I'm Chris with Hvacr videos and we are here at Heatcraft. Refrigeration products in Stone Mountain Georgia and we are about to tour the R D lab Chris Welcome good to have you here. Hope you enjoy the lab too early. introduce this is Clifton Allen Lipton Nice to meet you I Have to say um I've never been in a research and development lab so I'm really intrigued by everything that I'm hearing in the background.

Uh, I could only assume that this equipment is running for a specific reason I mean are we monitoring things? Are we testing things? Well, you know that's a good question because when I look at the lab, we kind of focus on two things. Okay, one is system performance and that can come in a multitude of ways, doesn't it? Does it give me the performance I need. Does it meet the industry standards? Well, one of the more important things we're doing now and probably more than we've ever done, is component qualification. Okay, because we're having a tremendous problem with supply chain, right? So you know our customers.

When they order product, they want product. They don't want product that's missing a motor or product. So we were constantly going out to try to find new components and suppliers. So if you look at the lab, you know we go from everything from component qualification to component performance.

You know, great example is a fan motor. Okay, if you look at fan motors, they're pretty ubiquitous out in the field. but every piece of equipment we make has a special purpose motor. and what I mean by that is, you come over here.

The motor on this evaporator has to be matched to the cabinet right and the coil. okay. and the coil can have different thicknesses. So if I just take a general purpose motor I'm not sure what I'm going to get.

Okay, so what we do and you'll see when we get to the code testers, we'll test that motor and a lot of times we'll have to change the internals on it. It we may have to add stack because I'm getting too much static pressure or we may have to do something with the windings. Okay, but at the end of the day, every evaporator has a motor that we call special purpose right? Okay, and that's a big piece of it. So then when you think about that motor, Sam Got a supplier that I've been using for a long time and he comes back says I I can't get you the motors.

So then we say okay, we need to get another one qualified. In the old days, we'd go out and we'd get 200 Motors and we put them in the field and we'd run them for six months and then after six months if they're still running, what do we know? they last six months. I Don't know if that's gonna be six months in a day? Yeah, so we needed a much more robust qualification process. Now, how much influence do you have over the manufacturer though, Do you you? know in the past? Okay, because I know supply chain shortages create Havoc right now.

but do you have influence over the manufacturer's R D2 Like let's say, you have a manufacturer that you love working with. Do you guys go to them and spec and say Hey I Want you to make me this motor because you like working with that manufacturing. You've had a good track history. It's definitely an iterative process.

Got it? Okay, because as we look at it as we say a motor, you know we're getting too high a motor heat rise. So we'll go to that to them and say you know we kind of have to increase the stack. Well, they'll come back to us and say well, here are the stack options we have so we'll work through those and you know it usually works pretty good so they'll they'll come to us. okay.

if you need more stack, we'll give you a quarter inch more stack on it that it's going to lower the temperature as it runs. So every motor manufacturer kind of knows the process because they build the motors. What? I can't tell them is what? incremental Stacks They have that so we work through that. So with that being said, I guess this is gonna probably make uh, Heatcraft happy.

but I mean it really does benefit the contractor to stay OEM when we go with the motors instead of using aftermarket. Solutions Because of the R D That's gone into the motors that you guys have selected, right? Absolutely. And so that makes one fundamental challenge there. And that's performance standards.

Yeah, okay, if I put a general purpose motor in I'll be the first to admit it's going to be easier to replace, right? but it won't meet that Target performance. So you know we're not against standards where we in favor of good standards. So when we look at some of those, we know it's our responsibility to make sure product ships it meets it. and the way to meet it is to get a motor that matches the internal dimensions and static pressure on these so it would be easier.

It'd be easier for us. Yeah, but it's not gonna. It's not going to meet the standards and as a contractor too. I Do have to admit that while okay, let's be fair, OEM Motors typically cost a little more money, but again, as a business owner, it makes sense for me to have my technicians using OEM because there's less thought process that goes into it.

It's like hey, just go get the right motor part number. We're good to go. Put it in there and it's going to work fine. Yeah, you know the other thing to remember too.

You got the blades and it's a it's a combination Yes. So you know when you look at efficiencies the the motor efficiencies with ECM Motors are very high. I Mean the motor itself is the best, but it's that combination of the air mover, the blade and the motor. So it does make a difference as as the R D Lab goes.

how quickly do contractor gripes or issues make it back to you guys? So let's say you know in the field we're running into a problem and we call Tech Support and we say you know these issues are really becoming a problem I've changed 15 of these motors Now Some of those complaints, you know they may not be valid, but how many of those actually make it back to R D? Do they does technical support? relay that stuff back. Yeah, that's a good question because a lot of times you could put them in different buckets. Yes, sometimes it's just a misunderstanding in the field. So working with one of our Tech Folks at AES they can get that straightened out.

