Newly built recovery machine! DIY

I used the unit in a simpler mode and it worked fine, this is the "pro" model lol. Moc that unit is only good for recovering, but to recycle you need a large bottle to act as a buffer as you cycle it through the machien. I will use old green propane bottles to hold the recoverd refrigerant and use a large white tank as the recycling unit.

For a recovery machine you wouldn't call them desuper heaters, just vibration dampeners.

As for the waste oil? Dispose of it in an environmentaly safe and legal way, if it is minerol use it for when you are drilling!

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Originally Posted by M411b

I think I will use this as a guide and build my own recovery unit. Was tryin to think of how to build one the night before last and then this thread shows up. This is excellent. I'm thinkin STICKY! Or at least add it to one of the Phase guides.

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I am glad to see others finding it use full it will certainly be of gret use for here at home just for projects. let alone when I start dismantling ACs!

I'll be mounting the low side switch tonight and I'll snap some picks of that.

This might be a stupid question but what about any air that is in the lines before you hook up to the unit to be vacuumed out? Would the small quantity of air in the connecting lines pose a problem or do you have to vent a small portion of gas to flush the lines before connection to your recovery unit? I'd just be worried about getting humid air into the system as you recover refrigerant and tainting your refrigerant. This looks very interesting and I may have to create something like this if I start scavenging AC units.

I suppose you vacuum it out before using it, just like a regular phase change setup.
Just connect one side of your gauges to the vacuum pump (with an isolation valve), the other side to the system to be recovered, and the middle to the recovery unit. As for the recovery cylinder, the liquid connection goes to the recovery unit and the gas connection to the vacuum pump with the use of a T fitting (make sure you can close the isolation valve to isolate the vacuum pump). Open the system valve briefly and quickly close it. Then pull a vacuum with all but the system valve open. (If you're using a vampire tap, install it but do not punch in the pin. In that case, leave the system valve open. Same goes for a service valve that has a manually adjustable valve stem.) Once you have pulled a vacuum, close the isolation valve and gas recovery valve. Now open the system valve (or punch in the vampire tap) and start the recovery unit. Keep the recovery cylinder cool (put it in a cooler or freezer) and wait. Make sure the cylinder does not overfill. Once finished, stop the recovery unit and keep the recovery cylinder cool to let refrigerant left in the recovery unit migrate into the recovery cylinder. Finally, close the valves and detach the recovery cylinder.

Oh easy, attach a ball valve off a T with access valve so you can vac out the entire recovery machine.

I don't know how good I have it sometimes.
Thought I'd grace those of you who haven't seen one before.
A commercial recovery machine.
http://xtremesystems.org/forums/atta...1&d=1167551096

http://xtremesystems.org/forums/atta...1&d=1167551096

The bottles have two connections.
Liquid and Vapor. Liquid enters via the liquid connection, and vapor is sucked from the top of the bottle via the vapor connection and re-condensed in the recovery machine. Very quick for recovering gas from large systems, not to mention our sized systems.
It will also evacuate the recovery bottle before recovering gas from the system. And will also evacuate the system when recovery is complete. Although I doubt it will pull as good of a vacuum as the 2 stage yellow jacket vacuum pump I have.

how much does something like that cost?

no need for all the oil separators as the system you are recovering from is not running. Also in using a hermetic compressor you can only recover refrigerant that uses the type of oil thats in the recovery compressor. Otherwise you need to drain and flush the hermetic compressor and fill with matching oil. This is the reason why all most all newer recovery machines are oil less.

Yes there are walt, if you are taking the refrigerant from the receiver it will have oil in it, hence you need to distill out that oil. Pluse the system I built was intended to do a some what decant job at recycling it by removing any gunk, thats why I used a secondary oil sep.

POE oil is compatible pretty much accross the board, but glad you mentioned the fact the oil will need to be changed often as the next one will be having a fast drain feture! was some thing was pondering best way to do it couple days ago. I was figuring I'd drill a 45 degree angled hole right on the sump and lead it to a small shrader unit hinden in a hole of the wood on the bottom, or some thing to that effect so it can drain the bulk of the oil.

as for vacuum my system pulls a meagre 25", enough to be certain you have got the charge.

By a care fully thought out design you get around the majourity of the simple problems, with enginuity you can solve the simple ones and get around away the tufer ones. By the Use of POE for all refrigerants I am targeting to use this machine with, oil is indeed compatible! The type of machinery I am targeting will usualy have a receiver thus the use of intake oil sep to allow taking streight from the receiver.


For any here making their own, the key thing they must do is list out what, where, how., IE: the type of refrigerants they expect to come accross, where in the system will they be breaking into the lines, or the terrain it will have to survive, and how do they wish to accomplish this.

