|
Post by Iceman52 on Jul 7, 2022 18:09:30 GMT
Hi all I converted my CA machine to R-11 in March of 2017 .two years after the thermostat went bad. I install a inkbird IT100 temp comptroller. It ran at 35 deg., everything ran fine till last night. We had a severe storm and I should of disconnected it but just forgot to. What happen the electric flickered on and off 3-4 time before going out, when it came back on 4 hr later, all seemed ok then about 2 hr later it went of and on in like 3 seconds. I got up this morning and there are no lights going to the basement which is what I have the frig plugged into it blew the main breaker. I reset it and the light and controller cam on but the frig won't run now. I tried to jump the wires but nothing worked. I really can's see or test anything. So I guess I will l assemble my engine puller and pull the top and bring it into my shop for some trouble shooting. Just maybe it is the Inkbird controller if I am lucky.
|
|
|
Post by cablehack on Jul 8, 2022 7:24:24 GMT
I think you were the one of the first on this forum to actually try R-11, and if I remember correctly, you'd also installed a capillary tube. It would definitely seem that R-11 is a proven substitute, if it's worked well this long. Hopefully the compressor motor itself is OK. I often wonder about this sort of thing happening, and have localised circuit breakers for my two CA's. Partly to protect the stepdown transformers, but also because the fuse on the power circuit is of a too high rating to protect the motors.
|
|
|
Post by turbokinetic on Jul 8, 2022 13:07:54 GMT
Hi all I converted my CA machine to R-11 in March of 2017 .two years after the thermostat went bad. I install a inkbird IT100 temp comptroller. It ran at 35 deg., everything ran fine till last night. We had a severe storm and I should of disconnected it but just forgot to. What happen the electric flickered on and off 3-4 time before going out, when it came back on 4 hr later, all seemed ok then about 2 hr later it went of and on in like 3 seconds. I got up this morning and there are no lights going to the basement which is what I have the frig plugged into it blew the main breaker. I reset it and the light and controller cam on but the frig won't run now. I tried to jump the wires but nothing worked. I really can's see or test anything. So I guess I will l assemble my engine puller and pull the top and bring it into my shop for some trouble shooting. Just maybe it is the Inkbird controller if I am lucky. View AttachmentView AttachmentSorry to hear about your problem with your CA. It sounds like something did indeed go wrong due to the power blinks. Normally, the CA machines have no problem restarting immediately because of the unloader being included in the design. However, repeated blinks and disturbances are hard on anything. I haven't had an opportunity to go back though all your older posts and find details of the electronic thermostat installation. So forgive me if this is something you have answered already. When you installed the electronic thermostat; did you leave the original in place in series with the new electronic one? If not, how did you include overload protection for the compressor motor? I ask because the original thermostat had an overload breaker inside it. If the original thermostat is still in-circuit there is a chance that the overload breaker inside that has tripped. You mention that the original thermostat is not working; so it is possible that the overload function is also compromised. It could fail to protect the motor; or it could trip and then fail to reset even though the switch was cycled off and back on . The fact that it tripped the breaker for that circuit is very worrisome. Normally that sort of circuit would have a 15 or 20A breaker. If that was tripped, it indicates that a sustained or extreme current flowed. One way to get an idea of how serious the fault was; is to inspect the coil winding of the start-relay. If it is charred then likely the compressor was subjected to a very high sustained fault current. I think you were the one of the first on this forum to actually try R-11, and if I remember correctly, you'd also installed a capillary tube. It would definitely seem that R-11 is a proven substitute, if it's worked well this long. Hopefully the compressor motor itself is OK. I often wonder about this sort of thing happening, and have localised circuit breakers for my two CA's. Partly to protect the stepdown transformers, but also because the fuse on the power circuit is of a too high rating to protect the motors.