Sometimes it could be that I had a shipment of Motors that doesn't come up the spec. So what we'll do is we'll bring those Motors in and we'll test them here. Well, we always tried and that's another thing we do. We try to if there's a field issue that's not something we can easily ascertain.

We'll bring it in here and we'll try to replicate it. Okay, because like everything else, I'll talk to the motors one time. So we put those 50 Motors out in the field and if they work after six months that we needed more analytics right? because as we're doing more and more of these so now what we do is we get a motor in. The first thing we do is we look at that motor and we put on a code test and we said does it give us the CFM we need Okay, if it does I check off that box then I go through the UL safety.

Does it meet all the U.S safety requirements. If it does, check off that box. the third box is accelerated life testing. Okay because the thing about it is if I look at a motor I know that 80 of the time that motor is going to fail because it's going to be bearing so it's going to be windings.

Okay so when I have this new motor, I'll bring it in and I'll overload those three or four 400 percent. and if I have assistance to me significant sample. I can calculate mean time between failure with amazing accuracy. So now instead of being able to say I know this motor lasts six months, I can say this motor is going to last eight years and here's the data that shows it.

The last thing and kind of what you'd hit on is I can get a good batch of motors and they can pass all this and then six months down the road I get a bad batch so the thing we do is as we look at the motor, we identify the what's on that motor that's critical to the Quality durability, reliability and then we'll put measurement requirements in that we give to that motor manufacturer and we go there to make sure they have process controls for those. Yeah, so it you know it's a lot different than in the old days, but it's much more robust and it's you know. I'll give you another example. Valves Okay, if we can't get an expansion valve and we'll look at the usual suspects and I won't name them but the uh, the domestic suppliers.

sometimes they'll have an allocation. we can't get them right. So we could go to Europe and get a valve. The problem is that valve in Europe's not going to have UL gotcha.

Okay so now what do I do? Well, the thing with this this lab here is a client test data lab for UL That means we can do the UL testing. So now if you do the UL testing for that overseas valve manufacturer does that UL testing then apply for them across the board or is it just for with your equipment just for Okay, Interesting. Okay, and so if you come over like that valve, I'll have to pressure test it. Got it because with UL 1995 now it's going to 6335-2-89 which I know it's a number salad but what that requires me is I have to test that valve to three times working pressure.

Okay so I can do that here I can even do it on higher pressure valves like CO2 where I can go to 6000 PSI but if I test it here and I do the three times, that's my UL test I pass UL I'm certified it to use it on my equipment. Another supplier couldn't take that same valve and say because he craft tested it I can use it for you. Well so that's an advantage for us, but we didn't do it so much for that, we did it for expediency. You know, supply chain.

we need to be able to supply qualify these components quickly, but we still have to. We still have to follow the standard. Yeah, you know I can't say well I didn't have any. so I did put this valve in there.

that's not going to work now. How much of the R D side? Obviously research and development, but do the ideas solely come from R D? Or do you take input from outside sources too? Is there other people in the company that help with R D? I'm going to bring up an example. I was recently installing one of these new evaporator coils with the Intelligence setup and I just ran across your new motor and motor bracket setup. That makes it super easy to pull the motor with the blade still attached out of there without having to you know disable and take the blade off.

take the motor off, unbolt everything and I Thought that was a pretty cool thing and it was one of the first times I've seen it now. Ideas like that. Do they come from the field? Do they come from a mixture of everything? Where do ideas like that Make sure everything but that one there is field. Okay, because you know we again when we get into some of the bigger racks we develop new systems like CO2 transcritical booster systems with different Technologies on it.

So when we released my team when we release it, um, we're the ones who designed it. we know it. So our field service guys that know our day-to-day equipment inside out. it's new to them.

So we go out there and we do the commissioning and startup with them and we'll do it over several jobs until they feel comfortable and take it over, right? But that's some of the best things because I mean I'd Love to say that we design everything perfect from the beginning. That would be a flat out lie, right? Okay, we get out there and we realize as we're trying to work on it, you know it's one thing to put it together. it's another thing to take it apart. Well yeah, as a contractor it's 10 30 at night.

This is an emergency service call. This is the first time I've ever worked on this particular piece of equipment and my head hurts trying to figure this out. and I just cut my finger because it's zero degrees and I just rub I mean so weird things happen. So so you guys invite feedback from contractors from all sources to to give you guys new ideas or ways to improve things.

