Amana portable A/C: shop limitations, inneresting thermodynamics....

Existential Angst · 2010-07-10T16:25:48+00:00

Awl -- A'ight, so I got one of those portable ditties, for le shop, around 10,000 btu, single hose, as opposed to the more efficient dual hose. A few years ago. Now the unit is flooding condensate.Upon tearing this unit apart, it is clear that these units are *destined* to fail in a shop, from dust.Altho there is a shitty filter on the cold air coil, there is no filter on the condenser coil, which uses shop air to exhaust the heat, and thus can get VERY dirty.And indeed it was was.It is VERY difficult to clean either of these coils properly, and even doing the 60-75% job I did was no joke.To properly clean the condenser coil would require *complete* disassembly of the unit..... COMPLETE.Which proly would not be so bad the second time around, but the FIRST time around appears to be one helluva learning curve.I seemed to be able to do a so-so job by blowing the fins *tangentially*, so as not to jam the dirt/dust further into the fin structure.And blew out the clog in the top drip pan.All in all, a well-made unit, but with numerous fundamental design flaws, such as this cleaning business, and clogging condensate holes, resulting in flooding -- which is what in fact initiated this effort.They really need to be used in clean, dust-free environments.Two-hose units would present less of the dirty hot coil/condenser problem.But, ultimately, all hot condensers coils seem to be difficult to clean, it's just that it seems they take longer to get dirty -- except, of course, for these single-hose units.But here's the neat thermodynamic part:A/C efficiency is ultimately limited by the outside air temperature, for a traditional condenser coil that uses outside air to remove its heat.However, with these portable units (single hose), it's the INSIDE air that cools the condenser coils, which is in part why their EERs are so miserable.BUT, it would appear that this miserable EER cannot be made any MORE miserable by very high outside temps, since those temps no longer come into...

Jul 10, 2010 21 Replies

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Tony 16 years ago

No, defending myself.

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Existential Angst 16 years ago

I thought Dave was commenting to Lloyd about ole syphlitic Litus.

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