud pop like a rock hitting the windscreen and something white flashed past me followed immediately with a burning wire smell. Did not know what happened initially but then I then noticed that the fan speed light was out and the white cover had blown off (must have been the white flash I saw). The A/C system and fan is working fine - just no indicator light.

Any idea what might cause this? I can tell you that I don't think the light has been working properly. Initially I got a very distinct green or orange-red color when the compressor was off/on. But for the past year, when the compressor cycles on the indicator light has flickered orange rather than staying solid color perhaps overstressing the light????

Can I replace the light without replacing the entire variable speed fan controller unit?

Thanks
-Mark

Email Reply from Griff at 12:14PM Wednesday

And, Greetings Mr. Thomas !

The LED light and the controller are independent of each other; the light simply picks up the power off the
circuit at the fan speed switch (when the switch is on power goes to green led) and the thermostat (when power flows
through the thermostat the red light comes on; making 'orange' hue). So the failure is not related to the controller board.

I looked over when we shipped you the controller, it was back in 2008.
Since then we came across an 'occasional' issue and it seemed to be only (almost only) 86+ year cars.
The issue appears to be voltage levels to the LED, too much and she pops!
I had a very frustrating time a year or so ago with another client, his car kept blowing out the LED, it got us to
step back and inspect what 'could' be the cause of the overvoltage.

The original LED's were designed for a 12v (nominal system). When we have them produced the factory tests them.
When we had this issue pop up we started testing every unit here before we shipped; plugging them all into a regulated
12v supply and burning them in perse over night up to 15v. We never had a failure however we were getting these occasional failures
in the field and what was frustrating was we could not pin down the exact car model years however they seemed to come
about with 86+ cars and randomly. We could dive into the factory circuit but there was not much help.
We sent failed units back to the manufacturer and all they could say was 'its fried, hard to tell, but can't see any issue with
the quality or assembly'.

Since we knew excessive voltage was the culprit we asked clients to review the battery voltages and came across a few that
had high voltage problems, however not all failures were with high voltage cars. And here again we are not talking about
a lot of failures, just enough to say 'hey, that's over the MTBF you would expect for this device'.

So here is the solution we came up with that has seemed to have resolved the occasional issue.

1) We upped the voltage rating from 12v nominal to 15v nominal in the design, we lost a little light output but not noticeable.
2) We are now including an ‘anti-spike diode’. Nippondenso use to have a block style diode installed on a Porsche 944's.
And other vehicle system designer's and some compressor companies do this. The purpose is to drain off the 'spike' which
is created when the clutch coil is de-energized; if a spike occurs it can run up the system and mess up with the vehicles electronics.

We will send you our latest LED model (higher 'v' capacity) and the diode with instructions today.

-Griff

Email 12:46PM Wednesday

Received shipping confirmation and tracking # from UPS.


How great is this?

Thanks Griff!

[mlfox]

I too have had an excellent experience with Griffiths. Customer service of that caliber is rare indeed these days.

Regards,
mlfox

[GH85Carrera]

It sounds like all my dealing with Griff. I wish all companies made his level of quality, and stood behind the design and manafactuer of the products sold.

His stuff is just solid quality.

[Bob Kontak]

Ditto.

I bought a Sanden, compressor to evap and new low pressure side hose. He was just starting to sell barrier hose and he gave me a screaming deal in 1997-ish - Something like $50 for the long hose. Also made the hoses a little longer so the compressor can hang way out of the way for maintenance.

[mthomas58]

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera

It sounds like all my dealing with Griff. I wish all companies made his level of quality, and stood behind the design and manafactuer of the products sold.

His stuff is just solid quality.

And, he gets results!

[pete3799]

Was on the phone with Charlie yesterday discussing an A/C system upgrade for my SC.
Five minutes after i hung up the phone i had a 4 page E-mail with his recommendations and options available.
Great to talk to someone who really knows his stuff.

[KOH]

+1

Charlie's products and customer service are second to none. Outstanding to deal with.

