opinion on uneven parallel condensers

[Dimitris]

I would like any opinions on this:
What do you believe would happen if different size parallel condensers were installed? I've been asked to change one condenser from a parallel pair of condensers with a one that is 1/3 of the size larger than the existing one. I have doubts about this working and would like to get some opinions about it.

[750 Valve]

I see this quite often, yes it will work but is far from ideal. The more you look into it the more reasons there are for keeping them equal sized and piped evenly as well.

Quite often we see an auxillary cond tacked on in parallel when the main one is undersized (due to older design specs from customer), this is often a small 2 or 3 fan condenser (say 10 or 20,000 watts tacked onto a larger 6 or 8 fan cond - say 100,000 watts) and ends up being a bit of a control nightmare to ensure they both supply similar conditioned liquid. It is even worse with water cooled, I have only seen it once and can absolutely advise against it with water cooled condesers.

[Dimitris]

Thanks for the post. I've tried this. I saw that there was a big temp. difference between the two liquid lines. The unit operates with an EXV which was trying to keep the superheat within the normal limits. It managed to work but is edging on the maximum limits.