Have you way with my prommie....

[PiLsY]

Seeing as the evap hose broke and Chip Con decided I would have to pay postage on it (£90) its been sat around broken for 8 months.

Well, given that the evap hose is broken I figure I may as well get it repaired and modded locally.

What would you guys do if you had a prommie to spare?

Im thinking a re-gas (probably with 404a as anything else would be to difficult without swapping the compressor and I dont want to go quite that far ;)) and a flexible hose for starters.

As far as im aware that will necessitate a new capilliary tube and a new drier - am I correct?

In addition to these basic mods is there anything else that may be worth doing while its "in surgery"? Possibly a larger or a second condenser? This is your chance to volunteer any mods youd like to be done to a prommie and see them in action afterwards.


Just as a technical note the amount of gas and cap tube changes ive been given are 58.5gms of 404a and a 1450mm 0.026"ID cap tube - does that sound correct? Sounds an awfully small size for a tube :confused: .

Anyway, as said above - go for it with the suggestions. As crazy as you want to get. Im happy to write off the prommie if it all goes horribly wrong (hey its nacred already so no big loss huh ;)?), so dont hold back.

PiLsY.

[Dissolved]

send it to bowman

[JCviggen]

Originally posted by Dissolved
send it to bowman

sending it from the UK to the US and then back again would cost almost as much as a new prommy I'm guessing ;) Not to mention chances of it getting damaged on such a trip

[PiLsY]

£183 to ship to the US and £142 to ship it back from the US to UK, then theres customs duty too. JC is right - I could buy a new one for that ;).

Yep its gotta be done locally here in the UK :). Theres several refridgeration specialists around here, so getting the work done is no problem. Just got to decide whats being done ;).

Theres gotta be more that can be done besides a standard r404a conversion. These things are mass produced - I very much doubt theyre really any good when compared to a proper home brew phase change kit. Im after closing the gap while its being worked on :).

PiLsY.

[berkut]

Can you ship it to me ? Im from poland, i could do it for fun ;)

[PiLsY]

Thanks for the offer m8 :). The whole reason im doing any mods to it at all though is because im saving the cost of the shipping to get it fixed ;). Also having ordered the thing direct from chipcon and seen the state it arrived in (case was destroyed, prom unit itself had the side ripped off from where the compressor had hit into it in transport) - stacked under a refridgerator and dropped being taken off the van incase youre wondering - Im reluctant to even ship it between the front door and the car boot ;).

Im strictly after suggestions for performance improvement. Best gas to use, any hard mods to pipework - basically the only things I dont want to change are the compressor and the evap head. Everything else is fair game if itll give enough improvement.

PiLsY.

[Popcicle]

Adapting a flex hose to the standard prommie evap head
is going to be a tough one.

A stouter condensor wouldn't hurt a thing. Then you could
expect to have some headroom as far as the type of
refrigerant used.

Speaking of mass production...... fine tune the pee-wadding
out of this unit after it is loaded w/404a will gain you ample
results to warrant this entire endeavor. You will be surprised.

[bowman1964]

ok listen up....(if you can get another evap baker will ship one to the uk)

this will save you countless time and effort.

cut the copper tube at the bottom bend and remove the hose assm.put it away ..gone.
get a new evaperator and hose assm,use 130" .028 cap tube.replace the drier.
put a new charge port on the low and high side.

this takes about 6 hours of work if you take your time.soldering takes the most.

dont insulate until last.

if you can..i always pretest my units with 134a for a day or so and then vacuum and regas..there is a few more things but thats basicly how it goes.i have shown countless pics in my threads.it can be done....

the factory head is way to hard to adapt a flex hose to,it melts the head just disconnecting the factory hose

[PiLsY]

Is there any way to retro fit a new head into the existing mounts or am I looking at a ground up job?

I must admit I looked at the inside of the prommie head on your prom refit post and the first thing that leapt into my head was "What an ugly POS". Cheap and cheerful would be the name of the game there.

The only thing that concerns me is retaining the ease of fitting and condensation protection that the standard prommie meachanism gives. You have to give them that - simple and very effective.

Ive been reading up on phase change physics until my eyes bled for the last few days - from what I can tell an evap based on a radial fin design should do the job much better than the prommie standard and still be easy to make. Thats the route id take if I did make another evap head.

