Hey thanks for watching this videos have been a long time in the making, and it is all of the best practices that we've learned over the last few years on how to make flares for ductless systems mini splits, whatever you call them that will not leak. We've worked with mini splits and ductless systems for many many years and we really haven't had very many issues with them leaking, but I'm trying to find the very best practices that you can apply in the field simply and easily we're going to show you all of The tools that we use, as well as all the different some of the different tools that I've tested in order to do this big thanks to NAV act for providing the answer to a lot of these questions, with some of the great tools that they make. But we're gon na go through kind of this steps and I want to just lay them out right off the top. So that way in case you get get bored or distracted, you'll get them right from the beginning.

First thing: is you got to make sure that you cut your copper square? The second thing is that you deburr your copper properly with a proper deburring tool. The next thing is that you don't forget to put the nut on before you make your flare. Otherwise, that's gon na be irritating. The next is that you use a proper flaring tool.

Also, very important is that you get the height set properly between the block and the cone and a lot of the nice modern tools. They have stops that make that very easy. For you to do like we'll show, the next thing is that you use an assembly lubricant, but I'm gon na put a star there on use assembly lubricant, because there are some people who will tell you not to do it. We find that it really helps, especially when putting the flare together the question of whether or not to put a little bit of lubricant on the threads or on the mating surfaces.

There's a lot of opinions about that. I'm gon na give my opinion, but I'm always going to tell you you know, follow what the manufacturer tells you how about these things? The next thing is that you're gon na torque it down with a proper torque wrench, we're gon na go over a lot of different torque wrenches and how they're used the next is that you do a proper pressure test. We're gon na show you what to look for as far as doing a pressure test and then finally doing your vacuum and standing vacuum test, and this is a full way to make sure that you're going to have players that don't leak and a system. That's clean dry and tight, so don't go anywhere here we go so before we get started.

Let's talk through just some of the steps we're going to do we're going to cut the copper, nice and square we're going to deburr the copper and I'm gon na use. This deburring tool here for doing that there are many different good, be bearing tools on the market and a vac makes one very similar to this. Then we're going to flare it I'm going to be using the battery-powered, cordless nav act, flaring tool, and then we are also going to be using the NT f66 flaring block with the clutch. It's got: ball bearings, nice and smooth oscillating cone on that.

Both of them designed for 410, a another big piece of this, is whenever you're assembling any system whenever you're installing any system or making any flares, you want to follow manufacturer specifications and so for us. We have quarter inch and 1/2 inch on this mitsubishi ductless that we're gon na be making these flares on, and so we need to look at what torque we need to torque them down to. So if you look at the quarter inch it's 10 to 13 and on the half inch it is 36 to 42. Now we're going to be going on the low sides of these, because I do use a little bit of assembly lubricant, specifically Nye log, for those of you who are not using an assembly lubricant.

You can go a little bit higher than that now. The quick disclaimer here I do this out of my own experience of having done it for many many years on these systems and it works properly. If what I'm telling you goes against what the manufacturers telling you and I'm not going to tell you to go against the manufacturer, wink wink. Another thing I look at right away whenever I am gon na be working on a new installation is what the rated test pressure is.

Our high side is 601. Our low side is 320. I generally test at the low side pressure, because, when we're pressure, testing we're pressure testing on the line set and the evaporator coil that attaches here and on a ductless system, these are both on the low side. Also, I don't want to overdo the pressure because I run the risk of forcing nitrogen back through the valves and so just to be safe.

We're gon na use that 320 number on this system for pressurization, not we're not showing that in this video. But that's a really key part of any test procedure went after you, assemble the flares making sure you pressurize it up and then do a standing test as well as a bubble test. Okay. So now, let's look over the different torque wrenches that I've tested and also tell you what my favorite is.

My favorite torque wrench here is this yellowjacket torque wrench and the reason I like it is because these heads are just perfectly sized for the different ductless flares that you run into a lot of companies are going to an adjustable wrench head and this works great. But the downside to it is, is that you do get some play on the jaw and also the head just tends to be longer and bigger a little tougher to get into tight spots and you've got batteries to replace. Now some of you will point out that there's some advantage to the digital and the accuracy, and I get that, but in my mind, I'm just using the proper head size outweighs the benefits of the digital. In this particular case now, best of both worlds would be to have a high end, digital torque wrench and then use it with a specific Flair type head.

The downside is, is that ductless systems kind of have weird sizes and so, for example, for the larger, not that we're working on it's this 26 size. And if you look here, this 26 size is actually 26 millimeters and so that's kind of a tough thing to find. You know, if you happen to find yourself a 26 millimeter torque wrench head, then you could use that instead with a traditional torque wrench, and that would work. But the nice thing about the LJ kit is, it just gives you everything that you need and for a typical technician.

