Oils

[Death909]

I found a small compressor inside a fridge that was being thrown out. Its a 240v, 5.5amp, "Embraco" brand compressor. I'm guessing its somewhere around 1 1/2 HP (that 700w = 1hp thing..). Its leaking alot of oil and has had both the suction and condenser lines cut (I didn't have to vent CFCs into the atmospere, but someone else did).

I'm wondering, is there any way to tell what sort of oil its leaking without chemical analyisis? As in, are there any different physical propeties between all the oils (and on a side question, what are all the oils? I've heard of POE and mineral, but thats it).

Thanks in advance for any replies.

[_HL4E_HalfLife_]

I found a small compressor inside a fridge that was being thrown out. Its a 240v, 5.5amp, "Embraco" brand compressor. I'm guessing its somewhere around 1 1/2 HP (that 700w = 1hp thing..). Its leaking alot of oil and has had both the suction and condenser lines cut (I didn't have to vent CFCs into the atmospere, but someone else did).

I'm wondering, is there any way to tell what sort of oil its leaking without chemical analyisis? As in, are there any different physical propeties between all the oils (and on a side question, what are all the oils? I've heard of POE and mineral, but thats it).

Thanks in advance for any replies.

That fridge must be the size of a car if its got a 1.5hp compressor in it :eek:

As for the oil thing you'll have to tell us what gas was in it.

[expansionvalve]

That fridge must be the size of a car if its got a 1.5hp compressor in it :eek:


Agreed, i'd go along with that.


What gas is the fridge running on? and if you could get a model number from the compressor i'm sure that would help lots..

[Stewie007]

:) That things gonna eat up power and run your power bill through the roof!

[Suffocation]

you think 1.5hp compressor is small ? ;/


I found a small compressor inside a fridge that was being thrown out.

[craig588]

Maybe you read the LRA?

Even really massive refridgerators use tiny compressors because they don't really have any load at all.

[jinu117]

Well find model # and go www.embraco.com go for technical data.

[Death909]

Well find model # and go www.embraco.com go for technical data.

I wasn't actually expecting the company that made the compressor to exist, much less have a website.. The fridge I got the compressor from was one of those cheap plastic fridges you see in 2-3 star holiday places..

I checked the site, turns out what I thought was the amperage draw was actually part of the model number (no wonder I couldn't find it). Its a 1/6HP compressor meant for R12. R12 uses mineral oil right?

Its pretty banged up, and all connections to it have been cut. The little control box that it came with was broken off, and the 4 wires that went into the fridge were pulled out of it. What is needed to run the compressor? The power plug is still there, but I can't see any capacitators (I know they're not nesscessary, but I'd prefer if there were some.. ).

There are three copper pipes sticking out of it, two are on one side and one is on the other. I know that one out of the two on one side is an access valve, but I forgot if its the high or low side that has the access valve. The pipe next to the access valve has been crimped or something in the center.. The access valve looks just like the other copper pipes except it has a smaller copper pipe right at the end, sticking out of it (about 2mm of pipe in total), would I be correct in saying that there once was a schraeder valve brazed on?

EDIT: The label on the compressor also has 8.5 LRA and 1PH written on it, what do these values mean?
EDIT2: Found what they stand for, 1PH = 1 Phase and LRA = Locked Rotor Amperage. What does LRA mean/do?

[expansionvalve]

What does LRA mean/do?

LRA, Locked rotor amps, the lra figure is what the rotor will draw in amps when the rotor gets locked or seizes up.

[Stewie007]

You wanna look at FLA. That's the Full Load Ampere rating. It tells you how much your motor draws when fully loaded. That's the maximum amount of power your compressor will ever use.

Use that * 240 to find out the maximum power usage, then look up your power companies per KwHr charges and do the math.

[Death909]

You wanna look at FLA. That's the Full Load Ampere rating. It tells you how much your motor draws when fully loaded. That's the maximum amount of power your compressor will ever use.

Use that * 240 to find out the maximum power usage, then look up your power companies per KwHr charges and do the math.

The compressor doesn't have a FLA rating on its label, and I can't find any but the most basic information about the compressor model on the Embraco website. The compressor is a PW model, which was replaced by the EM models a while ago.

Is 1/6 HP too weak for a -30 at load single stage?

[SoddemFX]

I think -30C load should be an achieveable goal with a higher pressure refrigerant.

The 1/6HP indicated power is with r12, with r22, r402 it will be higher. The piston displacement is what, about 6cc?

But does it actually work? Would be a downer to get a system up only to find the compressor is dead...

Tom

[_HL4E_HalfLife_]

You wanna look at FLA. That's the Full Load Ampere rating. It tells you how much your motor draws when fully loaded. That's the maximum amount of power your compressor will ever use.

Accually thats not quite right there Stewie but ur on the right track, The RLA is the max SAFE amount of power draw it can use. If the amps goes above this rating for any extended period of time than damage is being done to the windings.

