Thread: Refrigerant R413A

Originally Posted by 123rover50

When I built my current camper I was advised to use R413A for the combo freezer as its better than R 314
When I charged it I used the vapour method and while its OK it is not as good as the old camper with R12.
Yesterday googling R413 I found a reference that it should be charged as a liquid.
Have I done the wrong thing and as being a blend I have left a portion of the mix in the bottle that should be in the system?

Didiman

To be sure, to be sure! All blend refrigerants need to be charged as a liquid so you don't leave behind the components with a lower vapour pressure.

Bee Utey is correct.

Do you realise that doing anything with refrigerants is illegal without an Arctick license? What you have done is split the refrigerants up so now you have a bottle that is no longer R413A and a charge that is not R413A

R413A is more commonly known as Isceon 49.

Everyone at the risk of sounding like a headmaster please leave refrigerants to the professionals.

Yep, as the boys above have said, you sure as hell won't have an Isceon 49 mix in your fridge now and the pressure/temperature relationship inside your system could be anywhere.

I'm with blitz, stay away from refrigeration/air conditioning unless you are trained.

It isn't quantum mechanics, but there are lots of little things you need to be aware of when servicing and repairing refrigeration systems.
Even the licensing system is graded, e.g. most blokes installing domestic a/c systems aren't licensed to service/repair them.

BTW, I'm guessing your fridge is a capillary system, ie. it uses a capillary tube as the expansion device, so how did you measure or gauge the correct amount of refrigerant for the system ?

This isn't a criticism, I'm curious.

As said,must be done by qualified personnel,also lots of tricks.

If any of you guys that are qualified want some R12,i know where there is some new still bottled.

and yes you can still use it as long as it is used as per regulations,& by people with the correct qualifications

Frost it through Rick?

Without getting into the politics of R413a vs R12 and saving the whales or ozone layer or whatever I had the refrigerant 'upgraded' in my old Troopy when the air-con was serviced. Cost a fair bit at the time but it was never as good with R413a it was with R12. It got cool but not freezing like it used to. I just put it down to R413a not really being all that compatable with a system designed for R12.
You havn't said whether your fridge is a compressor type or a 'heat' type and I don't know if this makes any difference but my old 'heat' type had ammonia as the refrigerant and was very efficient cooling wise.
Some fridges use LPG as the refrigerant which works quite effectively and you don't need a license to buy it, though I wouldn't be happy to use it in a 'heat' type fridge with an open flame.

Deano

Originally Posted by DeanoH

Without getting into the politics of R413a vs R12 and saving the whales or ozone layer or whatever I had the refrigerant 'upgraded' in my old Troopy when the air-con was serviced. Cost a fair bit at the time but it was never as good with R413a it was with R12. It got cool but not freezing like it used to. I just put it down to R413a not really being all that compatable with a system designed for R12.
You havn't said whether your fridge is a compressor type or a 'heat' type and I don't know if this makes any difference but my old 'heat' type had ammonia as the refrigerant and was very efficient cooling wise.
Some fridges use LPG as the refrigerant which works quite effectively and you don't need a license to buy it, though I wouldn't be happy to use it in a 'heat' type fridge with an open flame.

Deano

Your Troopy a/c would have had R134a added as it's refrigerant, the stuff we are talking about is a zeotropic blend, IIRC roughly 90% R134a, propane and isopropyl alcohol and roughly 7-8% more efficient than R134a.
It was designed as a drop alternative for use in old R12 systems, along with a huge number of other blends.
These blends were designed to be miscible with the old mineral oils, unlike pure HFC refrigerant's which must use Polyolester or polyalkylglycol oils.

Propane/R600a can be used in systems designed for R12, but it is flammable and we've had long discussions on this in the past.

Absorption type refrigerators use a mix of ammonia, bromine and water as the refrigerant and operate on an entirely different principle to vapour-compression (compressor) systems.
You can't use refrigerants designed for vapour compression in an absorption type system and hope for it to work.
I refer back to blitz's last line above

Thanks for the heads up Rick. As you can quite clearly see refrigeration is not my forte.

Originally Posted by blitz

...................... leave refrigerants to the professionals.

x2

Deano

ignoring all the politics and licensing..

r134 in a system setup for R12 wont hit the same temperature drop due to differences in the operating pressures and volumes. There are other gas mixes that more closely match the performance of R12 and are intended as a drop in replacement for R 12.


Ignoring all the super geek rocket surgeon levels of considerations and stuff involved - Pretty much any gas that condenses into a liquid at roomish temps when its squeezed to about 100ish PSI will work as a refrigerant.