Heat Pumps and Electric Heating - carrier heat pump problems

a couple weeks ago my heat pump was struggling to come on (compressor). I shut off the breaker and called a friend of mine in the business and he put on a "hard start kit". I turned the breaker back on and now it does nothing? I also replaced the control board and that didn't help either. I can push in the contactor and start it but that's it. It's about 10 years old and a 2.5 ton unit.
I don't see any resetable switches anywhere on the unit. any help is really appreciated.

when the "friend of yours" put in the hard start, did he ( or she, hey , i'm an equal employer) not test the system? no? time to find new friends. ok, tell us what you got, the same old, same old , system, how old, thermo, etc. you cannot even begin to bore us with details. the more we know about the system , the better we are able to help. (but between you and me i would suspect the thermo, or a low freon charge). and if it is a low charge, make sure the leak is detected and fixed. as well, it would be interesting, i, as well as others that read this site, why did the tech install a hard start?

p.s. may also be way overcharged (reread the post).

barry

If you are able to start the system by pushing in the contactor, you need to check for 24 vac at the contactor while it's calling. If you don't have the voltage there you're going to have to trace back the low voltage wiring till you find the difference.

I do not have 24vac at the contactor. I have 24 vac from the furnace to the control board and on the defrost(pink) lines but not out to the contactor. It seems to be calling for constant defrost and there's a sensor on the inside of the unit on a coil that the 2 pink wires run to. It has no reset on it. Should I replace this sensor?