That's gon na be most practical. I just you. I got some of these just as an example, but as you can see, these are sae, so they won't work perfectly for that. I also got some metric sizes, but I didn't get them large enough, but you can see here you can use this 17 millimeter on the smaller size here.

So if you know exactly the types of systems that you work on and you want to use a digital torque wrench, then you can do that. I don't have a digital torque wrench with a traditional head. I don't have a digital torque wrench with a traditional head. So, just for the sake of demonstration, you use a traditional fork match and then you could attach say the 17 millimeter on here and now you could use it in that way.

But the things that you can't do is have it. You would have to use it in a 90-degree orientation so that way, you're not adding additional force to it by extending the wrench. So you could use it in this orientation. It would work just fine, maybe kind of tricky to get in there in some spots.

So you could add an extension to it, but then that would add additional play. So again you can use a typical torque wrench with a claw foot type adapter for flares. That will work just fine, but it's going to be difficult to get everything you need, and it may be tough to get in tight spots where this Yellow Jacket kit having having tested it against the other options. I think is a really nice kit, or going with a digital and just recognizing that sometimes the jaw may cause a little bit of the challenges there all right.

So the first thing we're gon na do is cut it, which cutting it square is one of the really big keys to making a good flare. This now back, NTC 11 is a really nice tubing. Cutter nice smooth ball bearings. It's just really really smooth to use a really big cutting wheel, and so that helps you get a really square cut.

It's going to be difficult to use this tubing cutter and have a crooked cut on your tubing. So we're just going to do this real, quick when you're cutting make sure that you're turning the knob really slowly. I see a lot of people deform the tubing because they turn the they turn it too tight as they're cutting. So you can see.

We have really nice square ends here, so that's gon na make for a really nice flare. Now we've got to do the deburring part, which we often call reaming. The idea is to get this edge off on the inside: it's not to thin out the walls. So if we over deburr, we can actually thin the walls out significantly and that'll make it more likely that your flare cracks on the edges.

Another thing is: when you do deeper, you want to hold the copper in this orientation. So that way any shavings fall out and then you want to make sure to kind of tap it so that way anything comes out of there before you go to assembling it. This is really an opportunity. If you do it improperly that you can get some stuff in the end of the copper and again, our goal is to keep everything clean, dry and tight, and a big part of clean is making sure we don't get dirt or shavings.

In the end of this tubing, alright, so the next part is very important, and that is to remember to put the nut on before you make your flare number one, the most common mistake. I've only done it about 50,000 times, alright. So now we're ready to make our flare. Now, I'm first going to show you making a flare with the NEF Li battery powered cordless flaring tool from Navin.

I always - and this is again this is subject to some debate, but I always put a little bit of lubricant a little bit of mineral oil on the cone. Just to help prevent galling and galling is when one metal gives itself up to another metal and that can lead to scoring and some other things. So we want a nice smooth shiny surface on our flare when we're done so I find that just a little bit of mineral oil on the cones and you'll see you'll notice this on both of them just just a slight layer. It's not not globbing it on there or anything, but it works really nicely for that.

So I'm going to take the die. This is the die for the NEF Li and you can see it's got to stop built right into it. So all I have to do when I put this over. The copper is just push it down until it hits that stop and that's gon na be the proper depth which makes it really really easy.

So we're gon na do this with a quarter inch and show you how that works and we'll use the other one for the half inch opening it up sliding it in till it hits the stop and then pushing it together to tighten it down back this off. Just a little bit make sure that it's nice and tight having it tight and up against the stop is really the only job you have to get right. So you have to make sure that it's in tight and up against the stop. That's the part you got to get right, so I've already backed it all the way out.

This is the reverse button here. They'd. Have it back all the way out, lock it in place? Now I hit the forward button back it back out again. Now we got a really nice shiny flare, so the first thing I'm looking at is just making sure that everything's round there's no wear it edges on it and that the surface itself is burnished.

It's nice and shiny, like polished, like a little copper mirror. So all that looks really really good. Now I'm gon na pull the flare not over it, and I want to make sure that when I look in the inside of that flare that it pulls all the way to the edges, it doesn't bind on the threads or anything like that, but that it's covering The entire inside just want to make sure that it's covering the entire inside of that flare, I'm gon na, take it over to where I attach it, and I just want to make sure that it that it fits on. It comes all the way to the edge when people talk about needing a far fort and a flaring block.

Mostly what they're talking about is the depth of that edge. A lot of people will say: oh, it needs to be a certain degree. In a 33 degree, 45 degree whatever that's mostly when you're talking about brake lines in air conditioning, any old flaring block will make the right angle. But it's important to get the right depth and, as you can see, that's really nailed the depth.

But it's just coming right to the edge, then I'll, often just kind of spin it and just make sure that there's no major irregularities as it pushes up against that and now I'm ready to go ahead and assemble. Now. Here's one area that I do something that some people will argue against and that is I use nylon now. My log is both a thread sealant and an assembly lubricant, but it's made of thickened oil refrigerant oil, so it's safe.

