Method and apparatus for odor-free operation of an air conditioning system

摘要

The presence of sufficient condensate flow for odor-free operation of an air conditioning system (10) is detected based on the surface temperature of a thermistor (82) disposed in a condensate drainpipe (80) of the evaporator (24) and the power supplied to the thermistor (82). The surface temperature is used to calculate the temperatures of stagnant circumambient air and water (126, 134). If the temperature for stagnant air is approximately equal to the evaporator temperature (128), the evaporator (24) is too dry and the operating point of the air conditioning system (10) is lowered to reduce the surface temperature of the evaporator (130, 132). If the temperature for stagnant water is approximately equal to the evaporator temperature (136), the drainpipe (80) is plugged. Alternately, a constant power is supplied to the thermistor (82), and its surface temperature is compared to a set of experimentally determined reference temperatures to deduce the evaporator state (152, 158).