uv dyes good or bad

[asmercer]

What’s your thought on uv dyes for locating refrigerant leaks. I have used it on cars to locate leaks and love it. the only drawback that I know of is the time it takes to show up on small leaks. Does anybody know if the dye is damaging to the refrigerant or effects the refrigerant oil?

[Airmechanical]

What’s your thought on uv dyes for locating refrigerant leaks. I have used it on cars to locate leaks and love it. the only drawback that I know of is the time it takes to show up on small leaks. Does anybody know if the dye is damaging to the refrigerant or effects the refrigerant oil?

in my humble opinion only oil and refrigerant should be present in a refrigeration circuit!



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[voleye]

Not a thing in the world wrong with it. Some leaks can be found with out it. We use it several times a year. To this day we have never had a problem with it other than its hell to get out of your clothes when you get it on you.

[woody19]

Several years ago I overhauled an 80 ton Trane unit that lost lubrication and wiped out the main bearings and scrambled the rods,etc. When I removed the oil it was a weird orange color. I found out that two of the maint. men at this location ( a film studio) had added dye to the system to locate leaks. What they didn't tell each other was the fact that they each used dyes from different manufacturers and apparently there was a chemical breakdown between both dyes and the oil, thus the loss of lubrication and comp. failure. I removed over six gallons of contaminated oil from the system before I put the comp. back into service. Bottom line....I hate that crap and would never add any to a system--use an H10 to locate leaks.

[mikep]

From my experience it seems more problems with dyes in low and mid temp refrigeration. By problems I mean restricted TXVs. Tought to blame a comp burnout or lock-up on dye but some OEMs have the statistics for that and will void warranties.

[k-fridge]

Dye has it's place. we use it for elusive leaks and for preventative on systems that hold large amounts of refrigerant.

Some of the early dyes might (emphasis on might) have caused some problems, I know of no problems with the current crop of dyes.

[tinknocker service tech]

i refuse to use it because of all the reasons given alread

leaks can be found with out it

[Cody_Virginia]

Copeland has specifically stated that "system additives" are not to be used in their compressors. Trane (the other major compressor manufacturer) has said the same thing. I know that Lennox requires any failed compressor to be returned if it failed within the first 20 months. They ship the compressors back to Copeland. If Copeland finds dye in the system, they could refuse the warranty and Lennox would probably back them up.

[asmercer]

Copeland has specifically stated that "system additives" are not to be used in their compressors. Trane (the other major compressor manufacturer) has said the same thing. I know that Lennox requires any failed compressor to be returned if it failed within the first 20 months. They ship the compressors back to Copeland. If Copeland finds dye in the system, they could refuse the warranty and Lennox would probably back them up.

thanks for all the replies , the warranty issue sounds like a great reason why not to use the dyes