freon

Perhaps you'd like to point out specifically where Daniel is in error.

Reply to
aarcuda69062
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*grabs a bowl of popcorn and sits down to watch the Maxpower Parade of Ignorance*
Reply to
Daniel J. Stern

I forgot what his date of birth is but that would be it

Reply to
maxpower

In other words, you got nothing.

Reply to
aarcuda69062

Hell I am in Ontario Canada and we cannot buy it here, yet I can cross the border into Niagara Falls New York and buy it and even tell them at customs I have it and they don't give me a problem.

Worst part about it all is that I can walk into any electronics supply house and buy it and many places like staples still sell it.

Go >aarcuda69062 wrote:

Reply to
Len G

The stuff sold as air dusters is often R134a, but doing as you implicitly suggest and charging it into an A/C system is foolhardy. Why? Because it's not even close to being pure or dry. It doesn't have to be, for dusting the Oreo crumbs out of your keyboard. It DOES have to be, for use in an A/C system. Charging an A/C system with wet/impure refrigerant is a sure-fire recipe for expensive system damage. After the filter-dryer is saturated and can sequester no more moisture -- which is not at all difficult; the dryer is not meant to handle more than tiny amounts of residual moisture -- the remaining moisture reacts with the refrigerant at high temperatures to form aggressive Hydrofluoric acid, which eats thin aluminum voraciously (evaporator, condenser). Moisture also freezes in TXVs and orifice tubes, causing a clog that reduces system performance to near zero and sends head pressure skyrocketing. And finally, all the impurities in duster-grade gas further reduce system performance as noncondensibles.

Putting duster-grade R134a in an A/C system is *almost* as poor an idea as charging an A/C system with camping fuel, for the same (wet/impure) reason. The camping fuel idea is somewhat more knotheaded, for reasons that have already been done to death in this forum.

DS (waiting for those two idiots to make vague and unsupported assertions)

Reply to
Daniel J. Stern

It really gets me that it's illegal (in the U.S., at least) to vent R134 from a car's A/C system but there's no problem with venting it from those 'air' dusters and other products in which it's used as a propellant. From what I understand, you can't buy R134 at all in Canada without a license but those dusters. etc. that use it are OK for anyone to buy & use.

Reply to
Z.Z.

It seems inconsistent, but it makes sense -- more or less -- when you think about it. One single rule (you may not vent gas from auto air conditioners, period) greatly reduces the chances of improper procedures being followed -- to say nothing of accidental CFC releases -- in the field.

True. Canada's auto A/C regulations are more restrictive than those of the US. It's illegal in Canada, for instance, to charge an auto A/C system with R12. If an R12 system needs to be evacuated to make a repair, it may not legally be refilled with R12.

Reply to
Daniel J. Stern

Your computer seems to have run out of comma's and apostrophe's. Please visit your local grade school for a free re-fill.

Or; you -could- take the route where you don't look like such a blow hard and answer the questions that I posed.

1) Show where Daniel Stern stated that Freeze-12 was not an approved substitute for R-12. 2) Explain how wholesalers and/or retailers obtain supplies of R-12 in your state and avoid "losing everything."
Reply to
aarcuda69062

You can go hump your sock puppet now...

Reply to
aarcuda69062

I guess that could be a consideration. But it seems to me that if the goal truly is to limit the emission of (supposedly) ozone-depleting and/or greenhouse gasses there'd be some limits on using them in aerosol cans as well. I mean, most automotive A/C system hold, what?, a couple pounds of refrigerant, mostly r-134 these days. Even assuming that all that 134 will eventually leak out, how much more will be emitted from spray cans over the same time period? The 134 in your car's A/C should last several years, barring some catastrophic failure. In that time, you'll likely release many times that amount in propellant in the various spray cans you use...deoderant, spray paint, canned 'air', etc. I'd think that over a given time period, many time more r-134 would be released from spray cans than from car A/C systems. But then, laws aren't always made based on valid scientific knowledge or logic...

I didn't know that. See the last sentence in my previous paragraph.

Reply to
Z.Z.