We actually love having contractors come in and we also you know our field service guys. They'll be the ones giving us a lot of impact on designs and then Mike can probably talk about that because he's more in the design teams. but the fact of the matter is, it's not a proudly found here. We love going outside and getting ideas because the more people you involve in it, the more perspectives.

Not yet. sometimes you can't see the forest from the trees. Gotcha! Now in all fairness, Clifton's been doing this 22 years. I've been doing a little bit more than that.

Um, there's a lot of smart people out there and they come up with some pretty and pretty ingenious ways of doing things differently. You know one of the things we like is because we're a global company. We also have product in Europe And you know, even though we're doing the same thing, there's different approaches. So as you go to different markets globally, you see how people try to solve the same problem but a little bit different.

Yeah, and sometimes you say that's that's not a bad way to do it. And I think you're making this point. But I would argue too that you don't have to be an engineer. You don't have to have a million degrees.

You can just be a knuckle busting mechanic that gets frustrated every time he works on something and simply give that feedback back to tech support or or email you guys or something like that. So I mean I imagine Amazing Ideas can come from anybody. Oh, they absolutely can. And you know one of the things I am really proud about our team is every one of them turns wrenches right? You know we have.

Uh, you know when I look at our Advanced team. We have a lot of advanced degrees. They all turn wrenches. You'll see them out in the field.

They're going to turn wrench. They're inquisitive. Okay, and they love talking to people, especially some of the newer ones as they're trying to. Because you know, no matter people, there's no substitute for experience, right? And someone that's out there every day can tell you you don't even have to wait two seconds.

You ask me. what could you do better? Bam. You're hearing stuff all the time. So yeah, I mean absolutely.

Those are the ones that can give you the insights that you'll never get just by looking at a unit in the lab. Okay, so when we were talking before about qualifying a motor which exists a classic example, we've got this on a code tester. Okay, and this code tester I can put different air volumes through it. So what I can do is this has the coil that it's going to be.

it's in the cabinet and this is the motor I'm trying to qualify so as I run the code tester, I'll do it at different static pressures. Okay, okay, because if you think about like an evaporator so this is like an environmental chamber, then no, this is this is basically all CFM testing. Oh okay, gotcha. Okay, we we do do testing, but this is just the air side.

Oh, because what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to match the motor blade combination to the static pressure created by the cabinet in the coil. gotcha. That's what's unique because every cabinet and every coil is different. I may have a coil that's got six rows, eight rows that has an impact on static pressure.

So what I'll do is I'll run this motor knowing that I've got different coil assemblies. so I'll get this CFM at different static pressures. So then I can match the motor to each configuration and this may sound super simple, but again, as a contractor, as a technician working in the field, this just reiterates how important it is to stay with the correct pitch blade to stay with the correct RPM Motor And yeah, you know what? We may change the pitch a couple degrees and it doesn't seem very important, but it really is because we're talking about the airflow through the coil, which is going to adversely affect everything down the line. Yes, and you know it's not as big a deal on a condenser.

Ah, it can be. but you know if the condensers are cleaned properly, it typically isn't. We'll assume that they do right. Yeah, yeah, I Say that tongue-in-cheek There's the I mean Of course, as a contractor I want businesses and my customers to do more routine maintenance because that's more work for me, but at the same time, you know they're cutting back on routine maintenance more and more every day.

It seems to try to cut costs so you know, Well, it's just pay me now or pay me later. Exactly okay. But the bigger issue is when you have an evaporator because if I don't know how that motor is going to work as the static pressure increases ice on the coil. Yes, that can cause some big problems, right? Okay, so I need to qualify a motor not just for that steady state clean coil, but I also make sure I can qualify when I get to higher static pressures so that's all part of it.

So once we get that nail down and we've got a good match, then we'll go to our performance testing. Interesting, but that's a big piece of it. Very interesting. So with I mean obviously with R D this is a no-brainer but you guys are creating problems to try to replicate things we see in the field and to try to anticipate problems we're going to run into to see how your equipment performs right to yeah.

And you know when we have a field problem, the amount of information we have Associated can vary right? Well I Imagine it's just a phone call saying your product is no good because of this and that may be all you guys get. and then you guys have to try to think put yourself in that technician's perspective and trying to recreate that problem with little to no information I'd say majority of the time would be my guess. Yeah, but if it's if it's something like a blade that we have in a lot of use, we'll send a field service engineer out okay to meet the contractor because the more we understand about what he's seeing, yeah, the better because you know you can get into harmonics. Okay, and 20 years ago when we didn't have variable speed on everything, harmonics were pretty easy and we can talk about that later when we get over there.

