Window ac units - Page 2

I use 24 tpi blades for cutting catalytic converters off, the more aggressive blades don't last very long on pipe

Originally Posted by alloy2

I use 24 tpi blades for cutting catalytic converters off, the more aggressive blades don't last very long on pipe

I feel like i'm still figuring it out sometimes. They seem to recommend the finer blades for thin metal. Stuff like sheet metal and thin wall pipe. The coarser blades are for thicker wall pieces of metal like brass pipe and black iron.

Ya gotta figure in the hardness of the metal too. Brass and copper are pretty soft. The blades hold up pretty well. Stainless ... like what you would get around a cat ... that's a pretty durable metal that's harder to cut and harder on a blade. You have to take your time with it and not heat up the blade.

It's a long story but i was cutting a 3/4" stainless nipple off a stainless tank last week. Had a brand new coarse blade in the sawzall but i smoked it cause i was in a rush and being impatient. An angle grinder with a 1/16" thick cutting wheel would have been a better choice for that job.

Originally Posted by hills

I hear ya on the fridges. They make a mess when i compact them. Foam and plastic all over the place.

Fine or coarse blades don't seem to make much of a difference in the amount of copper dust. One thing i don't much like is all the dust that gets thrown up in the air when cutting with a grinder. It's a messy job. Good idea to wear a mask, safety glasses, and gloves.

Some of the sawzall blades are more brittle than others. It all depends on what kind of metal alloy they used to make the blade with. The ones they make these days seem to be more bendy. I haven't had one break off down in the chuck for quite awhile. If they bend .... i just hammer them out flat again on a flat metal surface like an anvil. The main thing just seems to be using the sawzall the right way and not letting the point of the blade go crashing into something. It should stick out a couple of inches past the thing you're cutting on the shortest part of the stroke. The other thing would be not letting the metal bind the blade when you're cutting. It's kinda like cutting down a tree and not binding the chain saw bar. If you ever got a chain saw stuck in a tree and had the hassle of getting it free .... it would make sense. Sometimes a thing you are cutting will close up on your blade. You can feel it start to bind. It's at that point that you want to stop cutting, pull out your blade, and figure out why it's binding up on you. ( The instinct is to try and force it through but it's better not to do it that way.)

I've been using a Ryobi impact bit kit for over a year now. It's worked pretty good. I've only broken one nut driver bit. The thing about the screwdriver bit tips is that you want to find the one that is the exact right fit for the screw you are trying to undo. Once an impact bit slips .... it either boogers up the screw you are trying to unfasten -or- it boogers up the bit tip a little. You wanna remember too ... the bit tips do wear. Especially the ones like a # 2 phillips that you use a lot. They're just like a sawzall blade or a grinding wheel. They're disposable supplies. You throw em' away and replace em' with a fresh one every so often. All part of the cost of doing business.

No idea of the weights on the rads. They vary in size. Maybe a pound or two each ? Not a good money kind of thing but they eventually add up if you do enough of em'. Like most other kinds of scrapping ... it's just a quarter here and fifty cents there. Maybe a buck or two if you run across a good one. It's a lot like work.

Link for Ryobi impact bits:

https://www.amazon.com/Driving-Colle...=AH24UX00VY0MC

Oh yes I no that all to well lol when I did 28 of em took me a month haha. Now I'm going to have 80-96 of them haha. I got a truck guy how many ac units would fit into a truck bed? They are 8k-8200 btu does that make a difference in size of the space it takes up?.

Originally Posted by hills

I can see how it would take awhile to break down 28 window air conditioners. Breaking down 80 + will keep your hands busy for awhile.

It's hard to say on the truck. It used to be that we called in the freon recovery company once we had accumulated 50 Freon units. They would be a mix of freezers, fridges, window AC's, and dehumidifiers. They would come down and haul it all off to their shop.

After awhile ... they figured out that it was a whole lot less time & trouble to send out a freon technician with a van full of equipment and remove the freon on-site.

