The search for a proper recovery pump..

[mendo420]

I did not break the pump.

I broke it in..

I do break shit all the time.

I just broke a rib laughing so hard!

 

[Hydrosun]

I did not break the pump.

I broke it in..

I do break shit all the time.

I just broke a rib laughing so hard!

Ahhhhh the good'ol burn in period....

 

[SkyHighLer]

What a relief, thanks for posting up Mendo420!

Speed seems to high on you guys' list of priorities, so I'm going to repeat my previous suggestion you look into using a residential AC condenser to initially drop your temps off the pump. Energy input is energy input, whether it be from the pump or just using ambient air to suck off the heat. You're paying 100% for the energy input from the pump via the wall socket, but with an AC condenser your just paying to run the fan, the actual heat loss to the ambient air is FREE!!! Why not use the free stuff before paying up the ying yang for a higher capacity pump or chilled condensers?

"Air conditioner condensing units work by turning vapor refrigerant to liquid refrigerant. There are three important steps that will happen to the refrigerant as it passes through the condensing unit.

First Step: The hot vapor coming from the compressor must be de-superheated to the vapor saturation point. De-superheated? De-superheated is removing a sensible heat from the refrigerant, lower the refrigerant temperature.
Second Step: In the middle of the condenser, there should is mixture of gas/liquid refrigerant. This is where the refrigerant vapor should change to 100 percent liquid refrigerant.
Third Step: The refrigerant temperature should be below the liquid saturation point, sub cooled."
http://www.central-air-conditioner-and-refrigeration.com/air_conditioner_condenser.html

Seems simple, you'd just bypass the internal pump and any flow restrictors.

The main power draw on AC units is the compressor(which would not be used). Most outdoor units(not mini splits but standard residential ducted systems) pull anywhere from 3-8 amps(just the fan, no compressor)depending on the fan motor and size.

Snake11, bless your heart!

"Are you just suggesting using and air cooled "radiator" type thing to initially take away some temp from the pumps, then a cooling coil and then the tank? My pumps already have those in them lol(g5's). A bigger one would work better i guess?

Yes, you may not even need a cooling coil anymore, or at least one that actually uses up much dry ice or whatever.

I could go and examine the label on the fan on my 3 ton unit outside, it's just a few screws, but why would it draw anymore current than any other fan with similar blades at the same rpm?

Those condensers are optimized for bringing the vapor back to liquid using just ambient air in a huge range of climates, you're getting a heap of coils and fins with a beefy ducted fan for cheap.

With summer rolling in, keep an eye out for discarded condensers, most people just replace the whole thing when the compressor goes rather than rebuild just the compressor, and it's the one component you don't need. You also need to nix the relay/contactor, bad sparky, and should no longer be necessary, just plug in the fan direct with your own switch. I'm just saying I think it really is this easy to give it a try, and see how effective it is... thanks for giving it a hash out.

240V x 1.3A = 312 watts, that's a three ton condenser. It's solid fins and coils all around.

 

[Sunfire]

So are you refusing to acknowledge what I said about ambient air temps? Yay lots of coils and fins that will never be much colder than ambient. Oh its 100 degrees today in the middle of summer, let me just chill my vapor to 90F with a big ass noisy fan. The sub zero guys will laugh at that.

 

[Hydrosun]

So are you refusing to acknowledge what I said about ambient air temps? Yay lots of coils and fins that will never be much colder than ambient. Oh its 100 degrees today in the middle of summer, let me just chill my vapor to 90F with a big ass noisy fan. The sub zero guys will laugh at that.

I am not going to care about noise for now. I want lowest dollar to chill stuff and things. I'll use all the SS tubing in coils necessary and have no problem seeing how an off the shelf industrial unit may help.

I don't like dry ice pricing. I guess liquid nitrogen is my next investigation, and I mentioned eco-friendly antifreeze and didn't hear any opinions?

As for air temps effecting AC's there are water chilled AC units. I could see circulating some 40* eco-frendly antifreeze over an AC unit instead of water or water if we must. I want to use all liquids to heat or cool various processes in production. So I am really looking for a thermo dynamic flow solution to chill to -40 and heat to 300+

On the heating side of things I note that simple green in water dilution boils at appx 270* 5,420' elevation.

 

[SkyHighLer]

So are you refusing to acknowledge what I said about ambient air temps? Yay lots of coils and fins that will never be much colder than ambient. Oh its 100 degrees today in the middle of summer, let me just chill my vapor to 90F with a big ass noisy fan. The sub zero guys will laugh at that.