But we test for low frequency and high frequency harmonics. But the interesting thing about it is to talk about low and high frequency. and now I take a compressor with an inverter. it's both I can over speed it right? So I'm going to get a harmonic there I can under speed it and a lot of times that fundamental harmonic will come transient as I'm going from high speed to low speed and I go through this.

So we spent a lot of time looking at high frequency harmonics, vibrations, frequencies in low and we always try to design it to where the fundamental frequency is way out. But it's a challenge now because everything's going to variable speed. Yeah, you know, in the old days it's on or off now. I don't really like the old days because I like the new days because now I got a motor I can talk to Yeah, okay and maybe sometimes get feedback from absolutely Yeah, that's the beauty of it.

I mean if you look at this stuff that you can do if I've got a motor and I say okay I want constant CFM Well as it starts to ice up, that motor is going to start to slow down. but now I can because I can talk to it I can have an increased torque gotcha. so I can have an increased torque to keep that CFM until I get to a torque level and I say you know what it's time for defrost. Okay, in the old days, what I do is I put four defrost per day Whether I need them or not right? say I'm in them.

Uh, a fast food restaurant? You've got young kids. Yeah, they'll go in. They'll open up a door. They'll leave the door open.

They may shut the fans off. Welcome to my world! This is my everyday working in. Russia Oh, you got a box. It's got a gaping hole in the back of it so you get all kind of humidity coming into it.

So we got to understand that. You know it's not all that simple, right? Okay, so that's a big deal of it because you know we always say that you like in grocery stores you want 75 55 75 Drivable 55 Relative humidity. and if I put something in there and it's not working right? I Can't say well, your store's a little wet because it may be a 20 year old store. So the standard says I got a test for this but we always test to add an envelope.

Yeah, so if it says I can go do 75.55 I'll do 80 65 right? And if I can still get good performance at that point I know I'm in robust. So we test to the standard. but a tremendous amount of what we test is beyond the standard simply because I if I look at a major chain that has 200 stores, 10 of them probably brand new. Yeah, they're probably tight.

as tight as can be, right? and I don't have any issue but that store that's 25 years old, they're not going to close it. Nope. and I can't say? well, you know it didn't work because someone's opened the door on that too much, you know? So we have to understand. there's a real world out there.

and I think that that's where things like your intelligence system with you know the capabilities of having alarms and different things come into play too, right? We can put all kinds of different features into there and try to notify the customer to prevent some of these problems from becoming catastrophic. Absolutely yeah, you know, because the sooner you get to it, the better, right? But the reality of it is if you don't have someone going out there, you may have an issue that no one knows about. Until something catastrophic happens, it happens. So you know reliability comes in.

You know when we talk about quality, we talk about reliability Durability. There's a lot of aspects to it. But the bottom line is, we're in food preservation. Correct? Okay, it's and I You know we're a Linux company and I I talk to my friends at the HVAC side and I said when your equipment goes down, someone sweats.

Yeah, when our equipment goes down, someone can get sick, someone gets sick or forbid someone could die. I Mean you know food safety is a big thing. So yeah, no, it is. And you know there's a science to it.

Yes, so I mean whether you look at fresh cut produce and how the bags are done and temperature requirements, there's a lot to it. Yeah, so there's more than meets the eye. There's no doubt about it, sure, but our our job is to make sure where's the bust as possible. You know we also have to be conscious of costs, but I think there's a happy medium where we can do both.

Okay, so what we talked about so far was component qualification. We've got a new system performance testing too, right? This is a set of our doe rooms and we'll be talking a little more about Awes Okay qualification. But I want to show you these rooms and what we have is we have three sets of them. This is the medium size.

Okay, so all of our evaporators we have to match capacity to volume of the room right? So I need multiple sets? So what you see here is a unit cooler, low side and on the other side it's the high side. Okay again, everything is off a labview because when we do these tests, we have to make sure we document it. We have a chain of control on that data. So if the doe comes to me in five years and says I want to see this test data and it's a way Aof test on this unit you did four years ago I need to be able to show it to them.

Got you? Okay, so that's what we use the lab unit for. but when you look at the rooms, this is the low side evaporator room. If you look up you'll see an evaporator. Okay, yeah.

Okay, so the interesting thing here is the way the code's written. I can test units as a match pair. So I can have an evaporator and a condensing unit and I can run that test. Okay, but that's really not reasonable for the standpoint that there's no way to know what this evaporator is going to be hooked up to or that condensing unit.

