adding oil to daikin condenser

[hawkeye]

I am a building service engineer of 20 years, i was an on the road engineer doing installs and service work before that.
I have never had much to do with daikin units other than phoning for a contractor to come and look at one as i have no idea what the fault codes are.

We have a RP125L7W1 condenser, it has had two previous leaks on the pipework where oil was lost.
It has now got a broken compressor, the contractor said it was making an awful noise before blowing the breaker. To my mind it has seized and broken, they did not put any oil into the system after the last two leaks, saying the system does not need it.

Do daikin recommend oil top up after a leak where oil has discharged.

In my day we would have added a small amount if the oil had escaped, but hey i'm an old fart what do i know.

[simon@parker]

each compressor comes with the correct amount of oil the condensing unit will have the correct amount of oil on install if u have no oil sight glass on compressor u cannot tell how much oil is in it so u dont add oil as over charge is as bad as under if system has had a replacement comp before then u may have to much oil but its very doubtful on initial run up the oil level in comp will drop but there is plenty in the system to cope with that possible the noise was a broken reed or something else you could cut the old comp open and have a look daikin do a good technical support help line if u can get through lol or have a check on there website google yr unit i get loads of tech info that way :) good luck with that :)

[r.bartlett]

I guess it depends on where the leak was and how much oil was lost. If a small leak with a small loss of oil then it's unlikely to need additional.

However if they do replace the compressor ask for the oil to be drained and the volume taken. Then argue the toss if necessary

[charlie patt]

i have sourced info on this several times from various ac manufactueres and they have all told me no dont add oil/ its only a samllish unit not a vrv the comp ha sprobable suffered due to running hot whan short of refrigerant rather than oil loss

[install monkey]

i repaired a leak on a mitsi puh6 that had had the discharge line fractured,it was common for this and the previous muppets replaced the pipe instead of blobbing the leak to then reinforce the fracture and its been ok since.moral being this had been repaired 3 times prior and has been ok since

[install monkey]

no oil was added during the previous repairs

[Tesla]

It would depend on how much oil has leaked out and this goes for most systems. So if there is a big oil slick it should have some oil replaced. I just bought a new oil charging cylinder from yellow jacket which alows about 100mLs per charge. Which is very cool for smaller systems and I tested it last week. Basically add oil to cylinder then quick vac it for air and connect one side to HP and one side to LP and open the valve and slowly add the oil to system.
When most systems become short of gas the oil tends to log in the evaporator and the compressor will show low oil which will take up to 4 hours running at full load to return to compressor due to velocity of refrigerant. Therefore a system which has a failed compressor due to a leak when a new compressor is fitted could have too much oil. If there is a low access point on compressor to fit a line and one above with no sight glass you could use a gauge hose with a sight glass and move the glass to find the oil level.

[Fri3Oil System]

Hi,

Also check the acidity level in the oil(in case it's POE), as it would have taken some humidity through the leak, and could probably cause you more problems in the compressor. If the acidity is high (below 7pH) it would recomendable to flush the dirty oil and replace it with fresh new one.

Regards,

Nando.