Agreed. I also tend to install fuses in addition to the factory overload breakers on certain fridge models. A time-delay type MDL fuse will protect the compressor if there is a sustained fault, longer than it should be allowed to have. That saves it from burnout of there is a failure of the original overload. It is getting hard to find R11, unfortunately. There are sellers who have cylinders of "cleaning grade" R11 marked as "not for refrigerant use" which one has to be careful about. This was sold as a flushing solvent and had some other gas mixed with the R11 to pressurize it and ensure it will flow out of the container. If you have a float metering system, this will cause all sorts of problems. I was trying to remotely assist a gentleman who bought a can of this. He used it in spite of the markings, and had huge headaches.
|
|
|
Post by Iceman52 on Jul 8, 2022 14:55:09 GMT
I had it happen on and off over the years with no problems but I think the hard one was a few hours later that did it. I have the temp controller separate. I had it wired also so the unloader would kick in if needed. I had an on /off switch in it also where I could turn off the power to the motor but keep the heater going when I would defrost it. The IT100 all it was used for was on and off to cool. It worked for 3 years without a problem and it does look like the starter coil is gone in a dark brown almost black. I won't know till I get it into my shop which is a choir in itself. I was lucky When I did the charge I found a used 30# cylinder on e-bay it only had 28# in it then. My self I would try R134 and work the capillary tube length if I could not find R11. I sometimes refill and fix the small under-counter frig with R134 but they call for it. Kind of looking if the compressor motor is bad, I was looking at removing it and installing a newer compressor into the cavity hooking it into the cooling coil. Does anyone know if this has been done? I also have another 1932 CA with a bad compressor which I know is bad. I put an Anni2 on it at 220v trying to unstick it and nothing.
|
|
|
Post by cablehack on Jul 9, 2022 0:11:06 GMT
My self I would try R134 and work the capillary tube length if I could not find R11. It would be a nice thought, since I would have saved myself the considerable expense of methyl formate, but the characteristics of R134a are very far removed from R11. It is a high pressure low volume refrigerant, which is the opposite of what the CA is designed for. The compressor wouldn't even start because of the high pressure. If R134a is the only refrigerant available, the DR and CK type machines are far more adaptable.
|
|
|
Post by ckfan on Jul 9, 2022 14:30:49 GMT
Yes, what he said. R134a is not anywhere near what a CA can handle. Way too high of pressures that it runs at. The poor CA would just stall.
I honestly wouldn’t even feel comfortable running a DR with it. A CK might be ok. I know they ran them on R12.
|
|
|
Post by cablehack on Jul 10, 2022 23:38:05 GMT
I honestly wouldn’t even feel comfortable running a DR with it. A CK might be ok. I know they ran them on R12. Coldspaces did a DR-2 conversion to R134a some years ago, not long after the forum started. It worked very well, but there was more involved than simply changing the refrigerant. A restrictor tube was added to the suction line - the idea for this came from an old book which described converting a Norge from SO2 to R12.
The official R12 CK-3 had a reduced piston stroke.
|
|
|
Post by turbokinetic on Jul 11, 2022 1:26:55 GMT
I want to try and make a "layman's explanation" with some simple math; as to why the refrigerants talked about above will not work for a CA machine.
Try to think of refrigerant as a "swarm of molecules" buzzing around in a cloud. Each molecule can take away a small amount of heat when it starts to fly around. Therefore each molecule does a small amount of work. All of them together add up to do the total work of the machine.
Gases at a higher pressure have more molecules crammed into any given space. Gases at a lower pressure have few molecules in any given space.
Since we can make a simplification that it takes a similar number of molecules to move a similar amount of heat - then it can be said that you need to move a high volume of gas at a low pressure, to do the same work as a low volume of gas at a high pressure.
High pressure refrigerants are pumped by a compressor with very small displacement per horsepower. This is because there are a lot of molecules of gas, and a lot of work is done by each cubic inch moved by the compressor.
