Newly built recovery machine! DIY

[Xeon th MG Pony]

Well I was bored out of my skull and for some reason house cleaning wasn't going to cut it, So I figured I'd finish a project that I had procrastinated away for dam well 5 years! (Ya I'm a pro at putting things off )

So a brief over view: The main reason I decided to build one was to re-use old R-12 from fridges as there are plenty about, but my conscious killed that Idea I just can't murder our environment like that by allowing the gas to be put into another system, I'll let the HVAC guys take it to be destroyed (Thats what we do in BC any old R-12 is incinerated and destroyed) how ever during a recent move the guys killed my chiller, and I been getting more R-22 charged systems. With my chiller damaged and scoring some Ac's I figured about time to make a system to both recover it and mediocrey recondition it by removing oil and other such things from it.

The design concept: By using an old green propane tank as the intake separater it leaves plenty of space for it to suck in liquid, and any who do home brewing knows the idea of distillation it works the same for refrigerant! We boil the refrigerant off leaving the waste oil inside the tank to be disposed of. Using an oil sep on the compressors discharge we can prevent the compressor oil from getting back into the refrigerant being recovered, and by using a cap the refrigerant being recovered will all so cool the compressor!

So after recovering the refrigerant, I set it up so it sucks in liquid, distills it, then puts it back in the tank in a continuous cycle, Oh with a F/D in-between the tank and machine of course on the suction side.

Now for the picies!

[Xeon th MG Pony]

More pics

So thats it for now till I start fixing my chiller.

I have vaced it out to 28.5" Hg and it sat at that for over night with out budging and it held 85PSI through the day so I think it is safe to say it is a tight system. It will be charged with POE oil and I'll be using a CO-082 F/D.

[Xeon th MG Pony]

thanks, I recomend puting a strainer inbetween the outlet of the tank and intake of the suction port of the compressor to protect against any particals that may have found their way into the tank during fabrication, I didn't have one on hand, so said sod it, and built it any way.

[n00b 0f l337]

Hmmm sorta like what I was considering! Except i completely forgot about the oil. Good reminder ;0

[Xeon th MG Pony]

Hehe glad to see this thread is helping to remind

Another reson for such a stupidly large intake sep is it will allow me to pull in liquide to a degree for very fast removal directly from systems with small receivers and remove the oil on the fly so it saves time and hassle.

[expansionvalve]

heh, very inventive
from the pics I didn't see a pressure switch, I think if I put something together like that I'd fit something just to protect the tank, I guess the chances of that compressor blowing the tank up like a baloon is rather slim, nevertheless, it's another gadget to wire in

anyhow, we need more threads like this, good job Xeon.

[Moc]

Much better recycling unit in my opinion... http://www.extremecooling.net/index/...opic.php?23508
with chiller, he is able to recycle high presure gas like R23 or R1150...

[Xeon th MG Pony]

heh, very inventive
from the pics I didn't see a pressure switch, I think if I put something together like that I'd fit something just to protect the tank, I guess the chances of that compressor blowing the tank up like a baloon is rather slim, nevertheless, it's another gadget to wire in

anyhow, we need more threads like this, good job Xeon.

did you see the two spar ports at the bulk head?

I had to rush out so I didn't have time to post the fact that is what they where for where the dual pressure switches!

Thanks for pointing it out though, good thing to not leave to chance!

[Xeon th MG Pony]

Much better recycling unit in my opinion... http://www.extremecooling.net/index/...opic.php?23508
with chiller, he is able to recycle high presure gas like R23 or R1150...

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

[Moc]

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.

Ya, I think so.. Show me you design please. Okay, you can use recovered refrigerant to cool the R Cylinder but that would only work with low pressure gas like R404A, R507, R134A... do you think that would work with R23 or R1150 ? Autocascading Recovery Unit... that can't work! Want to see you design also here.

[Xeon th MG Pony]

When its don, I am still working on it for the normal gasses, for the higher pressur ones remember that expanding gass will cool just fine it has low capacity though, but cools non the less & with a recovery machine I imagine you need not tons of capacity, thus I think even vapour expansion will work, it then becomes simple issue of efficient plumbing and design, this I need to work on, it may work as my low pressur one. Only diff is the high pressur will use expanding gas to cool rather then boiling liquid.

[Brettbeck]

Does anyone know of a guide or anything to do with recovery machines? I'm unsure of how they work .
The only thing i'm slightly sure about is that you need a strong vacuum to pull out the refrigerant, then it would be hooked up to a recovery tank and the gas compressed back inside?

[n00b 0f l337]

Well generally you want to condense that refrigerant back into the recovery tank. Or illegal, home made cylinders if you somehow can purify and re-use the refrigerant on your own. But you have to seperate out the oil from the unit and from the recovery unit.

[Stapler]

I second Brett's request, perhaps someone could draw a diagram of recovery machine. It looks like their's a diagram over at the German site, but I don't speal the language.

[n00b 0f l337]

Theres as I understand it.

[Brettbeck]

Well generally you want to condense that refrigerant back into the recovery tank. Or illegal, home made cylinders if you somehow can purify and re-use the refrigerant on your own. But you have to seperate out the oil from the unit and from the recovery unit.

Ahh right, I think I understand. So where does the oil have to go once it's seperated from the refrigerant? In to its own storage tank until it can be removed?

[Stapler]

Thanks NoL, I see how it works now. I suppose if I can find some scrap parts and it's cheap enough, I'll build my recovery unit rather than buying one. Have you tested this yet Xeon? How well does yours work?

[Brettbeck]

I made a quick design, does it look ok?

[n00b 0f l337]

Same as mine though I think your compressor might overheat, and if the back and forth lines above the compressor are a condenser, your in for trouble.

[Brettbeck]

Sorry I should have made that more clear... I copied and pasted the components out of another diagram I drew for a cascade .
The back and forth lines above the compressor is a de-superheater, which probably isn't needed. Also, the back and forth lines on the right side is the condenser, but that has nothing to do with size. It would be a similar size to single stage condensers .

[runmc]

Thanks for the cool thread MG Pony - I'm going to build a unit for myself now.

[Moc]

My recoverty unit:

With my unit, you don't need a recycling bottle...

[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.

[{.bLanK} GoD]

I also agree on putting this in with the phase guides.
Making it easier to DIY your own recovery unit will hopefully decrease the number of DIY'ers out there just dumping it into the atmosphere.

[Xeon th MG Pony]

Theres as I understand it.

and theres about right well dead on to be exact ty.