My portable one is going to be powered by two 7Ah Gell cells wired in perallel feeding a 300 Watt inverter running a 240Watt compressor for a portable recovery machine, this unit can take AC if availible or run of a vehicle battery if availible, and will have a discharge oil sep only to gurentee no oil is leaving the compressor (Well as much as one can) and I may put a oil level indicater inside the compressor!

See how it answeres the three importand W's? then Oil compatibility, find the oil that will be compatible with the greatest number of refrigerants on your target list, don; Repeat the oil compatibility list and make a second one for other ones.

I may add a valve between the discharge oil seps oil return line and compresser suction line, as that only needs to be open during recycling mode during evacs of small systems at the end I could simply open the valve to equalize pressures to eas the work load on the suction side schraders and return any oil.

EDIT: Added Info

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Originally Posted by Xeon th MG Pony

lol you think I'm don? I been working on a design that uses the recovered refrigerant to super cool the recovery cylinder and cools the compresser oil all at once, still mentaly tweaking the design -Insert devil smiley here- I was thinking if I ever got into the higher pressure stuff using an auto cascade principal to cool the recovery machine and high pressur gas.

His design is sloppy IMO needs to be majourly streamlined and uses two compressores and is dependant on a secondary refrigerant Mine will use the very refrigerant it is recovering and be a single clean loop with one compressor. It will be worth the wait lets put it that way.

My next recovery unit is going to be much smaller and cleaner then the one in the first post, that was some thing to just allow me to get the stuff don that I need to get finnished.

EDIT: Added info and text

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this is my first try of a recovery machine. it uses two compressors and probably needs a lot more (electrical)power than yours, but i am not a HVAC guy :(

i hope you can give me a few hints how to improve my design!

regards,
godmod

Low temp compressors are the best as they have a habbit of being able to suck down nicely and tend to work at a higher pressur differance.

Second is small power usage is nice, easier on power bill and environment, so I look for mini-deep freeser compressors as usualy they range from 2~4 Amp.

I prefer to have the oil seps there to keep oil from going in or out of the compresser as wzrl said it is not needed despit how irrelivant it was to the design being showen, but for some one making one from scratch, He is indeed correct the intake oil sep is optional if you wont be using it to recycle, IE it will only be a recovery machine with out a large intake oil sep (There is a way around that taking vapour from the first tank holding the old recovered refrigerant and transfering it to a new tank, it achives the same job but you need another whole new tank! the unit I built I just drain the old oil :D).

Condencer, any small condencer will do the job, fan of your choice, I pulled a nice litle unit that is forced air off a mide range R-134a fridge (It is going in V2.0 of my recovery unit only I will replace the fan to a 12V type), so keep an eye out for fridges they some times are handly, easpecialy the oil coolers off some of them.

on the discharge side try to keep the tubing as tiny as possibly so it doesn't hold a high volume of refrigerant (I origionaly planned on using all 1/8 for the discharge side, next one it will be this) This should help avoid mixing internaly when you need to recover a dif,, refrigerant.

For your waste oil you can use a ball valve or packless valve, just make sure they can with stand the max expected pressure on the low side, I used schraders on the high side though ball valves would have been much better.

Plumbing: What ever works best yet reduces any stress points and isolates any vibration. The coils you see on my system serve no other perpose other then to reduce vibration from the compressor.

Oil: POE is the best choise for us as it is compatible with all most every refrigerant a SS-Chiller builder/Moder will come accross barring a select fiew, for the ones it is not simply build a second to handle the ones with an oil that will be compatible.

Special Notes:
1- For a unit made to recover small systems an oil cooler isn't required but wont hurt the thing far as long working life is concerned, you just don't want the oil too cool! Passive and small will be more then enough.

2- For systems where it will never draw from a receiver or doesn't need to be a self contained recycling unit as well, an intake oil sep is compleatly optional, If it will be a recycling unit as well you need a tank which can draw liquid & Vapour (& at this point you need a oil cooling method)

3- Lower power is good all round for every thing concerned! A small 2Amp low temp, will do the job, no need to use a 20Hp compressor to recover 12oz of refrigerant!!

(Sod it they don't pay me enough to be perfectly ontime)

4- Pluming the oil drain, Nifty thing called gravity will do the work for you! all ways find the lowest point in the low side to place the drain, and then try and keep a slant going all the way out to the exit point (don't rely souly on the pressure within the system!

5- Over engineering never hurts, they did it with voyager and look how long it lasted, kept transmiting till it got out of range! So go ahead and use oil seps strainers and such, but try to keep it on the low side! We want the high side to have as little volume as we can!

6- Check valves are a nice thing to prevent odd things from happening, if you got one I'd throw it on the oil out line, as last thing we want is to back flush it!

