DIY refrigeration system

[bhaikhurram1]

how much amp load ?????????

[KSCPERFECT]

what does the condensor do??

[tesla500]

@KSCPERFECT The condenser removes heat from the high pressure gaseous refrigerant, condensing it into a high pressure liquid.

[josephdupont]

so how would you make a heat pump? think about using a heat pump to extract the last btu's from rocket mass heater so that the air really drops down with heavy cold air.

[tesla500]

@josephdupont All refrigeration systems are technically heat pumps. It's just that typically the hot side (condenser) is mounted near the compressor, so it's hard to use the heat produced.

Essentially, if you reversed the suction and discharge of the compressor, the heat pump will be reversed.

[iwashere339]

propane is a direct replacement for r12, hope that helps in future projects

[lemonrind]

@clborg88 Perhaps, but they will be very hot while doing so.

[Informatively]

So you are able to plug a 220 volt appliance directly from a 110 volt outlet without any problems?

[joeyf504327]

@Informatively what? its a 120 volt compressor dude

[lemonrind]

Of all the "homemade air conditioners" I've seen on YouTube, this is the only one that was made by someone who appears to understand how air conditioners actually work!

Seriously, do a search for "homemade air conditioner". These people are freezing ice in their freezer, then circulating the ice water with an aquarium pump around a fan to cool the air. Of course, the freezer is generating more heat than they're cooling, but just try explaining the laws of thermodynamics to these rednecks!

[omegapoint777]

@lemonrind

Do you realize that "rednecks" have been using this method to cool their homes for about a century now? It's called a swamp cooler, and it works well. Works via evaporative cooling. The freezer is obviously NOT generating more heat than being cooled.

[lemonrind]

@omegapoint777 What I described is not a swamp cooler. A swamp cooler evaporates water to lower the temperature. Swamp coolers work, especially in environments with low humidity. Their contraption does not evaporate water. It circulates ice water over a fan. Ice generated by a freezer. The freezer generates heat. The laws of thermodynamics requires the freezer to produce more heat than it can cool. Their system would only work if the freezer was outside, or if they bought the ice.

[tractormanchuck]

@lemonrind No, how long does it take to freeze an ice cube? An hour? The freezer is always releasing heat into the house, the energy required to freeze a couple trays of ice cubes will make no significant difference to the heat output. Some of these circulating type cooling systems are made very well and the ice cube that took an hour to freeze will last many, many more. According to the law, yes there may be more heat output; however what matters more is what effect is felt in the real world.

[KompulsaOfficial]

@omegapoint777 First of all: Was the redneck ice cooler being used in the kitchen where the refrigerator was? If so, it is not going to work. The refrigerator generates mostly heat. It is 40% efficient and the other 60% of the electricity consumed turns into plenty of heat. In many cases cooling capacity is 3,000 BTU and it outputs more than 6,000 BTU of heat, and look up the Carnot efficiency limit. There is another problem with what you are saying. COntinued...

[KompulsaOfficial]

@KompulsaOfficial Continued: No one ever uses that method to cool their room, they use a fan to blow the cooled air through ice on themselves, which will of course work, but the room is being heated by the refrigerator in the process, but room cooling does not work that way.

[cynic5581]

Cool. However you need another hobby minus mad scientists creepiness. :-)

[bananaphonehome]

meh, you forgot to sit the secondary on top and fire it up while running o_0

[mccarterjg]

solid liquid and solid gas, you are not installing ac into my car

[sanity599]

@mccarterjg I understood right away that he was saying that the liquid tube only had liquid and te gas tube only had gas. Why didn't you? Let me know when you are driving in my area I will keep the kids and dogs inside.

[uxwbill]

That's a very neat demonstration. Always wondered what refrigerant looked like as it moved through the lines.

[naturalist92683]

How much power does it consume?

[Riste1986]

And how do you escape when it explodes? ;)

[bamaslamma1003]

How did you evacuate it?

[tesla500]

@bamaslamma1003 I used an air conditioner compressor. Certainly not a perfect vacuum, but good enough for a short run like this.

[Arnthorg]

The inside pipes don't freeze up because the liquid refrigerant going into the evaporator doesn't chill to 0°C instantly when it enters.

