Keep a brass bristle brush on hand along with your nylon brush. Brass is softer than aluminum, so it won't scratch it up like stainless bristles will. Go from softest to hardest bristles when cleaning stuff (i.e. nylon first, then brass if nylon doesn't work, then stainless if the brass doesn't work).

and this is probably the cleanest machine ever, almost properly maintained. imagine people what you are drinking in the restaurants and hotels :)

Hello Chris. I am not in the refrigeration business but am a machine developer. I enjoy watching your diagnosis process, smoke included, as it offers me insights alternative from my background in Electronics. I am amazed at your knowledge and proficiency on such a wide variety of equipment. Thank you very much for sharing your extensive knowledge. Wishing yo all the best for 2023.

I'm new to the field of HVAC and still learning the ropes. I'm grateful for the opportunity to work with experienced technicians like you and appreciate any advice or guidance they can offer.

Hi Cris I really appreciate all the hard work you put in the videos, I enjoy them and learn all the time one or another little thing thanks for sharing knowledge and blessings and happy holidays for you and your family 🙏🙏🙏.

I'm beginning to sound like a broken record at work: "knock the ice down from the back of the bin, the bin full sensor hasn't worked in 9 years and ice jams up!" And then I knock it down, and a cascade of ice chips rolls from the chute to the front of the bin. FFS people, a gentle tap with the ice scoop after you fill the caddy doesn't take but a second! But no, they'll use a ton of ice and leave a wall of built-up stuck-together cubes in the back. We don't have a dedicated filter for our Hoshi, but we do have a 6-stage system attached to a water softener. Sediment pre-filter, 4-stage 0.5 micron cartridges, and a descaling stick. All of our equipment still suffers from hard water, calcium, and lime. The sediment pre-filter is usually fully clogged within a month. Our water pressure barely hits 40 psi on a good day, until you start filling a sink or brewing a pot of coffee. I've actually seen water flow at the sink drop when the Hoshi goes into a fill cycle. I've been griping for over a year now that the water softener is not using salt at the rate it should be, but I'm just a Crew Member, what do I know, aside from how much salt we used to go through nine years ago in the exact same location doing the exact same thing... I live half a mile from work. My home's well pulls from the same water table as the store. Our 0.1 micron water filter clogs every three weeks, we don't wash our clothes at home due to iron staining (and the calcium/lime destroying water valves on the washers). None of the shutoff valves in the house will shut off water due to internal buildup (any plumbing repair requires shutting the valve off at the water tank, and draining the house's lines). Dude-With-A-Toolbelt (he's been less of a douche lately, so his rating has improved) said a few months ago, while replacing an $800 boiler tank in a $14,000 espresso machine, "man, your water out here is HELL on equipment." Like I hadn't tried to tell him that nine years ago, or one year ago. And then, discovering the $1,000 steam boiler tank was bad too. For the same reason: obnoxiously-hard water. HELLO! CHECK OUT THE WATER SOFTENER! IT WAS OLD NINE YEARS AGO! IT'S A SEARS-KENMORE UNIT THAT LOOKS LIKE IT'S MADE FOR HOME USE!

I guess I was fortunate with the different fast food chains I did work for. My work was time and material and I only had one problem with one franchise owner. He had me do more work than what was originally discussed. He still did not like the bill and was not paying. I had a good relationship with corporate so I contacted them, within 4 or 5 days I had my money. Corporate operations never gave me any problem. I would start a conversation with corporate or franchisee as to what needed to be done and they would interrupt and say do whatever you think it needs. I was told more than once that I had Carte Blanche. Love your videos, keep up the good work.

This one actually educated me a lot on this one, seeing as I’m going to do more commercial refrigeration.

Thanks for this, our sales persons sold a gas station with this exact ice machine on it. All the training we get comes from google. I appreciate it.

I've had to do this many times in restaurants I have managed, and almost everytime it was because it was never descaled. The scale build up would cause the ice cubes to get stuck in the plate channels during the harvest. When the defrost terminated and went back into the freeze cycle, the stuck cubes just grew and grew with each cycle, until it was one big block of ice.

