Experienced Scrapper
I aquired some home ac unit parts and i was wondering if anyone could help. I think they are the compressors off of the unit. Its about a foot and a half tall and is egg shaped. It weighs about 50 lbs each or more and had copper pipe going into it. Has anyone ever cut one of these open? Any copper inside of them or is it just the piping that is copper? Thanks all, i just dont know if it would be a waste of time opening it or do you guys just sell them outright?
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I have cut into a few of them, and do not mess with them anymore. I sell them as whole compressors. There is quite a bit of windings inside, but it is usually pretty hard to cut them out when you get the electric motor out of the compressor. The windings are covered in some type of shellac coating, which makes them a pain to work with, unlike a refrigerator compressor in which the windings are uncoated and are relatively easy to remove. The casing for the ac compressor also is pretty thick, and much harder to cut through than a refrigerator compressor. If I get an ac unit, I will cut the copper pipe off, drain the oil out then sell the compressor as is.
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Look up some of FreonJoe's old posts. I seem to remember he had photos or videos about this.
Experienced Scrapper
Alright thanks for the advise everyone!
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When prices were good sold them whole after draining the oil. With prices depressed I am cutting them with a torch (much cheaper and faster than a cutting blade on a grinder for me) and salvaging the copper to stockpile. For some it is not worth the time and effort, but for me it is worth it. I learned a great deal from Freonjoe's posts here and highly recommend them. Good luck.
Last edited by Patriot76; 11-22-2015 at 07:14 AM. Reason: Added "for me" because others are faster with a grinder than I am.
Give back more to this world than we take.
Metal Recycling Entrepreneur
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The ones I find, in 'Inverter Heatpumps' are the tall sort. They have three large weld spots on the outer casing.
This holds the Iron core of the motor to the casing and that means u have to seperate the casing off the Iron core from both ends.
Ie If you cut around the casing above the three weld spots, you only get access to one end of the Iron core and its Copper wire.
So its twice the amount of work..
And because theres the same amount of Copper in them as a normal fridge motor (2Lbs or as much as 1Kg).
Its twice the amount of work for the same return.
Sell them as 'Fridge compressors' or whatever their class of metal is.
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I forgot how much info Idahoscrapper has provided on this subject as well as condensers. Personally I interchange the terms all the time. Here is a previous thread with advice from many of the same individuals posting here as well as some old timers. As you can see many prefer cut off wheels, personally I prefer a torch.
http://www.scrapmetalforum.com/scrap...can-worms.html
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Patriot - I don't have any experience using a torch, but I can cut any piston type compressor open in less than a minute with a plasma cutter and the compressor on a lazy susan. These are the ones with the weld going around the circumference of the unit. Refrigerator compressors are this type, and also some a/c compressors. The other types take me longer as there are more cuts to be made.Originally Posted by Patriot76
Refrigerator ones average conservatively 8% copper recovery, and a/c piston type 6%. However, the refrigerator ones average 20 lbs each and the a/c ones can be up over 100 lbs. Time spent handling the smaller ones can add up, although I'm not sure which I prefer dealing with the most. Also, these types can contain aluminum windings, but you won't run across too many like that.
There are two other hermetic compressors that you'll run across -
Scroll Type - About 6% recovery. These are large and annoying to deal with (to me at least). Very similar dealing with these as with the rotary type below.
Rotary Type - You'll find these in PTACs and window units most of the time. They're not so bad to deal with. 10% recovery on these, more if the suction accumulator on the side is copper (hint- there's a steel filter inside one end of these, use a magnet to locate it). I make 5 cuts on these laying them on their side. One cut right under the weld on the top cap, one above the three spot welds near the bottom. Three lenth-wise evenly spaced cuts connecting the top and bottom cuts (this deals with the stator that is pressed in). I make three cuts because the stator is pressed right against the case, and more often than not, one of the cuts just melts the case right to the stator in a couple spots. After I'm done, I drop it on the ground next to my table and it all falls apart. With all this cutting on such a smaller compressor, things get hot, and the windings get burned and scorched most of the time.
Last edited by ryanw; 11-21-2015 at 09:12 PM. Reason: Adding a few notes for other compressor types.
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