However, Baker18s evaps do look sweet. The only concerns I have with changing the evap head would be the fitting method used afterwards.

I should point out that Im very comfortable with brazing and soldering, but ive got no a/c experience at all.

The regas and swap of cap tube can be sorted locally. As for the other stuff - if I turned up at my local a/c shop with your post in hand and an evap head would they be able to take care of everything there for me?

Having read your guide on phase-change.com earlier and sifting through the threads on here over the last few days theres only one part im still not clear about and thats the drier. Is this a standard piece of kit that my a/c shop will be aware of, or will I require it to be specially suited to the prommie/cpu cooling rather than a stock a/c unit?


Just wanted to say as well - thanks for your input Bowman. I was hoping youd post up here, but with everything else youre doing in the forum I didnt want to approach you directly as your time must be at a premium already :).

Thumbs up soldier ;).

PiLsY.

[PiLsY]

Thought id attatch a pic of exactly where the evap hose has broken. It looks possible to remove the broken end from the collar and simply re-braze the standard hose back in. Id lose 2" of line at most. Im wondering though if its worth the effort and whether the same thing would simply happen again.

Any opinion?

PiLsY.

[bowman1964]

if you are for saving money....

fix that baby....15 minutes and i would have it cooling.....thats the easiest place to fix that they brake at...:D

[bowman1964]

forgt to tell you ...DO NOT BEND that small tubing very much.they use a brittle copper and it will brake very easy.

any refreigeration shop can brase that

[PiLsY]

Yeah I can do that in my back yard m8 :). Got a gas cutting torch that on low setting does a stunning job of brazing. The only thing im questioning is that ive now lost faith in the entire hose. It was left standing for 6 weeks and broke entirely of its own accord. The cap tube ( which im presuming is the small tubing youre talking about) is actually failry flexible if you dont try and do anyuthing stupid with it.

Im pretty much set on the 404a conversion, but would like to take it one step at a time. Ive heard you say on several occaisions that you dont like the standard prommie stainless tubing. Would you trust it after its gone like it has with mine? Thats my one big worry. If itll do the job ok as long as im careful (which I always have been before) then im happy with it. However, if theres the risk of it going in the middle of a 2001 run then id rather replace the whole damn lot and be done with it.

Im dead set on the 404a. I can sort the cap tube out myself, if just a question of gettig a new drier and an evac and regas. Im just wondering whether ill see a true benefit (not in temps but in mhz) until I replace the block?

Anyway, if youd be happy enough with the standard hose until youd be set to perform the full mod then ill be happy with it (regardless if it goes within that time frame or not - §§§§ happens no matter how hard you try to prevent it), if not ill go for the flexi now rather than later.

Thx for the responses so far, each one is noted and filed for when I get the work done :).

PiLsY.

[Coji]

PiLsY, i'm in the exact same possition, my prommy has cracked at the same point. I've had an offer to have it re-braze it but like you have lost faith in the hose and the mods look appealing assuming I can locate the parts in the UK.

The only snag at the moment is finding an appropriate flexable hose, local places are terrible (one last place to try before looking further afield) and any online places i've come accross are a joke. If this place comes though then as soon as baker finnalises his cpu evaps a moddin' we shall go :D.

C.

[charlie]

Thus the debate of Mach I vs. Mach II...the M2 offers little extra cooling power but DOES use a better hose...probably will stand up to cpu changes better! I personally would rather buy M1 and have R404/evap/tube/cond replaced for the same price as M2...
C

[PiLsY]

Coji - I'll have a look around here and see if I can find anything suitable. If so i'll pick you a hose up and mail it to you :).

As of now im just gonna have it rebrazed and recharged with 134a. It'll get me back up and running at least. Once thats done I can look into having the mods done at my leisure.

Ive picked up an old chest freezer with a likely looking (1/2hp) compressor etc all in fully working order. Im thinking of getting that kitted out properly, then my prommie can be either sold/relegated to another pc/delegated to gfx depending how I feel at the time. Seems the best option really. The mods would most likely be easier even on a fridge unit (no change of cap tube, just fix the evap head straight on, regas and off you go) so im thinking im gonna go down that route.

PiLsY.

[Coji]

Cheers PiLsY, i'll let you know how i get on finding parts. I've been considering building up a custom system as well, but will probably take Gary's advise and start with a water chiller until i'm a bit more familiar with refridgeration.

C.