Que tal buena noche, no se hablar inglés pero veo tus videos y son extremadamente importantes y muy buenos, sinceramente muchas gracias por compartirlos aprende uno mucho con tus grandes explicaciones, nuevamente muchas gracias. Saludos desde Coacalco Edo de México.

out of precaution i would have replaced the float switch being it had a date code of june 2015 on it....after 7 years it could be sticking sometimes but that rubber boot was full of sediment and was preventing the float from dropping all the way down to go into harvest. good job over all 👍

This particular Hoshizaki does not have a max harvest cycle because there is no way for the unit to tell that the ice has fallen like a " door switch" or something like that just done off time unusually 1 to 2 minutes but can be adjusted on a dial under electrical section or new ones are dip switches. This type is controlled strictly on water level the float once down far enough send unit into harvest. While in harvest the inlet valve opens to fill the reservoir back up same thing on start up after cleaning 1 minute fill/ harvest. I have seen sticky floats like in this case and or leaky or clogged inlet valves. Just my 2¢ worked on a lot of these thought this info may be handy.

Forget the water line, that water filter is amazing

i'm actually surprised there wasn't a filter of some sort but then again, it is a buisness so they likely wouldn't want that as an added expense as it would be a consumable and they likely wouldn't want to spend the extra few bucks on a replacement filter, interesting to see how the bigger machines like this work from an operational standpoint, cool vid and educational while being entertaining, stay safe out there brother

great video as always! Greetings From Germany

Nice. More ice machine videos

Good to get back to hvac videos, work/troubleshooting styles/inspiration and other reasons. Got a little bit lost in those KZfaq shorts. They can pull you in for too long.

I love watching your videos you give out exlent advice on how to fix things properly that all ways happens to me I get tunnel vision and can't see the big picture since I been watching your videos I'm taking my time so not to get tunnel vision and look at the big picture

Great Video Would love to see a full cleaning of an ice machine

The last hoshi I worked on was a fresh install under warranty, the genius that installed it put the water check valve in backwards and didn't know what was wrong so they called us lol.

Happy Holidays

Your Bin flapper can also cause issue with freeze up if they are equipped with it or the bin thermostat can if it's sticking closed.

Great video. I was surprised how little black staining the clear hose for the top rails had.

Thank you

Looks like you'll be back to this one eventually.

I had no idea the reason for that hose on top of the float 😂 Definitely gonna check those from now on

This big freeze up happens to me a lot. I find it's generally from lime buildup on the evap, poor water flow due to clogged filters, I've even found one was a defective water fill valve, sometimes something in it breaks, and then there's hardly any water flow or none at all, even with a clean inlet screen. All of my Hoshizaki machines have Hoshizaki branded high flow filter systems on them, so I never have to clean the water valves. One thing I would recommend doing to speed things up a little, is turn the switch to On. All the Hoshizaki machines start in harvest mode and water fill mode. This will supply hot gas to the plates and water in the center channel. As soon as the machine goes into freeze mode, I switch the machine off, wait a little, then back to on, and force a couple of defrosts. This helps at least start with the thawing process, then I dump the water, refill with hot water from a hose just like you did. This is the best method to defrost the "Hoshizaki Ice Monster" is what I call those. I have another machine that I have since shut down at one restaurant, it's a 1600 lb/per day machine and looks like the evaporator is too damaged, and no matter what I try, it still freezes up into a big ice monster, starting from the left side then progresses over to the right. Seems like when the ice plates separate from the gas lines, the hot gas doesn't make good contact with the ice cubes, and some of them 'cling on' and don't fall off, then next freeze cycle they just start growing bigger, disrupting the water flow, and snowballing into a big mess. Customer does not want to spend the money to buy a new evaporator on a 10 year old machine, so just leaving it off as a 'hot' spare for now. It will work and run for a couple weeks at least, so the manager will only turn on this machine if the one that is working good goes down, and I can't fix it right away due to parts availability etc.

I think it’s the same in so many fields. Owners/managers are so worried how a spread sheet looks that they constantly trip over a dollar bill to pick up a quarter. We in the trades just look and shake our heads. I’ve had customers tell me they are going to buy a different brand of equipment because they don’t break. I tell them anything mechanical will break, maintenance is the key. I told them that the reason I bought a 5 bedroom house instead of a 3 bedroom house was because equipment keeps breaking and I had some spare change by repairing it.