7- Think of it like a SS only open ended, out goes into a tank, in goes through a F/D and to a system, we want it to be low powered as we can reliably get away with.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by godmod

this is my first try of a recovery machine. it uses two compressors and probably needs a lot more (electrical)power than yours, but i am not a HVAC guy :(

i hope you can give me a few hints how to improve my design!

regards,
godmod

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Sorry didn't mean to sound harsh, it is a good first try. When don the design for the self coiling unit I will most certainy post it here free to use, it isn't going to be revolutionary by any means, but it will be, hope fully, very use full.

first thing I could recomend (providing there is not a dip tube) Is lowering your oil port on the discharge sep for better draining.

Add a vibration dampening coil on the discharge to prevent failur and work hardening, increas the volume of the oil sep too would improve things. Nice choise of a condencer BTY low volume!

By tapping into the high side and using a cap tube lead that to your cooling coil and return to the suction port. The trade off is it takes longer and will not pull as deep as a vacuum but it will chill the cylinder nicely and will recover the refrigerant just as well and reduce the needed volume of the condencer.

You have don a great jobe on the systems you make, you don't need to be HVAC to make a good system, right now I am just a waiting student to go full force into the field ;) so we are both at the same playing field as it where :D
Half the fun is in the designing and the rest in the R&D ;)

I might grab two Temprite 501A's for a recovery machine.

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Originally Posted by the_new_guy

how much does something like that cost?

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At a guess, somewhere around $1000 for the recovery machine and maybe a couple of hundred each for the bottles.

Xeon now that you have a recovery machine,it's too bad your not allowed to uses it !!!! your country is a signatory to the Montreal protocol on release & recovery of refrigerants . "Only properly licensed & certified technicians are allowed to recover refrigerant"...........I'm sure that line is in there;) ..................and it is illegal to release it.

happy new year :)

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Originally Posted by {.bLanK} GoD

At a guess, somewhere around $1000 for the recovery machine and maybe a couple of hundred each for the bottles.

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You can get a proffessional recovery machine on EGay for like $300. And a tank for like $100.

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Originally Posted by wdrzal

Xeon now that you have a recovery machine,it's too bad your not allowed to uses it !!!! your country is a signatory to the Montreal protocol on release & recovery of refrigerants . "Only properly licensed & certified technicians are allowed to recover refrigerant"...........I'm sure that line is in there;) ..................and it is illegal to release it.

happy new year :)

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Same with the US as for building and selling of phase units with out the proper certs! so either way it is illegal to have fun, get ahead, and all of the above, thats why I don't bother with that I just use common sense, it seems to work

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Originally Posted by M411b

You can get a proffessional recovery machine on EGay for like $300. And a tank for like $100.

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I quoted New Zealand dollars.
And a cheap recovery unit probably wont have the vapor return connection which will make recovery a lot longer.
And it was just a guesstimation.
Hahaha @ walts comment.

I pay around 60.00 to 65.00 for new 30# tanks without a float,which by the way shuts off the tank when 80% full by volume. if you don't use tanks with floats,you must weigh in the approved amount into tank while most original recovery machines were made to use cans with floats,the added cost has moved most guys go to weighing in the correct amount since you already have a good scale. Don't you???? 20% by volume needs to be left for expansion of refrigerant in heat. a 30# tank is water weight & volume@ standard temperature and pressure, and a conversion needs to be made for refrigerant. 24# is 80% if filled with water, refrigerants don't weigh the same as water.

I wish I had a good scale, like hell I can get one cheap, but I have a workable machanicle one, then again I have a hand and good feel for volume, being the tinyness of the tanks I just pick it up and give it a quick swish. Still trying to get a scale and still geting out bid for a scale. Glad you can get a tank so cheap, won't see one for onder 100 here.

By the way, the best law here is the one that says any release of R-134a can be fined up to 25000 dollars and lisance stripped, yet they sell it as air duster is.

yep ,it depends how it is used, The Montreal protocol was written by bureaucrats and special interest groups.You won't find anyone in the HVAC industry that "completely" agrees with it unless they manufacture recovery equipment.

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Originally Posted by Xeon th MG Pony

By the way, the best law here is the one that says any release of R-134a can be fined up to 25000 dollars and lisance stripped, yet they sell it as air duster is.

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Man, I totally agree, but politics do not belong here.;)

Not politics its :banana::banana::banana::banana::banana:ing about its stupidity ;)

Well I tested it with the oil cooler/return, it only can pull a 10" of Hg vac instead of its usual 25" of Hg, so I will definetaly add a valve to turn it off during recovery mode, and on during recycling mode. Perhaps use a solenoid and a fancy switch that has a trigger guard for bling effect :D

I lost the bracket for the Lp switch so that hasn't been installed yet, but I'll install the fuse and other power protection stuff on soon.

thanks Xeon for your advices. i will reconsider my design to lower the high side volume and do a lot of other improvements.

the drain in my oilsep has a bend:

Ah Ok it has a dip tube :) then it will work well