[Bloody_Sorcerer]

what does the label say? I've got an embraco in the basement and I just spent some time decoding it (something like 750 btu/h, 11.5 cc, HBP(an FF11.5BK)) so I can give you a hand if you need it.
Also, in their pdfs they say that their R-12 compressors use ISO32... I have no idea what that means. Anyone?

[jinu117]

what does the label say? I've got an embraco in the basement and I just spent some time decoding it (something like 750 btu/h, 11.5 cc, HBP(an FF11.5BK)) so I can give you a hand if you need it.
Also, in their pdfs they say that their R-12 compressors use ISO32... I have no idea what that means. Anyone?

ISO 32 is oil viscousity... Think it is sus 150 or 200? not 100% sure. You can look it up easily enough.

[Bloody_Sorcerer]

also, for our purposes, whats preferable: HBP, MBP, or LBP? I tried searching the forums but found nothing very useful

[Cr@sh_D1n3r]

LBP because -45c is a low boiling point.

[Bloody_Sorcerer]

LBP stands for low backpressure, not low boiling point :-P

[Cr@sh_D1n3r]

Yes and how much pressure you have on it? really low.

[Death909]

what does the label say? I've got an embraco in the basement and I just spent some time decoding it (something like 750 btu/h, 11.5 cc, HBP(an FF11.5BK)) so I can give you a hand if you need it.
Also, in their pdfs they say that their R-12 compressors use ISO32... I have no idea what that means. Anyone?

I have read through and understand all that the label says, unfortuneatly it doesn't say that much. The only thing I can't understand is the exact meaning of the model number. The model number is "PW 5.5A", and I understand all but the A (the Embarco website doesn't have any documentation that I could find on the PW model, on the EM model the A means high efficency, but there are a few other letters missing for the EM model chart to be used).

[Marvin]

Normally R12 compressors come with sintetic oil..

[Death909]

I can't get the compressor to start. I haven't severed any of the connections between the compressor and the power plug (these connections are exposed, and I'm betting that I'll electrocute myself once more. I'm going to make some sort of cover to put over it if I can get it working). There were 4 wires heading from the compressor to the fridge (its some sort of overload protector or something according to what technical diagrams I found on the embarco website). While there were four wires, only three of them seem to have connected to the overload protector thing.

Does anyone have any idea on how to get this thing working? (I would get some digital pictures if our digital camera worked, the brightness is set way too low and the flash doesn't work). It seems to be the "long" version of the PW starting device.

[Death909]

Anyone know how to wire the PW model overload protector thing? Otherwise I'm going to randomly try bridging connections over it, and theres only a 1/3 chance of it starting. I'm guessing theres 2/3 chance of burning out the compressor or just the wiring (it would be just awesome to burn out the starting relay of a compressor that is no longer in production wouldn't it?)

EDIT: Got bored and tried bridging the contacts. Nothing happened. I tried connecting them in 4 different ways (3 contact to contact, and 1 contact to contact to contact). Nothing at all, not even a nice spark to tell me that I broke the compressor through my own actions.

The discharge line from the compressor is blocked (has been clamped shut), could this have anything to do with it not working?

[_HL4E_HalfLife_]

The discharge line from the compressor is blocked (has been clamped shut), could this have anything to do with it not working?

YES!!!! IF the compressor had been started after the discharge line was sealed there might still be pressure in that line preventing the compressor from starting.

As for the wiring a pic would really help.

[Death909]

Thats good to hear. I cannot get a proper wiring diagram for the compressor, the PW model is no longer being sold and Embraco doesn't have the diagrams on its website. The closest thing I could find are some other assorted wiring diagrams in the embraco compressor handbook PDF which look only remotely similair to the PW.

I'm probably just going to let the compessor sit until I have the tools to build a phase change system. 1/6 HP seems a bit too weak, and ontop of that the compessor is still quite heavy and atleast 8" in width.

Hard rubbish collection day is coming around, if I'm lucky I should be able to get a better compessor or atleast a condensor to braze it onto. Otherwise I'm just going to badger A/C stores for spare parts, or maybe just head down to the junkyard.

[Death909]

Just came back from another round of compessor hunting. Two large fridges were put out for hard rubbish collection. One had no gas inside it, and the other didn't have a condenser or any gas. After quite alot of trouble with little round bolt things (the Embraco PW was easy, just 4 little pin things and it was free).

They are both old and rusted. The first is similiar in ratio of dimensions to the Embraco I got, but it is larger. There is a single label on the entire thing, this label is 2cm x 2cm, and it has "E" written on it, and nothing else.

The second is very flat and very wide. Its atleast twice as wide as it is tall. The only label on this one says something about not using metal or possibly metal chloride with the compressor, the label is so badly aged that I'm not even sure if thats what it says.

I'm begining to think that it would be easier to just to beg a compessor off some A/C repairman. What are the different kinds of compressors? which kind should I be looking for?