air conditoner guy advice preferably from a hvac or someone with knowledge of this.

Mike, the proper term is recover not reclaim. A lot of techs just evacuate the units and take them to whomever recycles them. As far as the oil, only the person recycling the compressor is responsible for the oil. But in a lot of states you either have to have a HVAC license or be a licensed recycler to sell the coils to a scrap yard.

There's probably something in the Tradesman's job contract like to 'Remove old unit and replace with....'

Its sorta says there that he has to remove it. First he has to remove it from its footing, and then the property.
The guys got his whole business to look after. Its a part of 'Due process'.

If after taking it it (its in his hands at the time) he did give it to you, and you scrapped it and went to sell it, the first thing they will ask about if "What happened to the Freon?".

And if your answer is "Oh I just let of out " You are in big trouble. If you then mention anything about the Tradesman, so is he.

Like for him to give it to you, he knows you are not going to recover the gas at all. In knowing that, he's part of it too.

I wouldn't believe anything a random person said to me if I was that Tradesman either. It defiantly would not be the first time somebody's said that to him.

Eesakiwi, the oil is spraying out of the compressors because the units were not properly evacuated. Refrigerant is trapped under the oil in the compressor. If you don't hit the compressor with a hammer when you are evacuating the unit, you will not get the refrigerant that is trapped under the oil.

When the unit is running some oil travels along with the freon, the oil become saturated with oil in the same way your soda pop has carbon dioxide to give it the fizz. Let an open bottle or glass of pop sit for a day or so it becomes flat.

To completely evacuate a unit it should be drawn down into a vacuum, to turn the remaining freon into vapour by boiling yes that is correct boiling. By introducing a vacuum into the system we are lowering the boiling temperature of freon turning it into a vapour which the recovery unit turns back into a liquid as the freon is being pumped into a receiver used to ship the recovered freon to a recycler.

Sometimes a refrigeration or AC unit becomes wet with water contamination, on commercial units which are equipped with a sight glass the green dot in the middle will change colour if there is water present. Water freezes causing an ice ball to form where the freon is exiting from the capillary tube or sporlan valve intio the evaporator. The ice ball prevents the flow of freon which caurses the unit to build up an excess of pressure possibly damaging the compressor if your lucky just stop cooling of go into a loop where the over load continually tries to start the compressor which will not start as long as the ice ball is blocking the system from passing freon as a gas.

Ok, now to remove this water we have to first evacuate the system of freon once this is accomplished we now put a vacuum pump to the shrader valve we initially installed to evacuate the system. This vacuum pump is made especially for this job and will pull a vacuum into the microns, now were going to get more freon then any water in the system is going to also boil off as a vapour.

Good time to replace the compressor oil as the water mixed with the oil and freon created acids that are harmful to the motors insulation, that done we install a new filter drier then replace the freon with new.

If we were to pump liquid freon out of the unit we would stand a chance of hydraulicing the piston causing the recovery pump to lock up, break a connecting rod or damage the reed valves.

Evacuating a unit is time consuming so most guys will tap into the high side removing liquid freon, to do this the compressor on the unit being evacuated must run in order to make liquid, once there is no more liquid freon coming out the technician signs off the job and goes home leaving saturated oil inside the compressor but saved 3/4 of an hour and gets paid the same money had he put in the time to do a proper job.

You wont find many refrigeration technicians claiming to enjoy this part of the job and this is perhaps a good reason for many a scrapper to approach a licensed tech to work as an apprentice. If you were competent at your work I do not believe the technician would have to be present to oversee your work he might have to sign off though so marshalling all your units into one easy location would make that part of his requirement easy.


AC units usually use multiple capillary tubes, liquid freon from the high side makes it way through the tubes which unite at the evaporator, the liquid freon as it leaves the cap tubes become a gas that absorbs heat. To us humans the air passing over the evaporator coil is cool and refreshing.

Large commercial units use a sporlan valve which are pretty cool valves that have a needle valve inside the technician is able to make adjustments that control the flow of liquid being turned into a gas. The more freon available to turn into gas make it a cooler or walk in freezer.

On the bottom of the sporlan valve below you see a cap screw, you remove the cap screw to make the adjustments. The copper line attached to the top of the valve is what controls a bellow that works the needle valve. By turning the adjustment screw in your adding more pressure to the spring which in turn cuts down on the flow of freon if you want the box to be colder back the screw out thus allowing more freon to pass through the system.

Originally Posted by eesakiwi

This, quote{Large commercial units use a sporlan valve which are pretty cool valves that have a needle valve inside the technician is able to make adjustments that control the flow of liquid being turned into a gas. The more freon available to turn into gas make it a cooler or walk in freezer.

On the bottom of the sporlan valve below you see a cap screw, you remove the cap screw to make the adjustments. The copper line attached to the top of the valve is what controls a bellow that works the needle valve. By turning the adjustment screw in your adding more pressure to the spring which in turn cuts down on the flow of freon if you want the box to be colder back the screw out thus allowing more freon to pass through the system.}
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This is exactly what I have been wanting to know for a while, but didn't know the question to ask......
I was wanting to make a cooler unit to use with a receiving flask on a laboratory distillation setup. The water chillers only get down to just under freezing, and a home freezer gets down to -14°C when running 100% of the time. They are too bulky to use.

I will check my water chiller to see if its got that valve on it tonight.
If it hasn't maybe I can get it changed, and maybe a different gas if that helps. Theres a small fridgeration firm near here that I can use to do it.

And... thanks again Alloy2.

Chances are any appliance in your home using freon will use capillary tubes instead of the more expensive sporlan valve aka expansion valve.


A handy capillary tube chart, I believe sporlan is trade name for the expansion valve. http://www.jbind.com/pdf/inst-tubing.pdf

Here's youtube video with a reasonable explanation on the use of capillary tubes.

Gus, do you have a model number?

Originally Posted by freonjoe

Gus, do you have a model number?

No, I was hoping the part number from the schematic would lead me to the model of timer used.

The reason I want this data from various machines is that I'm going to build a pen plotter that will attach to the wiring harness of the timer then when it's powered up the plotter will chart each sequence to see if they're operational.

I'm still figuring out in my mind how I want this test unit to react with the internal contact points within the timer, thinking that I may add a resister to add a load to each contact as it engages this way I'll be sure after bench testing a timer it will work in a washing machine. This way I can stand behind my product guarantee with confidence.

There must be a master chart listing timer sequences, then with my pen plotter would be able to identify an unknown timer by simply recording the sequences then matching the output data with the master chart.

As your probably already aware the majority of timers use a common contact block containing a full house of contacts, it depends on the features of the washing machine as to how many of those contacts will be used, the cam built into the timer operated by the clock motor depicts which contacts will be used.

The following would be required on every machine, timer power on, cam advances once the water level switch contacts close, timer motor advances the cam forward to close contacts to start main motor to run agitator, timer advances slowly during the wash cycle to a soak period, timer motor cam is programmed for the soak time require, perhaps at this time another set of contacts engage to activate the drain pump to add fresh water during a spin cycle in spurts, the contacts inside the timer at this point would not call on the water level switch but that if the solenoids from the fill valves user would have chosen hot or cold rinse.

Anyhow it's the sequence data that I'm after so that I can compile my own master list.

I do not want to get back into repairing appliances I hate dealing with the public, I'm retired and would like something simple to do with my time.

By the way Danfoss has some excellent apps for your smart phone, be sure to check these out you might find one that is useful. I installed a few this morning.

So you just want ester charts?