[quincydog]

Just to echo all the positive feedback above, I recently undertook a complete a/c overhaul on my 1987 Targa and there were a handful of emails and calls to Griff during the project to get me over some obstacles that I encountered (all due to the fact that this was the first time I ever worked on an a/c system). All I can say that excellent customer service is certainly a key differentiator when comparing vendors. This was the one of the two main reasons I decided to go with Griff. The other was the high quality of parts. For those that have a similar project on their to-do list, I highly recommend going the Kuehl way. There might be a slight premium in terms of budgeting for this project, but you certainly get what you pay for. I live a couple of hours from Griff’s shop and I made the trip to pick up all of my hardware – that was an experience all in itself. Griff spent a considerable amount of time explaining various steps of the project and giving me a tour of his shop. Right then and there I knew I made the right choice. - Michael

[ruwoodbury]

Having recently purchased Charlie's Upgrade package I can say the experience from beginning-to-end was exceptional. From sales info to shipping promptness, parts quality, thorough instructions and fitment everything was spot-on. Add to that his phone help and general good will and I can't imagine buying from anyone else. Finally, the results of all this for me is perfectly functioning a/c.
Thanks for starting this thread!

[SilberUrS6]

I agree with all the above. Griff has been kind and patient through all my dumb@$$ questions, and I suspect that when I have more dumb@$$ questions, he'll be just as knowledgable and nice without having to say "duh" out loud or anything.

[wwest]

Originally Posted by mthomas58

Another great service/support experience with Griff this week that I just had to share. We are all guilty of *****ing about problems or poor service in our daily grinds, but we often don't take the time to recognize great experiences. So, on the brink of this summer's A/C season I just had to share. (As a discalimer, I am not on the payroll - just a satisfied customer who now stays cool in the summer).

The LED light on my Kuehl Variable Fan Speed Controller failed on Tuesday. Check this out:

Email to Griff 10:37AM Wednesday

Greetings Charlie,

Hope all is well with you. I have just picked up responsibility for SC in addition to GA at work and will be traveling there frequently. I am told by many that Columbia, SC is hotter and more humid than Atlanta, therefore, I am glad to be Griffiths A/C equipped!

Had an A/C incident yesterday that I want to run by you. While returning home from a Columbia yesterday there was a loud pop like a rock hitting the windscreen and something white flashed past me followed immediately with a burning wire smell. Did not know what happened initially but then I then noticed that the fan speed light was out and the white cover had blown off (must have been the white flash I saw). The A/C system and fan is working fine - just no indicator light.

Any idea what might cause this? I can tell you that I don't think the light has been working properly. Initially I got a very distinct green or orange-red color when the compressor was off/on. But for the past year, when the compressor cycles on the indicator light has flickered orange rather than staying solid color perhaps overstressing the light????

Can I replace the light without replacing the entire variable speed fan controller unit?

Thanks
-Mark

Email Reply from Griff at 12:14PM Wednesday

And, Greetings Mr. Thomas !

The LED light and the controller are independent of each other; the light simply picks up the power off the
circuit at the fan speed switch (when the switch is on power goes to green led) and the thermostat (when power flows
through the thermostat the red light comes on; making 'orange' hue). So the failure is not related to the controller board.

I looked over when we shipped you the controller, it was back in 2008.
Since then we came across an 'occasional' issue and it seemed to be only (almost only) 86+ year cars.
The issue appears to be voltage levels to the LED, too much and she pops!
I had a very frustrating time a year or so ago with another client, his car kept blowing out the LED, it got us to
step back and inspect what 'could' be the cause of the overvoltage.

The original LED's were designed for a 12v (nominal system). When we have them produced the factory tests them.
When we had this issue pop up we started testing every unit here before we shipped; plugging them all into a regulated
12v supply and burning them in perse over night up to 15v. We never had a failure however we were getting these occasional failures
in the field and what was frustrating was we could not pin down the exact car model years however they seemed to come
about with 86+ cars and randomly. We could dive into the factory circuit but there was not much help.
We sent failed units back to the manufacturer and all they could say was 'its fried, hard to tell, but can't see any issue with
the quality or assembly'.

Since we knew excessive voltage was the culprit we asked clients to review the battery voltages and came across a few that
had high voltage problems, however not all failures were with high voltage cars. And here again we are not talking about
a lot of failures, just enough to say 'hey, that's over the MTBF you would expect for this device'.

So here is the solution we came up with that has seemed to have resolved the occasional issue.

1) We upped the voltage rating from 12v nominal to 15v nominal in the design, we lost a little light output but not noticeable.
2) We are now including an ‘anti-spike diode’. Nippondenso use to have a block style diode installed on a Porsche 944's.
And other vehicle system designer's and some compressor companies do this. The purpose is to drain off the 'spike' which
is created when the clutch coil is de-energized; if a spike occurs it can run up the system and mess up with the vehicles electronics.

We will send you our latest LED model (higher 'v' capacity) and the diode with instructions today.