So the number of potential match pairs are infinite. There are times we want to do that. say I'm I'm using my condensing unit with a customer's ice machine. Okay, so then I want to do a match pair So, but we can also test them individually.

So I can test this evaporator for Aweb by itself and I can test that condensing unit. Okay, so I can do them individually or I can do mismatched pairs. That was one of the discussions we had with the doe because originally they just wanted to do match pairs. When we explained to them the infinite number of combinations, it was an agreement.

So we work with them. They're reasonable. We always try to make sure we get a good outcome from what the regulation is. But what you also see is if you look on the wall there you see two flow meters.

Everything's redundant. so all of the instrumentation on these rooms is redundant. So these rooms, their custom rooms are extremely expensive. But we have to.

We have to get to the test method I Can run the test and get an Awf, but if I don't have the instrumentation according to the test method, it's not a valid a weft now. I Get the dual instrumentation I end up with the exact same result. but now I can certify So that's where a lot of cost comes into these rooms. But again, this one is my evaporator side.

this is my condenser unit sign I can run them individually I can run as match pairs. What you'll see over on the other side of the lab is we have another pair of these for smaller and we have a much larger one for big because again, I can't just test a small evaporator in one of these rooms because there has to be a ratio between the capacity and airflow of the evaporator and the volume of air in the room. So again that that's why we have so many. Doe Run So in the R D lab, of course you guys are trying to look at the future.

I would imagine you guys are trying to anticipate regulation changes, you're trying to lead the way and innovate. but I guess you guys probably get to have fun in here too, right? I Mean you obviously I'm looking up and I'm looking at all this duct work on these walk-ins. So I would imagine that these are there to uh, you know when you're dealing with A2l's and different types of refrigerants to protect you guys. But you guys get to do some fun stuff you guys? I would imagine get to blow things up.

You get to, you know, do different. I Mean it's got to be a little bit of fun in it, right? Yes, especially when we get to the Advanced Technologies We'll talk about transcritical booster systems. Our objective is to blow things up. Gotcha.

Okay, I mean it really is because if we blow it up, then we know how to make it more robust. You know that patients? that's that is the fun part of the job. Because when I tell everybody is you can blow something up once. but if you blow something else up, it may don't.

Don't make the same mistake twice, right? Okay, but if we're not making mistakes, we're not pushing the envelope right? Your job is to push the envelope, find the failure points, and decide if you want to push past that or what you want to do to change it so you don't have those potential failure points. and we're We're also looking at it non-traditional Cycles It's not just Vapor compression, so that's kind of fun too looking at it. We spent a lot of time with universities. Okay, so it's when you were talking about do you go outside? We always go outside.

Okay, because you can. It's a force multiplier when you're working with different entities. whether it's contractors, whether it's universities, whether it's National Labs Okay, so that's that is the fun part. but we still have our day job right? Okay, and we got to make sure that the products we sell today meet the standards today.

but we also know what that standard is going to be. possibly next gotcha. So you know? Yeah, we're testing to the Awf as it is today, but in the other engineering groups they're working on that next Gen because they know that those regulations are just going to get Tighter and Tighter and Tighter Now I Would imagine it would benefit you guys to work with government agencies. So that way you're aware of the potential changes that are coming ahead.

Correct. It's absolutely critical. Gotcha: Okay, whether it's you know, whether it's the Federal actual doe, C doe, EPA California carb. Uh, CEC Because what's kind of interesting and and I know it'll be talked about later in some of your conversations is they don't necessarily have the same agendas, right? Okay, the EPA they're about environmental reducing refrigerants going to Friendly refrigerants.

The doe is all about Energy Efficiency and I Think they're starting to talk a little bit more, but that's something we have to manage. But we love the fact that we get in early and we can have discussions, we have a seat at the table and and our industry does. but that's a really, really important thing because we don't want. All of a sudden someone hands us A letter and said this is what you got to do.

We want to know what's being discussed, what's possible, and then pros and cons. because we're not against regulation, we're against Bad regulation right? And what I mean by bad is is if I'd have to do an Energy Efficiency Improvement but to pay back back to the customers 10 years I'm saying. Is this really the best? You know we always do Max technology. With that being said, the the government agencies I would imagine take feedback from you too, right? I mean do you get to say Hey You know, yeah, we can meet this, but these are going to be the ramifications of these you do? You give that feedback to them Absolutely.

And you know. the thing about it is they work with Consultants that will work with us gotcha and I know there's going to be a lot more discussion on that later, but that's a very robust part of the process. Um, because they need that. You know the doe will get rule making Authority from Congress But the Doe is not experts in refrigeration so they'll get consulting firms that are experts.

