Our new aquarium - can also be used as a refrigeration system

[The Red Krawler]

G'day,

We've had a few systems with moisture in them from time to time, sometimes containing free water in things like water chillers where theres been a leak under the water level.... But I think the one we had today took the cake. It was full (literally, full) to the brim with water after a split plate heat exchanger caused the refrigeration system to dump all the gas out into a pressurised water gallery... which meant once the gas pressure stopped coming out, the water came with 50psi behind it.

I took a few quick videos while we were working on it. At first there was surprise at 'a' liter of water that came out. But once we got a bit more serious it was apparent how much more there was. We have taken 40+ liters out so far, and theres still a possibility the condensor has free water trapped in it too.

(sorry for the lack of clickable links, but apparently I'm a spambot because I havent made 15 posts so I'm not to be trusted with the mighty power of a URL yet) EDIT: Cancel that..... I have enough posts to magically turn them into links now. Thank goodness, I appear to have passed the Turing test.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnKVkLW8RZU
Amazement at the spray of water

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdVYncELhCw
Amazement at the constant trickle of water

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7a4rpUFbiFU
Thinking maybe theres quite a lot of water in this system

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTgaLexBUbI
KNOWING theres a lot of water in this system

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puETwh5sIqc
Bloody obvious reason for lots of water in the system

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRksMyzb3nQ
Proof you cant keep a good compressor down
(Ended up pulling -30 inches on the gauge at ~12A and held off perfectly, though did use about 6 vac pump oil changes, 4L of solvent and 10L of compressor oil to do it)

Anyone have any jobs that ended up full of water like this one? We reguarly see wet systems but this was a little ridiculous. I was expecting to see a goldfish in the sight glass!

[monkey spanners]

Hi Red,

I've had an icebuilder split its coil and fill up the refrigerant circuit with water, resulting in most of the u bends on the condenser bursting! We scrapped the system.

On another milk tank we had the coil go, it had a big maneurop comp on it and when i undid the suction valve all the oil came out as it was sitting on top of the water! We repaired the coil and got the system dried out and it was still running 10 years later.

Good luck with your system


Jon

[Tycho]

had an aircondition system on a passenger ship where they tried to pump down the freshwater chiller to change the filterdriers and froze it solid and broke 6 pipes.

the water circuit was closed and had 6 bars of pressure, first they dumped a metric ton of R-22 into the freshwaterpipes, then they proceeded to fill the entire chiller and compressor unit with water.

had to drill lots of holes to drain everything and flush with ofn, then ran the vacuum pump for 2 months.

Luckily the water that entered the compressor unit displaced the oil up into the compressor and preserved it

[The Red Krawler]

Sounds like you guys had this happen on a bigger scale than what we did, though to a similiar extent. I dont know what sort of internal volume the refrigeration circuit has on this machine but I dont think theres much pipework that isnt full of water in here.

We've gone through 2 x 'C' sized dry nitrogen bottles so far, and somewhere near 8 vaccum pump oil changes. Everything is being done via copper lines instead of gauge lines now to speed up the process, but getting free water to move is hard.

On the plus side, the compressor saw 800 microns today which is promising, and with a few strategic cuts at low points on the rest of the system we've moved on the vast majority of the free water. Mostly vapour left now!

Its going to be a bit of a wait for the evaporator as noone in Australia carries anything in this configuration so we have to see whats going to be the best option - a custom build, modifying all the pipework or waiting for an OEM part to be delivered (6 - 8 weeks MINIMUM! Urgh).

[cjay]

Hi Red,

I've had an icebuilder split its coil and fill up the refrigerant circuit with water, resulting in most of the u bends on the condenser bursting! We scrapped the system.

On another milk tank we had the coil go, it had a big maneurop comp on it and when i undid the suction valve all the oil came out as it was sitting on top of the water! We repaired the coil and got the system dried out and it was still running 10 years later.

Good luck with your system


Jon

had ship system once that filled up with water from hold coils, job started with getting abucket of water out of crankcase, ended up sailing with vessel for two weeks too keep system running

[gregd1401]

Hi Red Krawler
Have you thought of using a water trap in line before your vac pump. This is a device that contains dry ice and the water vapour condenses and freezes on the cold surface and wont enter your vac pump. Wont dry your system any quicker but will save you some vac pump oil changes. The BPHE looks about the same size as used in Multistack chillers. You could try Leo at Kelvinair, he may have something in stock to help you out. PM if you need any help.

[Pauly.]

Gday Red,
Narooma pool heater (APAC unit), heater exchanger split dumped her gas and completly filled with pool water. Good stuff.

[NoNickName]

Plenty of jobs like that. The last one was a 120HP screw compressor chiller with a broken shell and tube condenser. Water up to the rim. Compressor rusted from inside. All scrapped.