Help with R22 chiller charging issues.

[Nyx]

Ok here is the scenario. My chiller is built this way. I have a water cooled condensor. An a txv which has a distributor to 2 evaps one evap is use to cool the condensor and the other the water loop(where water gets chilled and supplied to load).

Now the problems are here, The sight glass is in the orange sector meaning it is wet. But i have pulled hours of vacuum and it still does not change color. It did turn slightly less bright. I have already leak test it and there are no leaks at all.
Sightglass is blur and i cant see inside of it. <---Dunno the problem

I did a vacuum with a vacuum pump and a compressor in series. My vacuum pump could not pull a good vac as it does go beyond 27 in hg so i increase it with the compressor an it pulled to 28 in hg.My gauge is a little faulty my guess.

Pic of sightglass
http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/5238/img0360hj.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Next problem is that the pressures on the low and high side are 10 in hg (low),135 PSI (high). And no matter how much i input it would not go higher.
I can feel the TXV turn cold but not freezing. No liquid was in the sightglass.
---> does it mean it is not condensing? I did not put liquid in my water chilled condensor as i have a desuperheater before it and i am using a fan to cool the 2 of it for now as the reservoir for the condensor is not ready and i am improvising by using a fan.

Distributor
http://img393.imageshack.us/img393/6385/img0378na.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Layout
http://img393.imageshack.us/img393/4026/img0388kk.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Desuperheater with coiled condensor on the right (black ugly container)
http://img393.imageshack.us/img393/3368/img0396wg.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Layout of filter drier sightglass condensor..
http://img393.imageshack.us/img393/3025/img0420an.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Hope you guys could help.

[Nyx]

project killed. pressures are too high. 200 psi high 10 psi low. and it is still undercharged. Guess it should not be attempt :D . Why. My manifold hose burst infront of me.And it is the high side one. So u can guess how risky it is. Now i am abandoning it and converting it to a better design.

[johann]

10 PSI low is not high? My chiller runs 12-15PSI low and its fine

[Nyx]

it is not with the low side it is the high side even cascades are lower than this pressure.

[boshuter]

200 isn't all that high, 134a car system run a lot higher than that. You definitley need to get a better set of guages if you had a hose burst at 200. The hoses on mine are rated at 3000psi burst.

[expansionvalve]

In my industry r22 at 200psi is reasonably normal, a hose bursting at 200 though, hmm, not good, my hoses usually see upto 400psi on some units at times, never once have I had one burst.

What I am a little concerned about though is the visual on the sight glass, the indicator shows very wet but I want to know what the milky looking glass is about, could it be milky liquid/oil due to moisture or could it be a residue stuck on the inside of the glass, say from whatever that gunk is on the flare joints, either way that system in my opinion needs a good drying out.

what sort of ambient temp have you got with 200psi head pressure?

[RussC]

Im confused out of the gate. Your using the system to cool its own condeser and the load evap??? If that the case, thats a new one to me :confused:

As the others, your pressures are OK, your hose was bad, either split or old, so it blew.

I really don't understand how you cool the system condenser with the systems pump? I guess Im confuesed, and the pictures don't help, very grainy and not enough system to see whats going on.

RussC

[Nyx]

Well it is a chiller right i actually wanted to borrow the chilled water that is returning from the cpu which actually is still cold to subcool the condensor. that extra evap was to test whether txv could do a dual evap. Well actually it could but not to cool a huge load. I get what u mean with the cooling itself story. i was thinking of it when i build it too. But then i cant help my self to test it to know what will actually happen..
And well i was a little right the condensor might need a little kick off before it can do better. Like maybe if i add ice cubes to bring the temperature down so that pressures would also do a little better. But i did not try that yet.

The ambient was arond 26 c if i did not remember wrongly. Well i was thinking of changing to straight direct die which will save me some trouble. Could my small TXV be use in a direct die? It is a 0.8 ton 00 orfice internally equalised TXV.