Outer Limits 4x4 Board

ISUZUROVER wrote:How is your home-regassed AC working Dougal???

Where did you get the propane from?

BBQ gas bottle, so it's a dirty mix of propane and butane that I guess varies depending on the fill of the bottle. If commercial HC gases were available here I'd use them. But talking to auto-ac guys in this country is like talking to bible salesmen. Mention anything other than R134a and they'll lecture you all day.
One installation is working great about 3 years on, the other one (was an R12 system) has a porous hose so is currently not used. I need to completely reconfigure that one anyway.

Tojo wrote:pay my airfare and take me fishing and i'll do it for you. That's if they let me take the gas on the plane.

wait for the dry and then drive here. i am always up for a fish and the fishing is amazing

roblrc wrote:Whoever does your coolrooms would be able to do your car if you have found and fixed your leak, by your post you have.Need to vacuum the system to remove air and minmise moisture. A/C charge is measured by weight and checked by either the sight glass and gauges for correct pressures. Careful using propane etc. as you usually only need approx. a 1/3 of the charge that R134a is needed. Hope it helps PM me if you need more info.
Cheers Rob

the reason i asked about coolroom gas is about 12 months ago a old coolroom was rebuilt and the cylinders that they
pumped the old gas into were just tossed into the bush. i grabbed a couple and they have around 6kg of gas in them.
there are no fridgies on the island.

Coolstore plant is always stickered with the gas type. The bottles should be too.

lpg works ACE


you can buy aerosol HYCHILL refills from bursons, and the adapter and hose from bursons aswell. cost you less than 100 to refill with hychill, bottles are 20$ and the fittings and hose will cost you 80. once you have the hoses and fittings you can refill with hychill OR camp stove refills

cheers,
JEs

did anyone try that ebay stuff? i'm really interested in it. what could possibly go wrong? could i come to some injury? and what happens if i fill r12 system with r134?

karol wrote:did anyone try that ebay stuff? i'm really interested in it. what could possibly go wrong? could i come to some injury? and what happens if i fill r12 system with r134?

small burns on your hand from high pressure gasses up to losing your eyessight/taste/life

And wrong gas often means your seals will prerish, things will clog up and react with each other rotting the compressor inside out. as well as not cooling properly.. Some systems it will work fine on

shakes wrote:

karol wrote:did anyone try that ebay stuff? i'm really interested in it. what could possibly go wrong? could i come to some injury? and what happens if i fill r12 system with r134?

small burns on your hand from high pressure gasses up to losing your eyessight/taste/life

And wrong gas often means your seals will prerish, things will clog up and react with each other rotting the compressor inside out. as well as not cooling properly.. Some systems it will work fine on

But apart from possibly being dead .. it's all good right

karol wrote:did anyone try that ebay stuff? i'm really interested in it. what could possibly go wrong? could i come to some injury? and what happens if i fill r12 system with r134?

i have a few bottles on the way but it will take 8 or 10 weeks to get here.
if you are in a area that has business that do aircons it doesn't cost much to convert to 134a
i think that the O rings and receiver dryer just need to be changed.

It's the oil that's a problem changing to R134a. You need to flush the system out.
But the other problem is R134a isn't as good a refrigerant as R12 or the hydrocarbons. The result can be a previously well performing R12 system that struggles to keep you cool once running on R134a.

KiwiBacon wrote:It's the oil that's a problem changing to R134a. You need to flush the system out.
But the other problem is R134a isn't as good a refrigerant as R12 or the hydrocarbons. The result can be a previously well performing R12 system that struggles to keep you cool once running on R134a.

Hence going for propane instead?

KiwiBacon wrote:It's the oil that's a problem changing to R134a. You need to flush the system out.
But the other problem is R134a isn't as good a refrigerant as R12 or the hydrocarbons. The result can be a previously well performing R12 system that struggles to keep you cool once running on R134a.

its not to do with r134a not being as good as r12, it is because the 2 gases are designed to run at different pressures and the retrofit is a bandaid to make the system "work" with gases/pressures it wasnt designed to be run on

rxheven wrote:its not to do with r134a not being as good as r12, it is because the 2 gases are designed to run at different pressures and the retrofit is a bandaid to make the system "work" with gases/pressures it wasnt designed to be run on

Well kind of. Gases aren't "designed" to run at different pressures, rather the more ozone friendly R134a is a bigger molecule. As a result it needs higher pressures to condense to liquid and has a lower critical temperature.
R12 has a critical point of 112C, above that temperature you can't compress it to liquid no matter how hard you try.
R134a has a critical point of 101.2C, a good 10 degrees lower. But this is only part of the story. At any temperature you need to run a lot more pressure to saturate R134a which makes the systems a lot less efficient.

my gas and hose turned up today.



would i be right in assuming that the red cap is where the gas goes in?

i flicked a coin and the blue plug won, dumped both cans in and now the cold wind is awesome again.

supazuk wrote:i probably should have mentioned that a trip to a sparky will cost me around $3500 so if i cant diy
then there is no aircon.
is the gas in coolrooms the same as car systems?

Mate coolrooms use a number of different gases so yes and no, not sure on the right gasses to use but could find out.