Refrigeration Information

Sometimes the refrigeration information you need can only be found in the service manual from the manufacturer of the equipment you're working on.

Contact the manufacturer, give them the model and serial number of the machine, and ask for a service manual.

Some manufacturers provide them on-line for free.

Modern solid state controls help equipment run more efficiently, but they can be a total mystery if there's a problem.

At the very least, the service manual will save you a lot of time when troubleshooting; and for a lot of equipment these days, troubleshooting and repairs are almost impossible without it.

In addition to the controls, the refrigeration machinery can be very complicated too; and without the refrigeration information in the service manual, there's a danger of damaging equipment during troubleshooting.

One example would be a refrigeration system that uses a normally open solenoid in the high side of the system.

If someone didn't know it was supposed to be normally open, they might think it had failed, and replace it with a normally closed solenoid, which would cause more problems.

Another example is ice machines.

For one thing, ice machines aren't charged simply according to standard superheat and subcooling readings.

The charge has to be measured in to be sure there's enough refrigerant for the hot gas harvest cycle.

Also, different machines have different methods for starting and stopping fill, freeze, and harvest cycles, and have different cycle times.

If you have this kind of specialized refrigeration equipment, you'll need the refrigeration information in the factory service manual.

If you would like to read more about some basic refrigeration principles and terminology, we discuss some basic points of theory on our Refrigeration Theory and Refrigeration Cycle pages, and you're welcome to download our free Introduction to Refrigeration Information e book, which is a reprint of 32 pages of a military refrigeration manual, in pdf format.

We discuss a couple of other sources of educational material on our Refrigeration Tutorial page; and for those of you working on larger refrigeration equipment, on our Refrigeration Manual page we talk about where you can find the manuals you're looking for, and you might also be interested in taking a look at our 434 page Marine Refrigeration Manual.

I hope this page has helped, and please, feel free to contact us with any specific HVAC questions you might have, including questions about refrigeration on Guam, and air conditioning on Guam.