Bringing the killer hot vapor coming out of a TR-21 or any other pump down to ambient and liquefying it for chump change in electricity isn't appealing?

You don't get the initial drop uses a lot of energy. You're wasting valuable resources (dry ice, high energy consuming freezers, etc.) to do it. Save the exotic tech only for the final drop in temperature if necessary.

Run the Appion G5 without it's little ambient air cooler, and then get back to me about whether an air cooler is effective.

 

[A6 Grower]

Ya it works but not how we need it.... cooling with ambient air just takes the butane down from hot to warm. not really helpful. still going to melt ice and DI is going to evap just as fast no matter what. In a huge (1ton) machine i could see this being helpful but were using such a small amount of solvent this is kinda a waste of time.

So let me get this straight, your saying we need to route our HOT butane in a HUGE radiator cooled by a HUGE fan. Loud, Noisy, & FUCKING HUGE, ya i dont want that in my warehouse and putting it outside would require A LOT of lines and i could see issues from that. How do you recommend clearing the system out at the end of the day? I wouldnt want to leave it filled with butane, just like i clean a vacuum down my coil every night.

Also what your suggesting i still have to have a Sub zero freezer to get the butane cold, this is just adding a HUGE thing the slightly cool the butane, kinda seems like a waste of time, money and space. A freezer doesnt use that much power and does just fine of a job. I just got the same freezer as sunfire and it kicks ass, goes to -20F no problem and with my coils in buckets or gylcol with the rest of the freezer filled with ice i hold that temp all day.

 

[SkyHighLer]

So much negativity...

All the first hand experience I have is with the unit pictured above, it's a small house size, '3 ton' by the terminology. You can get the same size for much less than a grand, you're not using any of the parts that are going to wear out, it's a one time purchase, and then forget about it.

It's 110F plus for much of the day in this little valley where I'm stuck, no breeze, it just bakes... 103F today. Now like I said all I know is what I observe, but the inlet copper tube to the condenser always runs hot, and the outlet always extremely cold, frosty, drips dew...it's wrapped in one inch thick insolation all the way to the wall, just like all my neighbors installations I've seen.

You're not running the compressor, just the fan, and the air shoots straight up, little noise, little intrusion. It would easily be worth the space it takes up if it wails, huh?

I would imagine with the pump running, and with warm ambient air passing through the fins/coils they're going to clear on their own at the end of the day.


So, who knows? To me knowledge is experience, and no one has yet said they'd bet the bank against it because they'd tried it.


Here's a further point to contemplate, the only reason there is such a small heat exchanger on pumps like the Appion G5 is for portability, give it a real chance to perform with a robust match up.

 

[queequeg152]

so you are proposing to the condenser heat exchanger to cool the refrigerant leaving the recovery unit?

sounds a bit wacky personally unless you had the parts on hand to do it. disabling a functioning condensing unit just to use it as an after cooler is offensive to my tastes... perhaps a spoiled unit from a scrap yard is a better plan, but still.

you can get decent water cooled recovery units... even smaller capacity units like your appion.

whats more, if you were so inclined, with a clever bit of bracket making and tube bending, you could retrofit a water cooled heat exchanger of a suitable size INTO just about any recovery unit...

alternatively, you could buy or fabricate a stand alone water cooled heat exchanger quite easily... much more easily than the aforementioned retrofitting. This would be far less energy intensive and take up less space, as a tube shell or plate heat exchanger will be quite small, and you could use tap water as coolant.

 

[queequeg152]

Also what your suggesting i still have to have a Sub zero freezer to get the butane cold, this is just adding a HUGE thing the slightly cool the butane, kinda seems like a waste of time, money and space. A freezer doesnt use that much power and does just fine of a job. I just got the same freezer as sunfire and it kicks ass, goes to -20F no problem and with my coils in buckets or gylcol with the rest of the freezer filled with ice i hold that temp all day.

you are using the freezer to chill a glycol system?

freezers tend to be very low btuh wise... they tend to make VERY poor chillers. what sort of freezer is this?

 

[A6 Grower]

you are using the freezer to chill a glycol system?

freezers tend to be very low btuh wise... they tend to make VERY poor chillers. what sort of freezer is this?

I have a Kenmore freezer that gets down to -20F(will flash freeze to -30f for a day), in this freezer i have 4 5 gallon buckets filled with glycol (and some water to save some money) surrounding those buckets and filling the entire freezer is normal ice. The ice around the buckets melts a TINY bit but I just break up the ice every day and add another bag maybe once a week. This setup works great, i start the day at -20 in the freezer and my column reads -10F on the first run of the day and after my busiest day ive had so far ( 8 - 4x24 columns ran 2 passes of 6 to 8 lbs) the column was reading 10F and the glycol in the freezer was at 0F.... I even poked holes in the lid for my lines to exit so the freezer has a better seal and holds its temp better.