I don't use very much at all. I just use a tiny, tiny amounts. I'm gon na show you how much I use here. That's all I use just a little tiny bit and then I'll get just a little bit and I'll just move a little bit on to the mating surface, just so that it's really nice and smooth as it gets on there.

Some people will say that you should lubricate the back of the flare and you can do that as well. But since we're using a torque wrench, we really don't want to over lubricate, because that can result in us over tightening I'm using my experience here. So there's a lot of people who will dispute this piece that I'm doing with nylon, but we've done this for many many years, installing ductless systems, time and time again, with leak, free ductless systems without any failures of compressors or electronic expansion valves things that they claim Will get into the system they that I just put on there? This is not gon na get in the system, and even if it does it's miscible in the refrigerant, because it's made of refrigerant oil. So now, as I assemble this, I'm going to press it together and then, but by fingers, I'm going to get it finger tight.

Now, I'm gon na use my torque wrench in order to tighten it down again we're doing the quarter inch here. So our torque spec is 10 to 13 because I have assembly lubricant on it and a little bit on the threads. I'm gon na go to the 10 foot pounds. I'm gon na use this wrench here.

So that's this 17 and if you look, they actually give you a spec here for what the typical is going to be - and it's very, very close. This is 13 foot-pounds at the quarter. Inch tubing size, but again because we use an assembly lubricant, I'm gon na go to 10 and again, as you know, we're going to pressure test this thing or we're done bubble test. It make sure that it's working properly when we actually do this in the field.

Okay, so now put this together, so that's our 17, which is that should be the right size and I'm gon na make sure I have this turned to this. Is the Newton meter side we're gon na turn this to the foot-pound side? I'm going to this? Is the lock and unlock so I'm gon na unlock it, and I'm going to twist this until it gets to 10 foot pounds which it's gon na, be I'm gon na kind of have to interpolate here, there's 11 right there and then 7. So I'm gon na go slightly under the 11. One thing is easy to mistake: you can see the 11 is here, but this 11 line curves in.

So if I were to set it right here at this 11 line, where you see the entire number 11, that is 11 foot pounds, so I'm just gon na back it off slightly from that. Just a tiny, tiny bit and I'm gon na call that 10 when using a torque wrench you want to make sure to when you're applying force to only apply force to the handle, otherwise you'll get a false measurement of it. Otherwise, you'll get a false reading. So we're just gon na keep tightening it.

That clunk shows us that now we're at ten foot pounds. I want to go a little bit further. I could but now we're above ten foot pounds that feels about right again. Some people claim that they have a calibrated wrist you'll, find pretty quickly that, if you're used to doing it by hand and you've got a good feel for it, the torque wrench is actually going to be very, very close to what you're used to doing now.

For our next torque, what we would do is we would take this little key here. Push it in that'll, pull that out, and now we can go to our twenty six, which is our suction side. So, instead of showing this, though, which, again, this is my favorite tool, we will do it with the adjustable head, blackmax digital instead, all right with this. This is a clutch type, r410a oscillating, flaring block or orbital's.

What they'll call it often and what I'm going to do is I have to first keep it a little bit open like this. Then I slide this over and now I'm ready to feed in the half-inch. So this is the half inch. This is where I'm gon na feed into, and it kind of snaps into place as it hits the different points, but I'll show you some kind of quick tips of what I like to do.

First off, I already did put a little bit of lubrication on that cone. Now I'm going to slide it into the half-inch. If it's slightly open, it's not dripping down we're gon na fit it in there, then this stopper, so our depth gauge shows us right. There is exactly where we want to be so now we kind of pinch it tight, pull the cone over it's backed out all the way.

Now, as I feed this in, you can hear it kind of snapped into place as I feed this in before I lock it in place. I'm gon na make sure that I'm nice and centered just make sure that's nice and centered, and now I'm gon na go ahead and lock it in place nice and snug. Now we just tighten it until the clutch hits. What you will hear this nice big t-handle makes it really easy, even for a weakling like me to do it, so you heard it kind of click there.

Let it do it a couple more times: yeah, they're, clustered again there you go so now. We know that it's the proper torque for that, because it's designed with that clutch so that you don't over, tighten I'm going to loosen it up all the way. The only thing I'm a little worried about is this spot right here, which looks like an imperfection on the copper. The actual flare itself looks great, but right here we can see.

