$20 if you count the handful of 3amp fuses I popped trying to find the fault, the extra crispy lizard was apparently not the problem.
this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2023
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Recently fixed my home AC, pretty sure the contactor was screwed and the capacitor was done for. Just poor maintenance by the previous owner. Bought the parts, rewired the thermostat because it was a nightmare of cables in the furnace, and in the process blew a fuse and messed up the transformer in the furnace. I didn't have a replacement fuse so I jury rigged a bypass for now, got a new transformer that I tested and validated the output on, along with everything else in the chain, new contactor, new capacitor, and a completely rewired thermostat. Took a few days to fix.
In the process, I picked up an extra contactor, and capacitor, for the next time these parts inevitably fail. I need to go back and re-test all the parts, I suspect some may be ok, given that the wiring was such a mess, but I have no idea. I know the cap was definitely bad (bulged and leaking), but the rest might not be broken, they may have been malfunctioning by proxy of the bad fuse and wiring in the furnace.
Apart from fuses, I have everything and spares, so if I can validate that the transformer works, or the contactor is fine, then I'll have extra spares. No worries.
don't forget to get that fuse, any car parts store will have them.
Good thinking having spare parts on hand, mine always seems to fail on a saturday afternoon and everyone is closed. I'm just glad my town finally has an AC installer that lets you buy parts from their storefront right off the shelf. Most of the suppliers in town don't sell parts to us peasants for some reason, i guess they don't want money.
Well, they certainly don't want you buying parts and doing it yourself when you can pay 10x as much with their service fees to install a capacitor.