Oh, it's even worse than that. I've got a can here, Chemtronics Freez-IT, the label says 100% R134a. Next to it is another can Falcon Dust Off Freeze Spray, same thing. You can go to Fry's and they have pallets of the stuff they sell for a couple bucks to the general public. Both these are intended to be used to find thermal problems in electronic gear. I use them in the shop when freeing stuck bolts - heat the thing the bolt is stuck in up with a propane torch, then when it's good and hot, soak the bolt in Freeze Spray and remove.

And not only is R134a used in these products, it's also used in blown-in insulation and a lot of other products where it quickly outgasses to the atmosphere.

And as far as R12 goes, what everyone seems to miss is that as time passes the R12 that is evacuated from existing refrigerant systems and is reclaimed, it is going to be sold again, then used to fill auto A/C systems which ultimately will leak. This process will continue until there are no more cars that take R12, which probably will take another

20 years to have happen. But once it does happen the price of R12 will drop, and eventually people will be sitting on old R12 that has become worthless, then where do you think it will go? Do you think people will pay to dispose of it? I doubt it I think they will landfill it and ultimately the containers will rust and the R12 will escape.

The only way to truly get R12 out of the environment is to burn it on the ground in an incinerator, or allow it to escape where eventually natural processes in the stratosphere will destroy it. And, nobody is burning R12 in incinerators now, (it's worth too much) and I can almost guarentee that most R12 in use now will never end up incinerated.

And the same thing is going to happen to the R134a that is produced.

The only way to stop the release of refrigerant is to stop manufacturing it. All the laws on releasing R134a and R12 while servicing A/C systems are merely feel-good, they simply delay the inevitable. Sooner or later no matter how many charge/reclaim/charge cycles that a pound of R134a or R12 goes through, it will inevitably end up in an auto system that goes bad and leaks.

The only A/C servicing laws that do any good at all are the ones that make it illegal to fill a R134a system that you know has a serious leak in it (as opposed to a potential leak that may happen in the future) as these help to slow down the global consumption of R134a by a slight amount.

Ted

Reply to
Ted Mittelstaedt

No explanation needed the Law is the Law, I do not need to get into a dissertation about my particular State Laws to have them rebuffed or argued against the laws are what they are. You either follow them or suffer the consequences.

It is funny that both yourself and Stern just love to argue I think it is because both of you just like to argue and love to hear your own din.

Reply to
Coasty

Assuming the environment has some capacity to "digest" the r12 either by chemical means or simply because it just dissipates into space, the longer you drag out the release, the less damaging the R12 (and any other refrigerant) will be. So I don't see it as just "delay" but as a "taking longer" so it allows natural processes more time to take care of things.

Reply to
Ashton Crusher

Unless of course the orifice is clogged in which case your advice will get someone hurt when the high pressure builds enough to blow out a hose. The only proper way to recharge the system is to use a manifold gauge while monitoring both high and low pressures.

You are right in most cases but it isn't a good idea to tell someone who doesn't really understand how it all works to just keep adding refrigerant unitl you get cold air.

also not true. a system that is empty at 70 degrees will give you a hiss when hot.

Past the late 80's the systems don't seem to leak nearly as much. We had several R12 cars of the era that never needed a drop of refrierant added before they failed (we live in south fl so the a/c on cars generally seems to fail a few times during the life of the car since it is used every day of the year)

All my pre late 80's cars did leak a little as you described. A can every other year seemed to keep them happy.

Steve B.

Reply to
Steve B.

What you want is completely illegal. The fittings are made incompatible for a reason- to prevent inadvertent cross-contamination between refrigerant types. To convert to R-134a, you need to change the fittings (and buy the correct adaptor hoses for your guage set, available at any A/C supply house), flush the system, replace the laundry list of incompatible parts (mainly the drier and some O-rings) and fill with R-134a compatible oil.

Don't use the "conversion kits" they sell in stores- those are compressor-destruction-in-a-can.

tom wrote:

Reply to
Steve

Even if the above slander were true, Dan's right and "Coasty" is wrong on this one.

Reply to
Steve

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