#6. Chiller. First Launch

First launch of the chiller.

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• As one man which I really respect says: “Thousands want, hundreds can, and only a few people do”
• So, let’s do it!
• Greetings ladies and gents!
• In this video, we’ll talk about the cooling machine, or the chiller.
• Initially, I wanted to install a compressor with an electric power of 2.5 kW
• But then when it came to soldering the chiller, I got serious doubts
• I have, or rather had, 2 air conditioners
• So, I decided to make some experiments first
• On one of the conditioners
• with the electric power of 750 W
• For starters and general understanding how it works this should be enough
• To get some conclusions, on the one hand,
• on the other hand, we’ll clean the system after soldering
• Anyway if changing the compressor on the chiller
• we’ll have to get the freon out of the system
• You’ll see what we’ve got from the air conditioner
• Of course, this power won’t be enough for heating the whole house
• I also had this idea that the next step
• should be to install two compressors in parallel
• and see what we’ll get from this
• It’d be very interesting to do
• I disassembled the conditioner that hung on my wall
• the compressor was already “dead” there
• I used some part from it
• Here are the remnants of that conditioner, the patient, so to speak
• And here’s what we’ve got from it
• I’ll need to fasten the heat exchanger
• I made some holes for this thing.
• A couple of words about how it works
• If we go from the evaporator
• The steam will go through this pipe
• It enters the tubular heat exchanger, goes around in a circle
• then it goes into the filter and compressor
• Out of the compressor, it goes into the condenser
• Out of the condenser, the pipe goes through the inspection glass into the heat exchanger
• Here, the condensed freon cools down and the gaseous freon heats up
• The evaporator will work at +8 degrees
• 25 - 8 = 17
• So, we’ll need to somehow take away 17 degrees
• They’ll be taken away exactly in this tubular heat exchanger
• So the compressor will be receiving not +8, but +25 degrees for the input. In the ideal case.
• Out of this heat exchanger comes already condensed liquid phase of freon through a capillary tube
• Which remained from original air conditioner
• And here it’ll be connected to the evaporator. I’ll show you that later
• Cats are really helpful here
• Here they are, two pipes
• The gas will go in through the upper pipe
• The liquid phase will return along the thin bottom one
• Everything is ready for the evacuation
• Now I understand why the vacuum was weak last time
• The oil level was low
• And that’s why it didn’t pump so good
• Yesterday it was evacuating for 20-25 minutes. Today it’s 25 minutes
• We can see the result on the left pressure gauge
• I did a freon blowing several times, the same as with heat pipes
• I was closing the low pressure, let out some freon and then pumped it out
• In that way I replaced the air leftovers with freon and then pumped out
• Why do we need such a long evacuation?
• In order to evaporate moisture. The same process happens that I talked about
• Water begins to boil at low temperatures
• The task of evacuation is to get rid of moisture in the system
• I think it’s time to stop and refuel.
• I use the original condenser
• It’s connected directly, without any blocks to the compressor
• The compressor is “spinning” right now
• Theoretically, it should evacuate the gas phase from this cylinder
• Now it’s open
• The red valve is open, the blue one - closed
• We’ll see. Maybe I’m doing something wrong…
• To speed up the process, I put R22 in a cup of warm water, so that it evaporates better
• I see that the pressure has risen
• We also see a liquid phase in a control window
• The condenser has warmed up. I can barely hold it. I think it’s time to connect the heating system.
• Next, I’ll need to refuel it. Otherwise, I’m afraid that the compressor will overheat.
• Then I heard a strange hissing. Everything seemed fine before.
• Looks like leakage from under the thread
• Looks like it’s this part
• of the capillary tube was cooled to a negative temperature
• We’ve seen frost right here
• So, it cooled down
• I turned off the system
• And when it heated up again - it started to leak
• Or I didn’t tight the nut enough
• Now I’ve made a bigger flange for the nut and tighten it better
• What should I do in this situation? Should I let out the freon completely
• and evacuate the system again
• But I want to try something different
• It depressurized at the exit, and there is a back valve in the compressor
• and if we’ll evacuate here
• then this part of the system will not evacuate until we open both valves
• I closed both valves for now. The lower and the upper one.
• I don’t want to completely let out all the freon. Quite a lot of it was * pumped in already
• About 300 grams.
• I want to try the following:
• I’ll slightly open up the top valve,
• And it’ll start to push out the gas
• It couldn’t let in much through the capillary
• Then I’ll pump the system with freon
• Slightly open this valve to let out
• the remaining air
• So, that’s my plan of actions
• Of course I can freak something up
• It’s only an experiment after all
• So what have we got here. The system in its current state doesn’t work right.
• Because the outlet pipe freezes after the capillary tube
• The temperature reaches somewhere about -14, -15 degrees. It’s not good
• Why is this happening? This is due to the fact that the throughput is * not regulated
• Operating conditions have changed
• The amount of freon, the volume of evaporators, condensers has changed
• The system has changed completely
• In stationary conditions, the capillary tube is selected for a specific air conditioner and everything works quite well
• If no freon leak occurred or some other failure
• In my case, I need to adjust it to the system
• Or pick up a suitable capillary tube
• Which is a real headache. Each time it needs to be changed, lengthened, shortened
• It probably can be solved somehow
• The second option is to install a thermostatic valve.
• Which is what I’m actually leaning towards