-Griff

Email 12:46PM Wednesday

Received shipping confirmation and tracking # from UPS.


How great is this?

Thanks Griff!

That had better be a seriously high power diode for "sinking" the inductive "kick" of the compressor clutch coil. The most common circuit for this, seriously high inductive voltage "kick", is a capacitor across the clutch coil to limit the risetime of the voltage "spike", and then a diode and low resistance POWER resistor in series.

LED "white flash" indicates something a bit more serious than the wrong current limiting resistor, more like the current limiting resister shorted out resulting in the full 12 volts be applied to the LED.

Feel free to pass this on to Griff...

[pavegeno]

+1...

Four years with a complete Keuhl system and still getting ice cold a/c...any issues I've had (most self induced!) were instantly responded to (weekends included). Installed the high output Hurricane evaporator fan and it really made a great system perfect...

You get what you pay for...thanks for being Keuhl, Charlie.

[Joeaksa]

Wish you guys would STOP calling Charlie!

Been trying for a couple of weeks to call him and the damm phone is busy all the time!

Oh well, guess I will email him and sneak around you guys!

Joe A

[gsxrken]

Add me to the list. In the middle of my install, I found that my front condenser fan was seized. IIRC, I sent it to him on a Monday via USPS, had it back Thursday! Didn't even slow me down. And when he was charging my system he diagnosed that my power seat was blowing my AC fuse. I always wondered why that fuse would sometimes pop...
Good guy. Oh and AC is too cold to have on high/high after the cabin has cooled down.

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by gsxrken

Add me to the list. In the middle of my install, I found that my front condenser fan was seized. IIRC, I sent it to him on a Monday via USPS, had it back Thursday! Didn't even slow me down. And when he was charging my system he diagnosed that my power seat was blowing my AC fuse. I always wondered why that fuse would sometimes pop...
Good guy. Oh and AC is too cold to have on high/high after the cabin has cooled down.

Ain't that a great problem to have.

My wife asked me to turn the temp UP when we were in Savannah GA in AUGUST because she was cold.

[wwest]

Originally Posted by kuehl

Griffiths-great-products-even-better-service.html

That "inductive kick" that sent the diode's plastic encapsulation into "orbit" (luckily no one lost an eye) should have been isolated from the diode circuit through the opening of the thermostatic switch.

What kind of poor circuit design are you selling that exposes the circuitry to such a huge electric surge?

I see. You used a dual color LED, green to indicate the system is on, enabled, with a red LED element connected to clutch coil side to indicate that the compressor is cycled on. Even a junior engineer could have advised you of the probable outcome of that circuit design.

"..even-better-service..." Yes, most certainly so, especially when you screw up such a simple design aspect in a way wherein someone might lose an eye. Did you issue a TSB right away, recall...? Any attempt to notify customers who had previously purchased your flawed circuit design..?

How did you get that far along with such a FLAWED design absent someone noticing the LEDs bright flash, as OP obviously had, each time the compressor clutch circuit was opened? Or was it observed but without understanding of what it meant, pro-tended?

Did you know that using a simple high power diode to "swamp" the compressor clutch coil inductive kick might well result in premature failure of the clutch? That approach results in a "slow" clutch release. To prevent that possibility you need a high power resistor of fairly low resistance in series with the diode. And a high voltage low microfarad value capacitor in parallel with the diode resistor to slow the inductive voltage risetime would also help.

The fix you should have used (now use?) is a 16 volt high power zener diode (motorcycle alternator voltage output regulator, voltage LIMITER) in parallel with the RED LED and its current limiting resistor.

[Rot 911]

Originally Posted by mthomas58

what was frustrating was we could not pin down the exact car model years however they seemed to come
about with 86+ cars and randomly. We could dive into the factory circuit but there was not much help.

Since we knew excessive voltage was the culprit we asked clients to review the battery voltages and came across a few that
had high voltage problems,

I think Porsche back in '86 knew they had some circuits that were susceptible to voltage spikes. Hence the mysterious '86 year only diode in the parking light circuit, which was discussed in a post of mine way back in 2001! Help! Strange Parking Light Electrical Problem!

[RMS]

I would like to chime in here. Ordered the blower motor upgrade from griffiths last winter during a complete ac retrofit. Before I even had a chance to open the box an envelope came to my house with a flat washer and screw. To my amazement griffiths had sent me missing hardware without me even knowing it or having to call them. Good guys to do biz with.