 

[A6 Grower]

So much negativity...

All the first hand experience I have is with the unit pictured above, it's a small house size, '3 ton' by the terminology. You can get the same size for much less than a grand, you're not using any of the parts that are going to wear out, it's a one time purchase, and then forget about it.

It's 110F plus for much of the day in this little valley where I'm stuck, no breeze, it just bakes... 103F today. Now like I said all I know is what I observe, but the inlet copper tube to the condenser always runs hot, and the outlet always extremely cold, frosty, drips dew...it's wrapped in one inch thick insolation all the way to the wall, just like all my neighbors installations I've seen.

You're not running the compressor, just the fan, and the air shoots straight up, little noise, little intrusion. It would easily be worth the space it takes up if it wails, huh?

I would imagine with the pump running, and with warm ambient air passing through the fins/coils they're going to clear on their own at the end of the day.


So, who knows? To me knowledge is experience, and no one has yet said they'd bet the bank against it because they'd tried it.


Here's a further point to contemplate, the only reason there is such a small heat exchanger on pumps like the Appion G5 is for portability, give it a real chance to perform with a robust match up.

No negativity meant im just making sure i was understanding you correctly. I know you dont run machines and dont know how much room a single machine needs with cooling coils and all the other shit but i can 100% say i wouldnt want that thing in my shop. If it could be outside ya thatd be fine i guess but i can see problems with running lines that long.

I wounder about the heat output off of that also, at the end of the day my little g5s blow out 120F air, would that be what that cooler does since its dropping all teh main heat all the time and never really getting a chance to cool its just going to get hotter and hotter all day.

The lines coming out of you unit are cold because of the compressor recovering the refrigerant and pushing the cold liquid to the radiator in your home air system correct?? I couldn't see ambient air cooling hot liquid enough to make lines frost up. Again sorry, im not an hvac guy but i though i knew how a/c's work basically lol.

 

[queequeg152]

I have a Kenmore freezer that gets down to -20F(will flash freeze to -30f for a day), in this freezer i have 4 5 gallon buckets filled with glycol (and some water to save some money) surrounding those buckets and filling the entire freezer is normal ice. The ice around the buckets melts a TINY bit but I just break up the ice every day and add another bag maybe once a week. This setup works great, i start the day at -20 in the freezer and my column reads -10F on the first run of the day and after my busiest day ive had so far ( 8 - 4x24 columns ran 2 passes of 6 to 8 lbs) the column was reading 10F and the glycol in the freezer was at 0F.... I even poked holes in the lid for my lines to exit so the freezer has a better seal and holds its temp better.

interesting, so you just built a giant ass cold reservoir from the sound of it.

i bet your freezer has to work its ass off to recover lol.

if you ever need a better solution, id suggest buying a real chiller instead of more freezers.

freezers are extreemly low capacity. even the big walk in freezers only require around 5k btuh condensors. regular home freezers are lower, far lower than that. small ones use something like 1/16 hp compressors. they are simply not good at scrubbing off huge amounts of heat.

the reason freezers get so cold is down to the very small volume of air they are dealing with, and the excellent air sealing and insulation involved.

No negativity meant im just making sure i was understanding you correctly. I know you dont run machines and dont know how much room a single machine needs with cooling coils and all the other shit but i can 100% say i wouldnt want that thing in my shop. If it could be outside ya thatd be fine i guess but i can see problems with running lines that long.

I wounder about the heat output off of that also, at the end of the day my little g5s blow out 120F air, would that be what that cooler does since its dropping all teh main heat all the time and never really getting a chance to cool its just going to get hotter and hotter all day.

The lines coming out of you unit are cold because of the compressor recovering the refrigerant and pushing the cold liquid to the radiator in your home air system correct?? I couldn't see ambient air cooling hot liquid enough to make lines frost up. Again sorry, im not an hvac guy but i though i knew how a/c's work basically lol.

the cold line is actually the vapor coming from your evaporator coil. its cold because its been super cooled by the condensing units heat exchanger.

once its been expanded and pushed through the evaporator coil this gas gets super heated to something like 40f for old r22 systems. idk what the super heat temps/pressures are for new stuff. any lower and you will freeze water though, which makes air conditioning difficult...

the small hot line feeding refrigerant into your house is the refrigerant thats had the shit squeezed out of it by the compressor, and cooled single digit degrees by the fan and heat exchanger. its a hot liquid.

the big cold line is the refrigerant gas returning to the condensing unit to get the shit squeezed out of it once more.

sub cooled sorry, not super cooled.

