Heat Pumps and Electric Heating - outside unit not coming on

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated. My Carrier heat pump is about 12 years old. Up until now it's worked fine but recently I noticed that the secondary heat was coming on a lot. I went outside this morning and checked the unit and it wasn't running at all. I know very little about these units but I checked and it was getting 220V to the switch. It was shoing 27V from all thermostat wiring to common except for the orange wire which the best I can tell is for cooling mode use only. I called out a tech and he got it to come on by jumping some wires but he said that something wasn't working right. He didn't know what it could be because he was an installer and not a repairman. The regular guy was too busy to come out. The unit worked from the time he left, 4pm, until about 9pm when it shut off and didn't come back on. I'm guessing it's something in the circuit board. Does anyone have any ideas or know how to test this board? Thanks again for any input.

Id say go to EME heat for now. It would take all night to say how to test the defrost board. Then it can be low on freon so you need gauges on it. The outdoor units have a paper in them most of the time that tells you what the status LED means. If you have it on that unit. You say 12 years. Most of the time we look at 15 years on a unit then its time for a new one. you would get a much higher SEER and HSPF with a new unit. if you do go that way be sure and get 3 bids .

The guy that came out checked the freon and said it was ok. Since it came on and worked for about 5 hours I'm guessing the compressor is ok. I'm thinking maybe it's the board but there are probably a hundred other things it could be that I don't know about. Does anyone know what I should pay for a new unit? Thanks for the input.

Its very hard to say what it can cost you have to see the job and price are different all over. first how old is the units ?? For sure get 3 bids for any replacement.

Another guy came out today. This one knew what he was doing. He said it was the board. He ordered one and said he'd be back tomorrow to install it. I guess I should've went with my gut instinct and just bought a board and replaced it instead of paying $130 bucks for diagnosis and instalation.

I don't think my truck will start for $130 ;)