hOmeLabs 4,500 Sq.Ft dehumidifier. Compressor overheats and not dehumidifying!!!

[Repairsamurai]

Hi All,

I would like to find an easy way to fix my dehumidifier from Homelabs. I bought this from Amazon 2 years ago and it's out of warranty now.

I have 2 of them at home and one isn't dehumidifying at all. The one currently not dehumidifying bought it in 2020 which is a new one. Bought in 2018 is still working well.

Disassemble the outer shell and run for 1 hour to see what is going on with it. As you can see in the picture, the bottom coil started icing halfway. Test run for another 30 minutes but no status changed. I checked every part that is related to this issue and I realized the compressor temperature is very hot!! I couldn't even keep touching it for more than half a second.



I do not see any signs of copper tube being blocked by the kinked.

I guess when it's not icing at all because the compressor is being too hot and even more hot when assembled the shells. As you can see in the first picture, the ice stopped right above the compressor and it was already hot.

And I tested for an extra 30 minutes and the compressor stopped working with the lowest humidity setting.

I would like to know what could cause the compressor overheating.

Is it caused by the capacitor?
To test the capacitor, Can I use a multimeter to test the capacitor?

Or is it not enough refrigerant?
Is there a way to refill refrigerant?

 

[Jake]

That's a sealed system problem.

The sealed system consists of the compressor, condenser, evaporator, heat exchanger, filter/drier and refrigerant.

Common problems with a sealed system are bad compressors, refrigerant leaks, and system restrictions.

Sealed system repair costs will often exceed the machines value.

That's another sign it is the compressor, when the compressor is running(AND SUPER HOT) thus not cooling at all inside you have a sealed system problem, either a burned out compressor meaning the piston is running inside the compressor but is not pumping the Freon through the sealed system to cool the inside.

 

[Repairsamurai]

Hi @Jake

Thank you for your reply.

Some of my friends who have the similar model but the different brand, they all have the same issues. They said the brand new purchased equipment did not last more than 2 seasons. I checked their manufactured dates were early 2020. I have the other brand and both labels say early 2020. At least 3 of them were manufactured in early 2020 that I confirmed.

It sounds like the vendors who are providing the copper tubing material and welding those pipes to make the evapolator package had to review their cost due to the covid 19 hits and they probably decided to reduce the material usage by changing the wall thickness of the copper tubing. What I know about how they adjust the pipe and tubing wall thickness by the jig in the extrusion process. They probably had to reduce the material thickness or way they assembled such as welding. I am not 100% sure what has been changed since the covid 19 but this differently increased disqualified ratio.

Due to the production capacity and supply chain issues, also the raw material cost raises and electrical usage limitation in China caused cost changes and had to make a change on material thickness etc. This could happen to any appliances which were manufactured in 2020.

 

[Jake]

That sounds logical to me too.