This is a doe room too. Okay, but the thing with the doe rooms is I have to match the size and the capacity of the evaporator to the volume of the room. So as my units get bigger, the room gets bigger. Got it? So as you look, some of these units and this is only a one fan version: I Go up to three fans.

So as you can see, I've got a lift in here, but you'll see dual instrumentation. Yeah, like you see in all the other rooms. these rooms are built specifically to the test method. Got it? Okay, and if you saw the horsepower on the back end of this room, it's it's You know we've got 160 horsepower screws just to do the room control because I can take this room down to -20 I can take it up to 120..

Now when you said about the the Doe testing, um, how like, how hot do you certify your equipment actually besides Doe just in general to operate in like what conditions I mean I'll rate them, you'll rate them. Yeah, I'll rate them. but I don't certify them to them because there's no standard to certify them at the higher temperature. Got it? So you rate them at 120 degrees Yeah Yeah Because you know, obviously the higher the condensing temperature, the lower the capacity, right? So yeah, we'll So when you look at our tables, we'll have it rated for those.

Yeah, but the Awaf certification doesn't go as it's the 95. gotcha. But it gets what we said before: I rate to a standard, but the real world doesn't follow the standard. Yeah, this room here is where we do A3 flammable testing.

Okay, so like the propane and isobutane? Yeah, primarily. Okay, um and obviously there's charge limits. Yeah, so your 150 grams, but you know it's going to be going up, maybe eventually getting to 500. but that's why it's typically smaller equipment like up here on top.

you see that Pro Cube unit that's a package unit, right? So it will have a charge well below 150. but you know I need to test them I still need to get to that Awaf. It's a different test method. so I don't use the rooms we were using.

but this room is set up to do the Awf testing for A3s. So as a Layman just as a contractor I work with a lot of R290 systems and things that I notice is the equipment, the condensing units, the line sizes, everything is much smaller. I'm actually amazed with the refrigerant charge, what you can do with 150 grams or less and how well it can actually cool I Know there's a lot of fear in the industry about flammable refrigerants, but you know something that I've always told people is it's really I mean yes, there's some safety things, but if you go back to the things that we forgot about Basic Refrigeration the proper practices with A12s really isn't much different. The only thing we're gonna say that's really going to change is yes you do have you know the the very slim chance of a fire or something.

but you know the the proper practices of cutting components out before you work on them, of purging the system with nitrogen while you're brazing. Those have been basic principles that we're supposed to follow from the beginning, but we kind of have forgotten them. so there's a lot of fear right now when it comes to A2l's and not that I'm laughing at people that are afraid of A2l's but when it comes to hydrocarbons, on the refrigeration side, I mean for the guys that do just air conditioning, they don't realize that hydrocarbons have been huge in other countries for a long time and they've come to the U.S now we're working with them on a regular and I don't think it's that big of a deal. I don't mean to Discount people's problems, but it's very interesting in in how efficient the hydrocarbon refrigerants are.

There they are I mean if I look at Propane for instance, it's so similar to 22 yeah, which was a good refrigerant. I mean it's it's a good refrigerant Now you have to. You know you have to look at isolation. you know, ignition sources, stuff like that.

but at the end of the day you talk about purging with Nitric I hope everybody purges with Nike regardless of what they're putting in there. But as far as as far as propane, you know I kind of laugh. From the standpoint that you know you're starting to see refrigerator home refrigerators with it. but everybody say oh, it's propane, Well you got a gas stove sitting right next to that refrigerator and now you look out your back window there's a there's a 10 pound tank of propane that you're barbecuing.

You have a 60 to 100 000 BTU furnace in your house running off of natural gas. You're driving a car sitting on a tank full of gasoline. I Mean now again, there is valid fears We don't want to Discount Everything There is proper practices we need to follow. but it is also I Guess maybe ironic or something.

Some of the fears you know that people have yeah, and you know again, it's natural. yeah, and propane is. it's heavier than air. Yes.

So if it does leak, it's going to go down. So making sure you have ventilation at the bottom of the unit don't let the pool anywhere you know people are going to get more used to it. and I think you're going to see more acceptance of it. but there's going to be that upper threshold.