We have this tiny dip in it and I'm not exactly sure where that's coming from, but it's enough that I'm going to cut this off and remake it. This time we still have a beautiful flair, nice shiny surface, but we don't have any abnormalities that I can see check against the player itself and make sure that it fits in the way that I expect it to, and it does not too big, not too small And we're gon na hold it up against to make sure that it's just perfect, if anything, it's overlapping just a little bit here, but I know that shy of threads cuz I tested against the mother, so that is in good shape. It's a nice player all right! So now just a little dab dialogue on those threads and then again, I put a little bit on my finger and put it on the on the meeting surfaces just a little bit. Nothing gon na get into the lines there just a little bit on there and then just a little bit on the backside of the Flair's.

Well, just help it slide on there nice and smooth push it into place. If we look across here, it's calling for between 36 and 42 foot-pounds, I'm gon na go to the 36. I turn it on the black max. Has some presets in it, so we'll see what we got.

This is a 14 at a 14 foot pound preset, which is obviously too slow. We got a 30, we get a 40, so we're looking for 36. I'm gon na set 40 is kind of my top limit. I'll just use this preset just to make it easy and when you're using an adjustable jaw like this, it's best to pull towards the jaw, if possible, when you're tightening.

So it's better to pull versus push and when you're pulling you want to pull towards the adjustable jaw. So, like I said it's a little bit deeper head, which in some tight spots, can be tough, so we're just gon na you can see at this point see we're only at 12, so I'm gon na need to kind of reset so again we're pretty much trapped At what orientation we can use this ass, but we do want to use a pulling motion as much as possible. Okay, so you can see I've got a backing wrench on it, because with this one, I have to apply a lot more force all right right right. There that's about perfect now, one piece of feedback again, that's the most disputed car is the use of assembly lubricant, the use of my log and some people will say that doing it.

The way that I just did it will cause damage to the flare because of over tightening. So let's remove them now and just see what they look like so torquing them down to that level caused no damage to the flare all right. So now. The next thing we're not again we're not going to do this on this system, but the next steps would be to pressurize the system to whatever the manufacturer specification says.

In this case the spec actually doesn't talk about pressurizing the system. So we just go off of the data plate, which shows the low side test pressure as being three hundred and twenty, and since all of this tubing is on the low side, that's the pressure. We're going to use we're gon na pressure test, two three: twenty we're gon na use bubbles, my favorite bubbles are big blue from refrigeration technologies. We're going to bubble them check them very carefully, with an inspection mirror, and then we're also going to just let it sit.

I'm generally standing pressure tests in the in the area of 30 minutes is average for us for a small ductless system, i'm obviously you're doing a multi head unit, you're doing a vrf system where you've got a bunch of copper buried in a wall. That's gon na be tough to get to later than even doing it for up to 24 hours. It's a good idea, although, if you do it that long you're gon na want to use a nitrogen calculator, because your pressures will change with temperatures, we have those on the HVAC school app. We have a nice nitrogen calculator right there, so we're gon na pressure test and then, when we're done, we're going to pull a deep vacuum with a micron gauge, we're going to pull a deep vacuum.

We're gon na use a micro engage we're going to pull the core we're gon na pull it down below 500 microns. This is our typical practice down to about 200 microns and we're gon na make sure that it doesn't decay above 500 microns in ten minutes, which further indicates that we do not have leaking flares. One final thing about torque wrenches. I also got this digital torque adapter um that I thought would be a good idea.

The problem is that the width of this thing is too thick for it to be practical, when you've got copper tubing in the way, I even tried it with an extension. It just got too unwieldy, and so that didn't work out like I said, the crows foot on the typical torque wrench or a good quality digital torque wrench is still a good option, but it can be kind of clunky and make sure you use it 90 degrees. Digital works. Fine, I just don't love the adjustable jaw, the winner in my testing.

As far as my personal preference is this kind of old-school, yellow jacket, very nice and heavy heavy duty, and it's got all the heads that you need for watching this video. I want to give you a few quick takeaways. Obviously we have the process cut it square deburr. It remember to put the nut on use a proper tool get the height the right use an assembly lubricant.

If you are into that sort of thing, torque down using a proper torque wrench pressure test vacuum test, but a few key takeaways here that I want you to remember - is visually inspect. The flare expect how it fits into the flare nut and then inspect it up against the actual mating surface, to make sure that it sits nice and snug that there's no burrs or anything that's going to be scratched or caused a reason for there to be a Leak, the inspection part of this process is one of the really key steps that good technicians use when they're making flares, because again, we've made flares for years with older technology older blocks and had no issue with it. But it's because of thorough inspections. A really nice thing with these two options from Nav AK is that it takes a lot of the guesswork out.

There are tools that you can deploy in the field with technicians who don't maybe have quite as much experience and they'll be able to produce good flares. Every single time so make sure that you visually inspect your flares, make sure that they're not overlapping or that there's not so much room from the edges where they were they mate up against that cone. So you want to make sure that's a nice tight, fit that there's no scuffs or any of anything like that and then by torquing it down and doing your pressure test. You're gon na know that you have a great result.

Thanks for watching we'll catch you in the next video.