It made quite a bit of extra work for me. Now ... i do the prep for their arrival and deal with the scrap metal after they are done.

I try to look on the bright side. All the extra work that got piled on my shoulders makes it so i have to put in overtime to get the job done. Cha-Ching !

That's where the real money in scrapping gets made.

Yea I did a quick count of the ones I couldn't see in the trailer stacked 5 high looks like 160 acs haha.

Whoo boy .... that's an awful lot like work Mike. I wish you the best of luck with it. You might make some money with that many rads & compressors.There's probably a bit in steel and electric fan motors too.

mike1 why would you cut up 28 refrigerators with a sawzall.

If your using a regular long box pick up truck, to increase your load capacity install some stakes in the pockets and pull a trailer to make the best use of your fuel.

The roof top AC condenser rads are about 6 / 8 inches thick, I use fine tooth blades to cut the copper ends off. The copper ends are soldered with an alloy with a percentage of silver. Easy to recover the silver via a copper parting cell.

Not all, I've seen some consumer grade AC's were they used epoxy.

I meant window ac units not fridges haha. I don't really do fridges.

Might want to sell the sealed units as is.... thats alot of time / work cutting all those. also then having to dealing with all that oil.

Originally Posted by greytruck

Might want to sell the sealed units as is.... thats alot of time / work cutting all those. also then having to dealing with all that oil.

Originally Posted by greytruck

Might want to sell the sealed units as is.... thats alot of time / work cutting all those. also then having to dealing with all that oil.

One good thing about having the Freon removed is that the tech usually pumps the oil out of the compressor as well. Still an oily job though. I think Mike may find that most of the compressor motors for the window AC's are wound in ali and not copper. 80 - 90% of all electric motors i see these days are ali wound. It's in everything. Even in generators. What a buzzkill to put in the work of breaking the motor down just to find an ali winding.

Originally Posted by hills

One good thing about having the Freon removed is that the tech usually pumps the oil out of the compressor as well. Still an oily job though. I think Mike may find that most of the compressor motors for the window AC's are wound in ali and not copper. 80 - 90% of all electric motors i see these days are ali wound. It's in everything. Even in generators. What a buzzkill to put in the work of breaking the motor down just to find an ali winding.

Every Condenser unit i get from the hvac shop, my tech buddy or a random find that have the freon removed always still have the oil. i wonder if removing the oil is an extra part of recovery that they leave the oil in to do the job faster.

I hear ya on the Alum units and motors. I had one of those 200lb S units i wanted to breakdown. i did 4 others in the past and when i did the last one it was alum windings. that was when i retired from opening sealed units. I also have found alum motors from generators. Its like i got 12lbs of copper coming to go to nothing but shred.

Originally Posted by greytruck

Every Condenser unit i get from the hvac shop, my tech buddy or a random find that have the freon removed always still have the oil. i wonder if removing the oil is an extra part of recovery that they leave the oil in to do the job faster.

Ummm ... i dunno. My understanding of their part is limited. If i were to take a guess .... it might be that your HVAC shop and the Freon recycling company we're using have different end goals.

The HVAC shop and your tech buddy are just looking to vacuum out the Freon into a steel refrigerant tank and dispose of it somehow. They're prime gig is new refrigeration installation and repair. That's where they make the bulk of their money. Evacuating Freon at end of life would just be a sideline for them.

The Freon recycling company that we have been using is a different kind of animal. They're based two states away in Massachusetts and have a tech with a van full of equipment that travels hundreds of miles every week around the state of Maine. He goes from Transfer Station to Transfer Station processing fridges,freezers, AC's, and dehumidifiers once they've been sent to the dump. That's all this company does and they're pretty good at it. They bang the work out like nobody's business. He can tear through something like 50 or 60 units an hour if i have the job set up right for him.

I was talking with him the last time he came through .... about a month ago. All of the Freon and oil he collects goes back to their shop in Massachusetts. The different kinds of mixed Freon in his tanks gets run through a separation tower and sorted out. Each kind is lab tested to ensure purity and is re-sold to be used over & over again. Their shop is something like 50,000 sqft. It gets cold here in the Northeast here in the winter. All the compressor oil he collects is used as heating oil in their waste oil furnace and heats the building for free.

