A/C ruined by LIGHTNING, need help

Ignoramus9242 · 2003-07-07T14:01:01+00:00

Sunday night, a lightning struck a tree in my yard. See pictures at: that day, it slowly became apparent that the A/C is notworking. I live in a single family house and we have a relativelymodern Tempstar A/C. Here's what is known to be working: the outsidecondenser/fan unit is running fine. The thermostat on the 1st floor isfine and sends 27 VAC downstairs.The circuit board APPEARS to be okay as it sends 127 volts down to thespeed control box, which in turn is connected to the motor. There isnothing obviously burned on the control board, and the fuse there isfine also. (central circuit breakers are also fine obviously).As far as I understand, the speed control box has capacitors thatstart the motor. The motor is connected to the box with a green groundwire and red, yellow and blue wires. If any combination of these wiresis powered briefly by 127 volts, as I tried, the motor vibrates butdoes not turn. There is no capacitor box on the motor, so I concludedthat the capacitors in the speed control box are for starting themotor.There is also a separate bunch of small wires going from the board tothe control box. It is possible that they somehow erroneously tell thespeed control box not to start the motor. Hard to say. So far I seetwo possibilities. 1. The speed control box is fried.2. Somehow the board is damaged and even though it sends 127 volts tothe inputs of the speed control box, it incorrectly tells the box viasmall wires to not start the motor.The speed control box is easy to replace. What should I do here? Try to find a replacement speed control box?We called a bunch of A/C places, they said they'd call us back, but noone did. So I figured I can as well try to do it myself.i