We had one years ago that the boss bought after the barrel burst. A company swapped it out and we took it. He sold it to someone as a used chiller so we jacked it up about 2 foot at one end and drilled holes in the condenser u-bends and drained the water out. Changed the evap and compressors of course but it took 6 pumps all running 24 hours a day over a week to dry it out.
It's all bad can't even get gas out of it because the glycol that was in it gummed the schrader cores up from the inside this thing is done... Combo of the glycol and water huge mess. Thanks for the comments
In that case it might be as cheap to replace the chiller if glycol is inside it now. Good luck whatever you do. You will find it a useful learning curve. I know of many techs with many years of experience who have never had the pleasure of doing such a repair. Let us know how you get on. :cheers:
I spent the better part of a month drying out a 30xa one time, it can take awhile.
I've had some luck before I actually was on site when it ruptured and thought I caught it in time and shut it down to where it could be salvaged but when that **** gets in there with the oil and freon its ****ed in my opinion never be the same not to mention that feeling you get when ypu know in the back of your head it can fail.
Good luck. Don't forget to add the proper valves in the oil sump. You will need to change the oil at least 3 times, as all the s**t will end up in the oil.
Recips don't like to pump water.
If you had water enter the system then that will indicate you will be evacuating the plant in excess of 1 week. Last chiller i had water in, 3 months later the vacuum was starting to look good. The way i look at it is, the worst problem known to a chiller is water entry and unless the correct steps are taken the chiller may die without you knowing it. My recommendations are, 1) Add nitrogen to the unit and identify the leak point, 2) isolate the leak but do not repair as you need to remove the water followed by the moisture first as your top priority to prevent contamination and corrosion 3) with a small amount of nitrogen in the system, identify the lowest point of all piping including condenser coils, compressors, oil separators and do what you have to do to remove all liquids, oils etc from the system. 4)Now seal up the chiller ready for evacuation. If you have an old vacuum pump use this first and as a minimum every 12 hours replace the oil or if the oil becomes milky in colour. 5) Keep flushing with dry nitrogen and changing the oil until the oil quality is starting to look good. Now connect a micron gauge and measure the vacuum every time before the oil is changed. When you reach a vacuum of less than 500 microns and it holds for 24 hours with less than 100 micron rise over this period, fill system with nitrogen and carry out the repairs to the source of the leak. Have done this to many chillers and they are running fault free today. There is no quick fix for this type of problem.
Long story short the chiller is the cheapest pos i have ever seen only has a LP safety for protection no freeze stat flow switch etc... Also has a city water bypass that is connected tto the chiller and when it it goes into bypass for what ever reason power outage pump fail etc solenoids close chiller loop and feed city water to process but chiller never shuts off continues to run no flow!!! No freeze protection just a LP safety.....and this was bought as a package to work together nice engineering. Lol
It'll take weeks and many oil changes. Several a day for the first weeks. When the oil turns milky.... change it. A dry ice chamber speeds things up alot.
Explain to the customer what has happen and why.
If customer wants a price to fix quote to replace with a chiller that has all of he protection as standard.
Removing water, moisture and contaminants is a labour intensive ,time consuming process. If it has a compressor that can be stripped and clean then repairing is viable. If sealed than replace chiller.
Flow switches or as I only use differential pressure switch should be standard on the chilled water circuit along with freeze stat, low pressure switch and leaving water controller. Condenser regardless if air or water requires high pressure switch as standard and flow switch, differential pressure switch would be optional
Update
Well I got this chiller running if it wasn't for the r 11 I had from a old job.I flushed so much wax out of this thing from the water freon and oil turned straight to wax nastiest **** I've seen. If it wasnt for the r11 with nitrogen I don't think it would ever get it back to normal also replaced compressor . Nitrogen and multiple oil changes on vacuum pump also got my micron down to 259 charged it up ran flawless didn't even need to replace the new drier I put in. R11 is the answer to get it clean but I know EPA not recommended desperate times desperate measures.
Cough cough I know you meant RX 11 . (;Quote:
Originally Posted by pillclinton209
LOL.