Nice freeze up. There is no problem with any ice machine, until 6pm on a Saturday when a server has to climb into a 1000 pound storage bin to get the last 10 cubes from the bottom…….$$$

I'm a sucker for any merch that includes big picture diagnoses on it..

No in line filters on that... so cant predict water qual to ice ..and the plates can get that crud on them so the cleaning is nec...

We’ll be here man Suport is the key

Content is so good, we don't have much to add. 😁👍

That sediment is lead solder residue. Been working on these for years...

Had one a while ago that had intermittent freeze up issues. Could not figure it out and put that guy on maximum harvest time. Works fine as of now, definitely cuts down on production but luckily the machine is way oversized for what they need.

I think the thermistor terminates Harvest somewhere around 50 degrees. But I have has a few units where it was the Float valve causing and contributing to freeze up

Great job Chris big picture diagnosis

Thanks Chris👍🏻👍🏻

When I'm cleaning the float switch, I look where the actual switch is inside and when I see a crack I usually replace it. Usually they will be faulty and fail intermittently when checking with an ohm meter, move the float 10 times, should not fail.

Another excellent video! Your knowledge is amazing.

During the cleaning cycle I kept seeing water dripping down the copper lines. Same as during the last harvest. Isn't that what's causing the freeze up?

Another great video

Solid work as always Chris. 👍👍

Thanks for the great video! I’m hitting my 3rd month on the 19th of December for my refrigeration apprenticeship and will be on call for the first time on the 16th, what would you/everyone else say is the best way to stay focused and retain information? Thanks !

Yea the kms has like 2 water fill valves. The one that goes over the grid and one with a hose that fills the sump.

Well yes things are working fine with that small water line. But. Things work fine, until they don't. And as machines age, smaller items become more problematic. Great video.

Thanks for the video Chris. 📹 #teambigpicture

Out of curiosity, have you ever seen ice machines utilising UVC sterilisation to avoid biological gunk buildup?

Again, by the way Chris, don't die on me man. You are my favorite treasure troll. I myself have about 50 years in trade. Again, welcome to the world wide webb. I could write all this in Russian, but what hell.

Looks like the water had a lot of minerals in it. Just that is a reason for keeping up the maintenance.

We put descaler filters in line on the wall hung boilers,I would imagine that might help on the ice machine.

What is it about the restaurant business right now that is leading to so many restaurants looking to cut costs on things like maintenance? Are restaurants not seeing as many customers? (and hence reduced revenue) Or are they seeing higher costs? Or both?

I've seen ice grid peices stuck in the pump out spring assy.

On that water level control, use a decent flashlight on it to see how clean it is, and mark were the levels are when it kicks in the harvest mode, I'm guessing thats why they are opaque

Single beep for high evaporator temp. Two beep safety for long harvest. Three beep for long freeze.

I just did this Tuesday, same thing, smaller tho. Cube guide was permanently concave, i got a new one tho

Ever have pump running backwards causing tank to waterfall into bin? I just had one they was nightmare to catch because only did it during freeze cycle and initial fill up.

Good stuff man as always. Forced disability early retirement. Bilateral vestibular hypofunction.... lets just say not good, oh with ocsillopsia... fun stuff. Anyway way wish I had found you while still work in kitchen equipment repair. Did both hot and cold side work. Worked for ECOLAB before they sold us. Love how you take time to explain things and why it's important to just stop look and listen. Best tools you'll ever own for diagnosing things. Keep up the good work. Your videos bring me some much needed comfort and envy. MARRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU AND YOUR FAMILY

the best part of melting the ice is when you get to aggressive with the hose the water shoots back in your face and goes down your shirt

I here any chance to have a water conditioning filter before the ice machine to prevent calcium build-up?

Those feed 3/8" lines they have can have a fitting size where the crimp is that might be as small as 1/4" or 5/16". Also, dumb they have no filter feeding that machine. This would have been a good one to use a steamer on. So much more you can clean with steam. All those little plugged ports/ holes. And faster.

Always love the videos. Do you ever get into high efficiency chillers or water cooled systems?

I didn’t notice a filter system, could that be an issue?

Merry Christmas Chris :)

Awesome video

If scratching was a concern why wouldn't you use a brass brush?