[Audioforge]

Good project. If you put a fan behind those coils you'd have a nice ac unit.--Looks like a condenser out of an old vending machine.

[cambriacity]

Thats nice. Would be fun to play with.

D

[djmk3d]

Wow this guy knows it all lmfao....

[Stewie083]

It says Freon 12 only on the compressor dude...

[phonicsquest]

Thanks!

[phonicsquest]

and not aluminum?

[phonicsquest]

Why all tubes are copper?

[xxMoDiFyx]

@phonicsquest better heat exchange

[vidmanproductions]

@phonicsquest Because there great conductors. :)

[phonicsquest]

Why the fan?

[tesla500]

@phonicsquest The fan is to put some heat load onto the evaporator, so it doesn't ice up too much. Copper tubes are much easier to work with than aluminum, as well as easier to find.

[zaprodk]

Very cool!

[Pmtempcontrol]

Mate your a drop kick you got no idea

[lswf123456]

My apologies, I forgot that you said the pressure is coming up towards the end. As the liquid flows towards the end of the coil the pressure rises, otherwise when the compressor has been running for a short time the evaporator is gonna be temporarily starved.

[lswf123456]

If you completely vacuumed all of the air from the system and purged the air from the charging tube, there shouldn't be vapor bubbles in the liquid line, and if you want to raise the evaporator pressure, you should open the valve more because a vacuum is not good.

[Adooshamon]

don't chuck it out mate, hook up a thermostat drop the evap coil into an ice box, fill it with water, throw some non toxic tube in there run beer through it and you got yourself a sweet as chilled beer tap, just like the pub. you want the water cold 2-4deg Celsius. you can go to most refrig + a/c wholesalers and buy small 1kg canisters of 134a refrigerant, probably be best for that setup and cheap enough. some of them come with dye in it for car a/c, try not to get that. good stuff man

[Prozackityzac]

it's short of gas

[upajos]

The condenser unit looks like it was made for restaurant or store equipment -- a refrigerated display case or bottled soft drink vending machine, etc.

tesla500, ever think of testing your rig with propane as a refrigerant?  Though flammable, it's cheap and readily available as cooking fuel. Refined, dry versions are available from companies such as Duracool, but for a "toy" setup the cooking version ought to be OK. Use in a well-ventilated area, though, in case your rig has any small leaks.

[hvguy]

absolutely badass, never thought of using duster gas, lol, VERY unique.

[metro2089]

AMAZING!!! THE COOLEST THING IVE SEEN IN A LONG TIME, I collect compressors, expansion valves, sight gauges etc and am working on designing and building my own air conditioning system, I read refrigeration books and read about dryers, and all the other different things you need other than just tubing, accumulators etc..... i am some for some reason obsessed with refridgeration systems and want to learn as much as I can if anyone knows any good books on the design please suggest.

thanks Jay

[Adooshamon]

@metro2089 Modern refrigeration and Air conditioning 18th edition, the frigies bible.

ya can find it on amazon.

[hellsmaw84]

you could take that evap coil and put it in a floor fan and do some mods to where its a portable A/C unit on 4 wheels

[aCagedApe]

This video is fake... You can hear him spraying a can of fake snow when the coils go off screen.

[Adooshamon]

@aCagedApe  are you serious? lol

[Metalcastr]

It's so cool actually being able to see the refrigerant flowing

[skittlesmonkey]

is there a reason there use an expansion valve instead of something like a little turbine to harness the energy of the moment from high pressure to low, or is it just to make the mechanism simpler?

[Adooshamon]

@skittlesmonkey if you did that you would have to put a bigger compressor in to pump the refrigerant, pointless really. an expansion valve is a metering device purely to control the expansion rate of the refrigerant. good thinking tho

[ib9rt]

@skittlesmonkey Industrial plants may use a turbine instead of an expansion valve for greater efficiency (Google "turbo-expander") but the added cost and complexity of the turbine is hard to justify for most systems.

[bestbetsmditowner]

Such a great thinker. I dont think you can get cans of refrigerant in australia however. Take a look at some of my videos by putting in bestbetsmditowner into utube

[Jackass610]

why was it running in a vacuum? undercharged?

