related to proper handling of home type copeland scroll compressor (oil related)

[texas64]

I got this from Wikipedia, I guess you can't believe everything you read:

History

Léon Creux first patented a scroll compressor in 1905 in France and the US (Patent number 801182).[1] Creux originally invented the compressor as a rotary steam engine concept, but the metal casting technology of the period was not sufficiently advanced to construct a working prototype, since a scroll compressor demands very tight tolerances to function effectively. The first practical scroll compressors did not appear on the market until after World War II,when higher-precision machine tools permitted their construction. They were not commercially produced for air conditioning until the early 1980s.[2]
[edit]Design

A scroll compressor uses two interleaving scrolls to pump, compress or pressurize fluids such as liquids and gases. The vane geometry may be involute, archimedean spiral, or hybrid curves.[3][4][5][6][7]
Often, one of the scrolls is fixed, while the other orbits eccentrically without rotating, thereby trapping and pumping or compressing pockets of fluid between the scrolls. Another method for producing the compression motion is co-rotating the scrolls, in synchronous motion, but with offset centers of rotation. The relative motion is the same as if one were orbiting.
Another variation is with flexible (layflat) tubing where the archimedean spiral acts as a peristaltic pump, which operates on much the same principle as a toothpaste tube. They have casings filled with lubricant to prevent abrasion of the exterior of the pump tube and to aid in the dissipation of heat, and use reinforced tubes, often called 'hoses'. This class of pump is often called a 'hose pumper'. Furthermore, since there are no moving parts in contact with the fluid, peristaltic pumps are inexpensive to manufacture. Their lack of valves, seals and glands makes them comparatively inexpensive to maintain, and the use of a hose or tube makes for a low-cost maintenance item compared to other pump types.

[texasgeezer]

Thanks chillerman2006,

I can clearly see why the scroll should always be handled in the vertical position.

What I'm trying to find out is what should be done when it is not handled that way. Locally, I received comments from less than an hour, at least one day, to 'I would never install one that had not been kept vertical'.

The manufacturers do not appear to adequately address this issue, this is possibly resulting in a lot of people unintentionally doing something that possibly reduces the life of the compressor.

- if oil is expelled on first startup due to mishandling, then that is not a good thing

- there does not appear to be a consensus on how long to leave a compressor in the vertical position before starting up. Unintentional things happen, the compressor can fall over easily during tranportation because of it's shape & weight. The compressor is easier to carry vertically.

- a lot of people in the trade appear to assume that any oil that leaves the compressor will
return to it. I do not believe that the typical home system is designed and installed to make this happen.
- the few evaporator coils I've seen don't appear to designed to return liquid oil efficiently.

I'm just trying to see if anyone knows what truly should be done to try to prevent shortening the life of the compressor in case of mishandling.

Too me any oil that is lost from the compressor is not a good thing & would probably reduce it's life due to that loss. Higher temperature due to less lubrication & quicker breakdown of the remaining oil probably results. Also any appreciable amount of oil elsewhere in the system is probably not a good thing.