 

[SkyHighLer]

You could use a large diameter short duct from the fan to the outside, as a bonus you get some high volume, supplemental ventilation in your extraction area.

How come the exiting refrigerant is so cold I don't know, I'm sure it's easily explainable, I just haven't looked into it, Capital N-blend just failed residue test, it's got as much as Power 5... Capital's going to take a contract out on my life. ;-)

Edit: thanks for the above explanation, I got it all wrong as to how the cycle works, and do you have any idea how much energy one could drop off a TR-21 with one of these?

 

[queequeg152]

Edit: thanks for the above explanation, I got it all wrong as to how the cycle works, and do you have any idea how much energy one could drop off a TR-21 with one of these?

if by energy you mean heat, im not real sure. i would have to consult some of the ASHRAE papers to give you a real answer, and this is far too time consuming to bother with.

i can tell you that condensing units only drop the refrigerant temperatures single digit degrees. however this is more than enough to subcool the refrigerant.

a water cooled unit achieves the same, just at a far smaller volume. you can vary the flow of water to accommodate what ever delta you are targeting. just recognise that you can never cool to ambient or below. you can get very close to ambient, but only with excessivly large exchangers, or many in serial.

you should be cooling only to condense the vapor, not much beyond that. your pump can handle the rest.

 

[Sunfire]

Fuck I just had a 3 page post I was working on and my phone died! This time I'll try to be more organized and go post by post.

Hydro I think you misunderstood sky's point. He's talking about only using the fan and coils, not the compressor, it will not cool below ambient air temp. If you want -40 I think di or nitrogen is you only choice. If you can settle on -20 a freezer like mine will do unless you want to shell out 8-14k for a Cascade style freezer.

Chump change, Initial drop, g5 and get back to you. Get fucking back to you?!? How bout you try that idea if it's so bad ass and get back to me eh??? The burden of proof is on you not me my friend. Chump change? Using That fan in combination with a freezer, or just the freezer alone will require the SAME amount of energy. Btu is btu. Energy is energy. This is an ancient alchemical concept. Big picture dude, You can only get out what you put in. What matters is how you convert the energy which human beings suck at with our current 60hz technology but it's more profitable then tesla ' s 4hz earth driven technology that is locked in the Vatican vault.

That particular fan is for a house unit which is meant to be quiet which means it's not moving much air. I have 2 - 30" 6000 cfm 3 amp 120V 1/3 hp fans in my greenhouse. The actual motor you can't hear over the loud as shit noise of the fan blades literally chopping the air. I've done indoor for over a decade. I know fans. Any typical fan with blades, on planet earth, will make more noise, from chopping the air, the more cfm it's moving.

So much negativity? Dude seriously? How bout so much narcissistic condensing bullshit? Your telling us basically to not knock it until we try it, so how bout YOU try it. I for one am getting tired of you telling me (us) how to test our solvent, how to distill our solvent, what equipment to buy and how to run our systems. I have an extremely good memory and attention to detail and I'm almost positive your not even an extractor. I remember well your post with the pic of yourself saying you couldn't go to jail because it would literally kill you, being scared of having the leftovers of a 30# tank of blend. You were also scared to have sean send you a tank to test. You call him and cuss him out but then you refuse to do the test you claim is the only way to know?!? Any analytical scientist would laugh at your bro - science "homie" test. If it was illegal to posses butane or propane than everyone with a gas stove or a lighter in their pocket would be in jail! I can't at all see you being caught dead in a lab. A grand is a lot of money for a glorified coil.

The freezer is a kenmore with express chill. It will rock -20F all day, express chill takes it -30F for 72 hours I believe, not 24. Yes it's low btu but we are banking on the concept of heat sink. Over night the condensor sinks heat (the difference in temperature between two systems) into the contents of the freezer. Which is why he has all the void filled with ice. This heat then transfers to the glycol and then the coils. If you ran it 24 hours a day it wouldn't work but it can catch up during the 12 to 16 hours your not running your system. Denser material would hold more heat (cold) but then you run into weight issues so water is fine.

