how do you charge air condition when cold

[kompsj]

How do you charge an air conditioner with 410 when the indoor temp is below 18oC (below coldest setting on remote) and outdoor temp is 10oC (COLD). In summer this is fine as I switch it to air con mode and everything fires up. I put the air con is cold mode connect bottle liquid charge to suction line and throttle gauges (dont want to start an argument here, this is how you do it) and weigh it in.

When its cold the thing will not go in air con mode. It does have a liquid line connection, so do I connect to that and put in heat mode? Tried this last night and could only get in 50% of quantity required. Do it stop the fans on outdoor or indoor unit? There has to be a way? I don't think I can use my recovery gear to pump it in as it is coming out of the bottle as a liquid?? Suggestions please.

[expat]

My recovery machine has a facility for charging liquid. I just thought they all could.

Have a look at the wrap around heater blankets. I think Robinair do one.

[The Viking]

An electric fan heater for putting in the room and a piece of cardboard to cover most of the outdoor coil...

Test mode, if available, should override room sensor.

[paul_h]

Well the easiest way is for the system to be in vacuum, and to use a warm refrigerant cylinder to fill to system charge weight without turning the system on. Ie cyclinder and gauges fully open to get the charge in quickly, then wait 15min before test running the system. Some people will disagree though...
edit:
Is your liquid line connection on the condenser coil? If so, that will work while on heat mode. If it's on a 'liquid' service valve, then it won't help, as the service valve will be after the TX valve, so it's no better for charge than the suction valve is

[chemi-cool]

The refrigerant ammount is written on the name plate, close the liquid line valve and let the compressor pull in the refrigerant.

An hair drier can be used to heat the sensor on the indoor unit or simply take it out and warm it in palm to keep the compressor running.

My recovery machine has a facility for charging liquid. I just thought they all could.

Every recovery unit can push liquid into the condnsing unit, that's what they do anyway, dont they?

No differance from a recovery refrigerant tank.

[paul_h]

The refrigerant ammount is written on the name plate, close the liquid line valve and let the compressor pull in the refrigerant. yes this will work, it didn't think of that as I'm tired :o I just went into straight "autopilot", which is vacuum + static liquid charge, which is better than liquid charging a running unit through the suction


An hair drier can be used to heat the sensor on the indoor unit or simply take it out and warm it in palm to keep the compressor running. good point, but the test mode as mentioned above should work without doing this


Every recovery unit can push liquid into the condnsing unit, that's what they do anyway, dont they?

No differance from a recovery refrigerant tank.Unless it isn't an 'oil-less' reclaimer. If it's an old style reclaimer, then he can't feed it liquid.

Running the unit in test mode, and closing the liquid service valve is the only way to charge the system now you can't get any more refrigerant in it.

[kompsj]

Ok. Went back on the weekend and was a bit warmer, so it went on cooling cycle. Charged up nice and quick. I could not test your recommended methods. Thinking about it, most of them will work exept for the oiless recovery gear. I think next on the shopping list is a bottle wamer (or heat gun ;=). Note: The oil-less recovery gear is designed to use the oil from the system when recovering to lubricate the compressor. If you use the oil-less recovery to pull in NEW 410 refrigerant, you will be running the recovery unit dry, so you will be doing harm, ie: metal to metal, no lube. The oil-less recovery gear is designed to pump down air cons that have oil in the refrigerant. A guy expained this who repairs them and work for CPS Australia.

[fETAH]

Hi My name is feta
To charge the air condition in low teperatures It is wery easy.The first thing you mast to do is to conect the tank with refrigerant in the valve with low preasure and in the same time the compressor must tu be in run .But the tank with the refrigerant all the time must to be heating with any calorifet or something else in thi metod you can put as much as you wont the refrigerant in the sistem without problems.