As a contractor, one of the biggest fears I have when it comes to working on hydrocarbons is actually a silly one. And it's when it comes to removing the refrigerant charge that one because we're so ingrained to recover the refrigerant and properly dispose of it. When normal practices in a safe environment, you're allowed to vent that refrigerant. So that one is just one of my biggest things because it doesn't seem natural for me when I'm working on something that's like, okay, we're going to go and invent this charge into the atmosphere and it's like, wait, I'm doing something wrong.

like I'm not allowed to do this, you know, So that's that's one of the weirdest things for me is having to do that? Yeah, you know, and again, appropriate. The charges are so small. Yes, um. I Don't think the average person realizes how many times they're around a unit that's being powered with propane as a refrigerant? I Would be safe to say that if you have a refrigerator in your home that's been manufactured within the last five years, it's pretty much certainty that it has Isobutane in it.

That's pretty much, you know, because it's a perfect match. Yep, Well, um, so there's no Silver Bullet Okay, especially when you look at regulations, you know you're going to have smaller systems with hydrocarbons. Yep, okay, it's a it's a great fit. But as you get over that, you're going to get into A2l's coming into the market.

but then you get over a certain limit, then you're going to have to go to something below 150 gwp and then you're going to be looking at CO2 So and it, we work with the chemical companies all the time. In fact, we get new Blends in all the time of the A2ls I Can't say which one's going to win yet. There's going to be several of them, But the bottom line is I Don't think we're going to get to a place where for all applications there's going to be one refrigerant. You know you get into the upper upper you're looking at ammonia, but ammonia's got a lot of overhead.

So then you come down into the Hfc world which will now be the A2l world in the CO2 world. So you know our job is just to make sure that people have choices in that we're making the right choice of refrigerant to the application opinion question. Do you think and as an R D person do you think that eventually? Because because in my head the way that I think of regulations in the industry and everything that's going to happen is if you can think it, it's going to happen. That's the way that I think if you can think of a new regulation or something, it's eventually going to come.

Do you think that CO2 will become mainstream when it comes to Light commercial refrigeration and home? Refrigeration This is an opinion question. Yeah yes the the problem CO2 is a good refrigerant. There's Technologies I can show you the work that's going to make them even more efficient that haven't hit the market. The problem you get in is that cost curve and CO2 systems by their very designed have variable speed control right? So you've got that on the compressors a lot of times.

they're so when you get into smaller condensing units, you're looking at a three to five times multiplier today. So that cost of that CO2 system. Guys buying that condenser unit, all he wants to do is keep his damn cool or cold. Yeah, he he doesn't want to wear a badge saying look I spent five times more for that condensing unit.

but I'm green. Okay, I mean if they didn't need Refrigeration they wouldn't put it in right? Okay, that's a good point so it's going to come down. but I think you're going to see a natural threshold. but I also think that you're starting to hear stuff in Europe that is gonna like it's going to be a problem so that's my opinion.

Interesting. So okay, so I think I have an idea what's going on here, but kind of explain it to me. What are we doing by shaking this evaporator? Two things we're doing. One is we're trying to mimic what it's like in transport.

Okay, so this is before I was talking about low frequency and high frequency when I'm transporting a unit's low frequency. Okay, so that's I can mimic with this so I can mimic a truck with air Springs or just spring. so I can I can mimic that. but I also I package units and I ship them.

So I'll also do it for testing packaging to make sure I'm okay. There's standards that tell us like it's not, actually this is not actually attached, it's free, it's sitting there freezing. Okay, gotcha. So this is the this is the amplitude for the standard.

but then we'll go in and we'll dial it up. Okay, and it gets pretty crazy when you dial it up because that was that added envelope. Yeah, I don't want to just meet the standard, but so you know transportation is a big piece of it and we do get a lot of damage. That can happen because a lot of times you don't know where that truck went even tell you some stories on that.

That's for another time. Yeah, the other thing we have to do is high frequency. Okay, and that could be uh blade pass on a unit. that could be uh, gas pulsations from a compressor.

So we do a lot of finite element analysis where we're at, take, wax it, and run and we'll put accelerometers on pipe to just see. you know what kind of vibration are we getting and then we'll do finite element analysis to see. Does that put us near a fundamental frequency? So both low frequency and high frequency is a big deal. And like I said earlier because we have so much variable speed out there today, it used to be whatever it ran, it ran at one frequency.

Now it runs through a range of frequencies, so that's what this is. feeling. Interesting? All right. Okay, we talked before about new technologies.

Well, this is a transcritical booster rack, but this is a this is our test bed. So transcritical booster. Forgive my ignorance. but this is CO2 right? Yes.

Okay, okay and the CO2 has some unique characteristics. One it goes Super Critical. Okay, Okay, so when you talk about CO2 systems and they're super critical, the condenser becomes a gas cooler because over 88 degrees CO2 can't condense. Okay, and as you know, in California you're going to have days, you're going to be way over 88 degrees for sure.