I skipped the upgrade to subzero this go round, that will be for next year with a slew of other upgrades but I was going to put the holes in the side as close to the top as possible. How is opening the lid with the lines in it? No issues? If your not putting spools in the freezer you can line in with pond liner and just fill the whole thing with glycol and water. That might get expensive though but would give you more material for the heat sink. I got the 22 cubic foot biggest one for the heat sink purpose, if you can only fit 4 buckets then you got the smaller one yes? I'm using 5 gallon old nutrient containers that are square with the lid cutoff to make ice. You could use those for your coils, the square is more space efficient and you might be able to fit more coils as I thought I read somewhere else you could only fit 4. These containers actually fit 2 side by side perfectly!!! However for, making ice, the water expands and then I couldn't get the containers out so now I have them stacked.

I wouldn't want it in my shop either. What happens if an inversion layer or omega pattern sets in and it's unusually hot for a few days. Or what about summer time when it 100 degrees. That thing ain't doing shit but wasting energy imo and I don't want to reconfigure my system constantly based on the weather.

The freezer works bro. I can make 25 gallons of ice in 2 days if I cycle the containers properly. It's working for A6 and I know two other people off forum that are doing subzero with freezers. In no man's land we can't get di easily. It does work it's ass off which is why I payed the extra 250 for the 5 year master warranty. I'm no expert either but I'm pretty sure the refrigerant cools as it expands, just like your material spool starts getting very cold if you recover to -5hg. The compressor compresses the vapor into liquid and the creates heat which is why the compressor is outside of the insulated cabinet. The liquid is released into the coils and as it expands and evaporates it gives off the heat energy (cold) that the compressor used via electricity to compress the vapor into liquid and the cycle continues. These kenmore use R134a I believe.

yes by energy you mean heat obviously. Once again, it's all energy dude, using a fan will be less efficient than the totally contained environment of the freezer. You'll be using alot of electricity to push fan blades to chop air that isn't all running over the coils. Which is why fins are used to maximize the efficiency. You'll not save any "energy", your wasting it too simply from the noise, it takes energy to compress the sound waves which is caused by the resistance the air is giving the blades. Think big picture it's all energy but what's important is how efficiently we convert it.

yes, this is the goal, condense the vapor into liquid faster. Yes adding some air cooling will maybe make it a little faster, but how much faster is probably negligible. I agree 100% queequeg.

 

[Gray Wolf]

build our own....

If I read Sky correctly we are to get the inbound solvent cold. I love dry ice and IC69's. Spreadsheets will tell us how long in what length tube for what temp and such. So what is the down side of having commercial AC cooling the antifreeze?

My solvent is in great stainless steel IC69's, The IC69's dipping in eco friendly antifreeze chilled by I don't give a....

What is bad about that?

A quick way to shed some heat of compression and save some heat elsewhere, is to first run the pump discharge through a coil in the pot the recovery tank is sitting in. You need heat there anyway and it lowers the load on your chilled heat exchangers.

That works better on recovery tanks with a welded bottom, than a clamped one, because the clamps can catch on the coils.

 

[Gray Wolf]

What a relief, thanks for posting up Mendo420!

Speed seems to high on you guys' list of priorities, so I'm going to repeat my previous suggestion you look into using a residential AC condenser to initially drop your temps off the pump. Energy input is energy input, whether it be from the pump or just using ambient air to suck off the heat. You're paying 100% for the energy input from the pump via the wall socket, but with an AC condenser your just paying to run the fan, the actual heat loss to the ambient air is FREE!!! Why not use the free stuff before paying up the ying yang for a higher capacity pump or chilled condensers?

"Air conditioner condensing units work by turning vapor refrigerant to liquid refrigerant. There are three important steps that will happen to the refrigerant as it passes through the condensing unit.

First Step: The hot vapor coming from the compressor must be de-superheated to the vapor saturation point. De-superheated? De-superheated is removing a sensible heat from the refrigerant, lower the refrigerant temperature.
Second Step: In the middle of the condenser, there should is mixture of gas/liquid refrigerant. This is where the refrigerant vapor should change to 100 percent liquid refrigerant.
Third Step: The refrigerant temperature should be below the liquid saturation point, sub cooled."
http://www.central-air-conditioner-and-refrigeration.com/air_conditioner_condenser.html

Seems simple, you'd just bypass the internal pump and any flow restrictors.

Good idea in principle, though we need units with a stainless vis a vis copper exchanger.

 

[Gray Wolf]

I did not break the pump.

I broke it in..

I do break shit all the time.

I just broke a rib laughing so hard!

You are such a kidder.

 

[Gray Wolf]

Ahhhhh the good'ol burn in period....

Following a successful smoke test!