Trane Electrostatic Air Cleaner

[Carl E]

Hi, Anybody out there who has worked on the Clean Effects Whole House filter by Trane? I get an error code  108 (high voltage). The manual indicates  9.6KV is used to charge the collection cell. Looking for a little guidance on how to troubleshoot. Maybe I should chalk it up and just buy a new one, they go for 1K , I dont have a high voltage probe. TIA  Carl

[Stray Electron]

  You can probably find a used HV probe on Ebay.  They used to be quite common when TVs used CRTs.  A HV probe for a large color TV would commonly read up to 25kV and probes for older smaller, black and white sets would read up to about 18kV. I have HV probes made by both Heathkit and RCA.

  I would guess that your air cleaner has some sort of ~ 500V to 1kV AC transformer that is driving a voltage tripler composed of a string of diodes and capacitors. The anode voltage for the pictures tube used in CRT type TVs commonly used the same sort of circuit to develop the required HV.

[benj38]

Before trying to locate an HV probe, why don't you first look at the driver circuit of the HV transformer, and if all looks well there, try to test the transformer itself (e.g., with a simple ring tester).

Enormous amounts of CRT TVs and monitors had their high voltage sections repaired without ever using an HV probe.

[thm_w]

Clean everything out first, reset, pull the front door and look inside at the circuit. Look for any electrolytics, etc. I can't find a photo online of a cleaneffects PCB, maybe post one once you've taken it out.

[Jim Narem]

I have a much older Trane electrostatic filter but maybe they are similar.  Mine had a failed high voltage resistor that was used as voltage feedback to drive the regulator.  It's pretty obvious since it links the low voltage  driver to the output of the voltage multiplier.  They are usually a few inches long and have a lot of PCB clearance.  My theory is that those occasional zaps you hear when a big piece of dust comes through kills the resistor.

[Stray Electron]

Enormous amounts of CRT TVs and monitors had their high voltage sections repaired without ever using an HV probe.

   True. We used to just stick the tip of a long, well insulated screwdriver under the rubber anode cap and see if it drew an arc. If it did we figured that the HV circuit was probably ok. But I hesitate to recommend that to someone else because their circuit could be different and doing that may damage it. 

    Also on TVs since the early 1960s, the HV tripler and HV transformer and most of the HV section was one big sealed unit and it wasn't repairable so if the Horizontal Output vacuum tube (or transistor) was good and we weren't getting any HV then we just replaced the entire HV output unit. FYI In transistorized sets when the HV section failed, it almost always took out the transistor too. 

  If I was the OP, I'd look at the circuit and see if it has some kind of controller (probably an IC) in it or if it's just an AC transformer driving a tripler circuit and has an unregulated output.  Also if the components of the tripler are accessible of if they're in a sealed unit. Also look and see if there is any kind of accessible driver (a large transistor or possibly an IC).   

  I've never looked at the circuit in an electrostatic air cleaner but I suspect that they use an unregulated circuit since the output voltage doesn't need to be controlled and an unregulated output is cheaper to build. I also suspect the tripler section, and probably most most of the HV unit, is going to be a sealed brick.

  Pictures would help.