So what ends up happening is the gas cooler, not a condenser cools the gas and then it comes into the system. But the booster system is pretty simple. I've got medium temp compressors and I got low temp compressor. Okay, so what will happen is I've got to say it's a store.

say it's a cold storage facility I Got medium and low temp loads right? I run them both. So the medium temp or the low temp compressors will take the return from the low temp loads and they'll boost them up to the medium temp pressure. So the medium temp compressors will take the low temp discharge and also the medium temp return. This is kind of sounding like a Cascade system.

Very similar, but in a Cascade system, they're individual. Loops gotcha. Okay, okay, in a booster system, they're all in the same. Loop Got it? Okay, you'll see different pressures, but that's basically it.

The low temp gets boosted by the medium temp. interesting up to the gas cooler. Okay, so other than that I'd say 90 85 percent. The skill sets are trans.

They're the same as Hfcs. got it? There's some interesting things. you got higher pressure. so if I look at Hfc system, it's probably got a working pressure of 450 PSI on a transcriptal booster and go up to 1800.

Okay, okay, but the characteristics of the system are saying. The one thing you always talk about charging charging is a lot different on these. Okay, so when I charge a transcritical system I have to start off with Vapor Interesting. So as I charge it I want to get the pressure in the system up to about 150 200 PSI because what I don't want to do is get dry ice.

Oh okay, okay, okay and dry ice can cause a lot of problems. So I I charge you with Vapor I get it up to that point and I finish charging with liquid. Interesting. Okay, other than that, it's pretty much the same.

It's higher pressure, but you know, as we do startups on these racks in the field, we'll get contractors that this may be their first transcritical rack. And what? I See Almost every time after we do it, they always say well, that's not that different because it's not. You do have to watch out on where it is different. yeah, higher pressure.

For instance, when you get into the higher pressures I can't use normal copper, right? That was a point I was going to make was again. I've never worked on Co2 but I pay attention to social media and I have friends that do. and I've seen horror stories of technicians making quick decisions because they ran out of certain pipe and then they'll go use the wrong type of pipe and then you have critical ruptures. you know? And it's interesting too.

When you see it, you could tell there was a lot of pressure behind that rupture because it splits the pipe in a long length and it's pretty catastrophic. Yeah, and again that that's a good point because when you get into bigger diameters because the bigger the diameter the pipe, the thicker the wall needs to be. Yes, and you get to a point with copper that the copper you no longer do it. So now you go to a copper iron alloy that gives you more strength but then that can only go to a certain dynamer and then once you get like over that then you got to go to Steel Interesting.

Okay, but you know the skill sets are transing. The copper iron is really no different than Brazen copper. Now when you're when you're brazing. Um, so do they not use just regular Copper at all.

Is it always copper iron? No. In the low side of the system like on the on the low side it's it's 350 400 PSI So that's regular coffee. now. What kind of solders are they using? Are they like 15? Are we going like like the high silver content solders? like 56 45.

It's no different. When we go to the higher silver content, it's probably because it's a much more complex joint. It's just similar. Metals Yeah, it's so different for sure.

Okay, so again, the higher the silver content, the more robust the joint's going to be. But just the higher the cost. But on a system like this I Imagine the costs matter, but the customer probably understands the costs are going to be high and that's part of their budget plan. Well, But the other thing too, you got trade-offs.

Okay, so when you talk about the cost copper when I look at CO2 the diameter of the pipe gets much smaller than a traditional Hfc. Oh, so I'll save on material right in some areas. but I have to give it back in other areas. so there's trade-offs.

But a lot of times what you'll see on evaporators. if it's an Hfc evaporator, it'll have a half inch tubes. If it's a CO2 evaporator, it'll be 3, 8, so 5, 16.. now with CO2 are you getting oil movement throughout the system? just like a normal refrigeration system? Okay, and you know I'll have coalescing oil filters right? Um, this one here I've got both coalescing and I get helical because I was I'll test different Technologies Okay, but yeah, absolutely.

Um, and we have our own patented oil separators too. Oh okay, um, especially on the small rack there. So the bottom line is there are differences. They're not significant as long as you're trained in because for instance, these systems see three pressures: the high side pressure which is the gas cooler area that can get up to.

We rate it for 1800 PSI the intermediate by the flash tank that's around five 550 PSI and then when you get in the low temp, it's like 350. Okay, okay, so it's It's a little different, but at the end of the day it's It's more alike than it's It's still a refrigeration system. you're still transferring Heat.