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recharging a chiller?


wizardx322

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anyone know where i can get a chiller rechaged. i have a chiller and it very old i plugged it in and turned it on sounded like everything still works but does not chill so i was thinking the coolant is bad and was wondering if anyone knew were i can take it to get it recharged.

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can't be any different than charging an auto A/C system.. Make sure you have the right kind and proper amount of oil in the system, evacuate it.. then add the proper amount of Freon. It is actually quite simple. If you don't know what you are doing, then go with someone who does.. I suppose Hydro is the man for chillers, but anyone who does refrigeration or air conditioning could do it with the correct information on the model of equipment.

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Ive done this. The amount of freon that goes in a chiller is so small that its hit or miss. If your a hair under, it will chill but not very well, if your a hair over it wont chill for squat. I gave up and bought a new chiller, was worth it for me. If its got a leak, then good luck finding it as well, my Teco chiller had a leak and hours and hours using a detector set at a very low setting still wouldnt find it. Good luck though.

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I'll save you some trouble....toss it and get a new chiller. IF the chiller is low on refrigerant there is obviously a leak somewhere that would have to be found and repaired before charging it. Most aquarium chillers do not come with ports to charge them so they have to be added, welded on actually. Then you have to figure out what refigerant it has and how much goes in it. Most refrigerants (freon) can only be purchased with an hvac license, and depending on what kind it can be expensive (134 a, r22, 410 ect). You would never be able to get everything done by yourself with no experience, you don't have the license to get the refrigerant, welding torches, expensive silver solder, leak detector, guages, vacuum pump, etc. To hire someone to do all of this for you wouldn't be worth if for an old chiller.

On the other hand are you sure the compressor is actually coming on...or do you just hear the fan? Once the the fan comes on the compressor is usually setup on a delay to start. If you don't hear the compressor hum after at least 5 minutes then it could be something simple like a capacitor.

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