Hi, our church just bought a used Hoshizaki KM-1300 machine, it's in decent shape. However, once we starts cleaning the machine we noticed that one of the 4 evaporator plate has been separated from the coil, the two in the middle are solid, but the one on the other side is just starting to become loose. I would like to know if it's worth it to replace the evaporator coil on this machine? We paid $2,000 for it already, and look like a new evaporator will cost over $3,000 :(

So could i ask why this company does not have a water filter that filters the water from supply? As this would go to ensuring the iso standard is achieved as is expected in most countries.

I'm still here for ya bud

is it normal for the copper pipes to have water running down them like that? you could see the water drops frozen on them at one point, i would think with the covers on that might not have time to melt and build up maybe? just random thoughts from someone who doesn't do this stuff. - also taco bell finally got ice 😂😂😂

the water fill valve is more restrictive than the short section of 3/8" appliance hose.

Have you ever changed a TXV on a train heat pump 5 ton unit?

Vapor lock… when the breathing tube is plugged. Vapor lock occurs..

Nah, i'm just a lurker. Watching all videos but streams 👍

No water filtration system?

Looks to me like the ice machine was working fine - it was just putting the ice in the wrong place!

The old clogged rails? I had one that had a bad dirty condenser that caused freeze ups.

Did you have the valve in the clean position as well or normal ice making position

So, HOSHIZAKI is a Japanese company with a traditional Vietnamese name? Made in American Georgia? Well... sort of, established in February, 1947 in Nagoya, Japan by Mr. Shigetoshi Sakamoto, established in Los Angeles, California in December 1981, opened in Georgia in 1986. If you speak Ukrainian it's ХОСІЗАКІ - and it sounds the same as that name in English. "HOSHIZAKI ELECTRIC CORPORATION manufactures and sells commercial use kitchen equipment such as freezers, refrigerators, food/beverage dispensers. The Company has sales subsidiaries across Japan as well as overseas."

I didn't see a filter on the water line. Also, is the water shutoff valve full-port 1/2" ? That could also restrict flow if it is not.

If you wanted to melt the ice, could you turn that plastic lever to let water go through the evaporator? Kind of how you turn it to clean the machine?

Heard you are hiring, do you pay relocation expenses? also need training with PTO and benefits…jk happy holidays!

I put filters with pressure gauges on both of my machine.

You can tell that this video is a fake because he said that the customer turned the switch off and emptied the bin 😆

How many hours would you generally quote to clean one of these machines in the video? I had a call today to a very similar machine for a freeze up immediately after another tech had installed a new water pump the previous week. Going back next week to troubleshoot since it was a call at 3pm on a Friday and a block of ice when I arrived. Going to try to convince customer to let me clean the machine while I'm there because it's foul. First Hoshizaki I've seen mostly see manitowoc where I'm from.

Can you do some more ac troubleshooting videos

Can't believe that hose caused the ice build up The flow rate over the harvest period would be more than enough to fill the tank. No the lack of a proper carbon filter is more likely the ultimate culprit imho

I've heard from another channel (not hvac) that they are also experiencing weird things with KZfaq.

How do you get all of the sediment out of the sump?

Who makes Advanco Ice Machines?

I did clean a very similar ice machine and ended Having the ice machine making less ice than it was making before Why this could be the reason thanks

Do walk in freezer be maintenance too to defrost

You gotta be careful of the cube guide breaking and getting sucked into the water pump ans other places. Cant make this shit up

WE NEED MORE VIDOES

the half inch water line size is likely specified to provide enough water at the lowest allowed input pressure with variance due to other building water usage. most of the time its far larger than needed. some of the places around here(that I've worked at) have over 80psi at highest usage time of day! even some residential places I measured at over 100psi over night when the city water refilled the towers! talk about going into a panic, due to thinking about pressure ratings of known installed CPVC pipe and other flexy noodle lines. (installed double check backflow, PRV, expansion tank, in/out gauges and more). lol

What type of ice does this machine produce and what is the model?

the water dripping down the pipes would not be helping the ice up in the front of machine and it looks like a couple covers are missing

What is the specifically name of Cleaning Liquid??

6:30 that pump inlet elbow looks awfully sad( collapsed and shrunken?) looks like a near inlet restriction and cavitation causer to me.