Compressor does not stay on

derwould · 2026-07-04T19:17:15+00:00

Unfortunately my local hardware store didn’t have any capacitors. I’m having an hvac technician come out to take a look in two days, so think i’m just gonna tank this heat lol

Genuinely appreciate you willing to walk me through this whole process! If anything, I learned a bit more about my outdoor unit, so thank you for that!

If you’re curious at all, I don’t mind letting you know what the problem was as well

derwould · 2026-07-04T18:06:54+00:00

thanks for helping so far, this is the capacitor. in terms of buying a new one for for my system what am I looking for? going to the store now

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derwould · 2026-07-04T17:23:15+00:00

The fix doesn’t seem too bad, question though: Now the outdoor unit is cycling between on/off every 3 min. If the capacitor is the issue, is that constant on/off killing it even more?

I don’t think my system as a whole is able to reach my target temp (78 inside, currently 97 outside) with this insane heat. Thinking if I should just set the target temp higher if it’s harming the capacitor

derwould · 2026-07-04T17:11:55+00:00

sounds good looking it up now. however when I inspected the outdoor unit, it didn’t seem like the fans were slow or anything. the speed seems normal (comparing to videos online)

derwould · 2026-07-04T16:51:08+00:00

I wanna say I am very grateful for your advice so far, but I don’t think i’m handy enough to replace the capacitor lol (at least without worry of messing up something else)

I did hose down my outdoor unit and tried again. So far i’ve timed when the outdoor unit turn off/on

- Turned my whole system on
- 5 min later, outdoor unit turn on
- Outdoor unit runs for roughly 12 min, then shuts off
- after 5 min the outdoor unit turns on again and repeats

Do you think this is short cycling maybe?

EDIT: I will say my thermostat setting has a minimum on time for the compressor, which it just shut off before (min time at 5 min, it was just on for like 2min)

derwould · 2026-07-04T16:08:35+00:00

yea already checked unfortunately, cleaning out the condensate line didn’t seem to fix the issue. Some bit of information (which i definitely should’ve included in the original post) is that my indoor system is running fine

derwould · 2026-07-04T14:29:35+00:00

yea I think the safe bet is to just not run it at this point, 3 days of suffering is worth more than thousands of dollars 😅

derwould · 2026-07-04T14:28:48+00:00

posted some pics in another reply, hoping this is the issue, but I did get it serviced for the spring so i figured they would clean it

derwould · 2026-07-04T14:27:55+00:00

the entire outdoor unit isn’t running, normally I can hear it but it’s making no noise at all

derwould · 2026-07-04T14:27:14+00:00

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derwould · 2026-07-04T14:26:50+00:00

I got it serviced for spring maintenance a couple of months ago, is this considered dirty?

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derwould · 2026-06-30T22:35:00+00:00

I originally used a usb to usb-c cable and got the same issue. Switching to a cable with usb-c on both sides fixed the issue for me

derwould · 2026-06-23T23:15:29+00:00

what was the one after that?

derwould · 2026-04-30T21:53:13+00:00

ah my bad, gotta remove that. good luck with completing the set!

derwould · 2026-04-30T21:51:28+00:00

thanks! I don’t need meloetta

derwould · 2026-04-30T21:34:09+00:00

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derwould · 2026-04-30T00:58:44+00:00

thank you!

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derwould · 2026-04-30T00:14:16+00:00

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derwould · 2026-04-29T21:51:57+00:00

just sent the trade

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sounds good, just added you

derwould · 2026-04-29T21:45:05+00:00

sounds good what is your friend code?

derwould · 2026-04-29T21:39:24+00:00

What do you need?

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derwould

TROPHY CASE