I guess it's a pretty big recycling outfit. They've got techs with vans running all over creation in this part of the country. The changeover to a newer way of doing things made for a bit more work on my end but i can't say i'm opposed to it. I try to support all of the different kinds of recyclers coming through the place as long as they're doing a good job.

To remove the oil requires drilling and draining into a suitable vessel, quite often a bit of freon remains in the oil.

Hot sparks from a zip blade, cutting torch of plasma - nerve gas.

AET recommends that our clients have their HVAC units serviced annually in accordance with ASHRAE recommended maintenance prior to the start of the summer cooling season. Note: FREON release in close proximity to an open flame may result in formation of phosgene gas.

Originally Posted by alloy2

To remove the oil requires drilling and draining into a suitable vessel, quite often a bit of freon remains in the oil.

Hot sparks from a zip blade, cutting torch of plasma - nerve gas.

AET recommends that our clients have their HVAC units serviced annually in accordance with ASHRAE recommended maintenance prior to the start of the summer cooling season. Note: FREON release in close proximity to an open flame may result in formation of phosgene gas.

It doesn't seem to be a big problem bro. We've been here for awhile. To the best of my recollection .... i've never heard of anyone being harmed this way. The few that have been doing sealed units don't seem to stay with it for a long time. It's quite a bit of work for not much gain. Especially now that so many of the motors are wound with aluminum and not copper. Some jobs just aren't worth doing. There's probably more money in making youtube videos telling people how to scrap than actually doing the work itself.

Originally Posted by alloy2

That comment was intended to inform those people unfamiliar with the potential dangers of improper handling of Freon.

If I had as many evacuated compressors as Mike1 claims to have, I would cut the tops off just above the weld- removed the four bolts holding the copper windings then sell it as breakage.

Years ago made a rotary table to plasma cut items like refrigeration / AC compressors and propane tanks, my table is not as fancy as the one this dude made.

We're kind of getting off on a tangent but this would be the machine for processing large numbers of refrigeration compressors. I'm not sure about the tall thin ones that you often run across these days. They're like doing a regular electric motor. The stator is friction fit into the outer steel jacket. That kind needs one or two lengthwise cuts. They are harder to do.

All the more reason to just sell them whole at the scrap yard i suppose. There are times when the juice just isn't worth the squeeze. Just toss the darn things in the shredder and be done with them. Move on to something more profitable to do.

Id say out of the three central ac,A coils and window ac units I would say window units are the slowest to do given all the screws I hate Philips they strip out easily some ac models are harder to do then others. I saw one that had radiators shapes like a mini central ac with curved rads that is different. Also saw one that has half tinsel and half regular that is also different. You never know what kinda of radiators you will see.

Originally Posted by alloy2

Phillips, Robertson, Torx and security screws no problem, if you have an arc welder use the cheapest rods you can purchase. With the ground clamp attached to the A/C unit touch the head of the screw with the rod.

The copper clad carbon rods work better as the loosened screw won't stick to the rod which sometimes happens.

I cut up 18 aluminum electric trolley bus's using carbon rods with a portable gas driven welder.

The 4" angle grinder with a 1/16" thick cutting wheel seems to work pretty well for trimming off the heads of sheet metal screws where the head stripped.

If you are doing any amount of window ac's try flipping them bottom up before you start your breakdown. Look for any sheet metal screws poking through and trim them flush. Maybe even punch them through with a 1/8" nail punch.

There's usually two poking out. Sometimes there are as many as six poking through.

You would be amazed at how much easier the teardown goes when you open the ac up. It practically falls apart in your hands.

I've never tried it .... but i would imagine it would be a similar thing if you had your arc welder sitting right there on the bench and close to hand as well.

Anything that makes the job go easier is a good tool. Burn-n-turn !