Low pressure refrigerants require a compressor with a higher volume displacement for any given horsepower. It takes a larger volume of gas to move the same amount of molecules, at a lower pressure. There are less molecules in each cubic inch of the lower pressure gas, so it takes a larger "stroke volume" to move the same amount of material. Therefore, low pressure compressors have very large displacement pumping mechanisms.
This means that, if a system is engineered for a very low pressure refrigerant such as methyl formate, it has an extremely large pumping volume per rotation of the motor. This large volume allows it to "capture" enough of the sparsely populated, low pressure gas molecules. It can capture enough to provide appropriate load on the 1/8 HP motor in the CA machine.
If you replace the low pressure methyl formate with a gas operating at a higher pressure, it will "capture" too many of the densely-packed high pressure gas molecules in each stroke. This will call upon the compressor to do all the work necessary to compress and move that level of heat capacity. It will be more than the motor can provide. The result is that the motor will simply stall.
If we look at the GE manuals, the pressure of SO2 at 15°F is about 0.5 PSIG (14.2 PSI Absolute)
Looking at the CA manual, the pressure for methyl formate at approximately 15°F is 25.2 inches mercury vacuum (2.36 PSI Absolute)
R134A temperature-pressure charts show that this refrigerant at 15°F has 29.7 PSI Absolute.
If you go by pressure-temperature chart only and ignore all other factors such as gas density at standard conditions; and heat capacity, you can see the following picture.
Methyl formate versus SO2 gives SIX TIMES the pressure the compressor was originally designed for. Methyl formate versus R134A gives a 12.6 times pressure increase over what the compressor was designed for.
There is a significant engineering margin in the compressors and motors of these early machines. A T/P chart change factor of of 2x is not outside of the realm of possibility, considering how other factors play into the system performance. However, comparing methyl formate to any of the traditional refrigerants used in other system retrofits is clearly outside of anything the compressor is capable of operating with. When you see that the difference in pressure-temperature chart alone would cause a 12 times increase above the design point; there is no reason to go any further investigating this for a methyl formate replacement.
In summary; high pressure refrigerant needs small piston and big motor. Low pressure refrigerants need big piston, small motor. This displacement to HP ratio is set when the compressor is engineered, in the physical size of the moving parts. Unless you replace the compressor, there is no getting around this. There is only a certain engineering margin in which the compressor can safely operate. Monitoring it for operating current and temperatures gives some indication as to whether or not you are exceeding those margins. If the deviation from design is too great, the compressor won't even run.
Sincerely, David
|
|
|
Post by Iceman52 on Jul 11, 2022 12:19:38 GMT
Thanks Dave for the explanation.
|
|
|
Post by elec573 on Jul 12, 2022 6:08:38 GMT
That was quite an explanation David thanks ! Are you an engineer or just have a working knowledge of these things? Some people are what I would call gifted , or intuitive , individual that can not only understand , but break these things down so others can understand also ! You seem to be one of them to me . I’m glad you’re sharing your knowledge!
|
|
|
Post by Iceman52 on Jul 29, 2022 18:06:27 GMT
Has anyone rebuilt the starter relay? Mine needs a new coil installed in it. getting nothing through it.
|
|
|
Post by turbokinetic on Jul 29, 2022 18:40:58 GMT
I can repair those relays. Please send me a PM if you want.
|
|
|
Post by Iceman52 on Aug 2, 2022 19:25:32 GMT
I can repair those relays. Please send me a PM if you want. I still need to check to see if the motor runs from the above problem if it runs I will contact you on the rebuild Thanks Jack...
|
|
|
Post by Iceman52 on Sept 19, 2022 21:04:08 GMT
Finally getting around to do some checking on my frig top. One question would it be ok to turn it on its side with the R11 freon I have in it? I need to get to the wiring and heater.
|
|
|
Post by cablehack on Sept 19, 2022 22:45:24 GMT
One question would it be ok to turn it on its side with the R11 freon I have in it? Yes, no problem with that.
|
|