[gavincurtis]

Great idea using a needle valve for metering  :)

[CoolDudeClem]

what is used as the refrigerant?

[codemsan]

he used the refrigerant from an air duster can

[waterwart]

@codemsan what kind of refrigernat is in an air duster can?? I thought that was a propelant, not a refrigerant?

[codemsan]

@waterwart well in most cans it is more or a propellent, but considering i dont know much about A/C units or etc. so i cant really tell you how it works haha. but i can tell you that because of the great thermal conductivity of the liquid in the can, it can be used as a sort of refigerant i guess..

[windoes98se]

nice, you have just build a dehumidifier! and i think that moter has mor torq and less hp, thats proboly whi it has such a low speed

[V8Jagnut]

very nice job.

[Aussie50]

thats amazing!, plastic hose looks dodgy as hell but its clearly working!

With a thinner copper liquid line and sight glass you could get more balanced pressures too.

That condenser looks too cool to scrap! its antique!

[tesla500]

Thanks Ed!

Yep, that hose is dodgy, I always have safety goggles on around this thing. I didn't have a sight glass available, and I'd never have been able to get the charge right without seeing the liquid line.

I'm getting more and more hesitant to scrap it too, I just need to find something to use it for. It's kinda pointless to save something just to have it sit in storage forever.

Any ideas of what to make? Refrigeration cooled computer? Cold gun? (opposite of a heat gun)

[Aussie50]

I'd turn it into a heat exchanger for an oil bath!. seeing what you do with HV and MOT's, I would could make a mini refrigerated cooling tower.

I've been toying with designs for a while involving ethylene glycol as the coolant (for plastics molding machines) but mineral oil would work just as well. make a tank or barrel with the evap coils in it and circulate the oil around them, then out to the transformer bath.

I'm saving a good 5kw AC condensing unit for a bigger version.

[form109]

nice setup....how did you Pressurize tle Lines?

[tesla500]

The gauge set has a filler port, I first pulled the air out of the system with an air conditioning compressor. I then connected the dusting gas bottle to the filler port, turned on the condensing unit compressor, and let it suck the gas in. Since the evaporating temperature is lower than the bottle temperature, the gas will boil off in the bottle and be sucked into the system.

I then charged the system until there was pure liquid refrigerant in the clear liquid line, no bubbles.

[form109]

how Effectively does this Setup Cool?....i notice you mentioned the lines were freezing up quite well which was evident by the Frost on the copper Tubing.

[tesla500]

I don't have any quantitative data, but it can definitely produce more cooling than the copper coil can take advantage of, that's why it's freezing up. Based on the compressor rating, it may be able to produce 300-400W of cooling.

[form109]

what Application is 300 to 400 Watts of power good for....maybe cooling a very small room or a Refridgerator?...a mini one>?

[tesla500]

It's probably right for a medium size refrigerator, maybe apartment size. Too small for room AC though, even for a small room.

[zigilwantsu]

@tesla500 Hi I got a question. My sister has a small commercial frig in hr coffeeshop. it starting making a clunky noise randomly. she called a serviceman , but at the time it didnt make a noise and so the problem can not be shown.

when I turn the fan with my hands , it doesnt make any noise.Further  the copper tubes coming out of compressor go to a pan, which I don't know if supposed to be full of water or not. the compressor and tubes very hot during operation. do u they must lay in water?

[richardcloudbase]

@zigilwantsu the pan catches the condensate water from inside the fridge. The pipes should be hot. The idea is that the water will evaporate, so you don't need a drain.

[zigilwantsu]

@richardcloudbase Thanks man. also please let me know if you have any idea about the source of the random clunky noise.

[talisman227]

@zigilwantsu That hot piping is considered the discharge line. It Is hot because it contains the compressed superheated gas just as it leaves the compressor and before ot enters the condenser. Smart designers in the past decided to use this added heat for evaporating away the condensate drain water from inside the cooler as it sweats. You should notice a drain line of sort leading to this pan of hot piping. It will not be full of water during normal operation, but just trickles then evaporates.