Shop Build...should be a fun journey...

[Tom M King]

The adjustable wrenches freak me out some.

[Jim Becker]

The adjustable wrenches freak me out some.

They are fine for these quick connects and are what most DIY folks likely use for this...1" and larger wrenches are not always on-hand or even easy to find and when you do, they are pricey. I know that because I looked. The manual even mentions them in the tools needed chart as an alternative. That said, I don't like adjustable wrenches as I find they tend to "keep adjusting themselves" as you use them.

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Chris, these last steps indeed have been moving along. I'm trying not to rush...mistakes happen as was, um...the case yesterday. In theory, drywall can be sometime next week at the earliest.

[Tom M King]

After my experience with hydraulic lines on a tractor, I'll only use flare nut wrenches on any line nuts from now on. I had a pro install the mini-split when my Mother had to move in with us on short notice. I don't know what wrenches he used, but the lines leaked several months later at the fittings. The flare nuts are by far the most troublesome part about a mini-split system.

Not hooking up HVAC lines every day, I only feel comfortable using a torque wrench and flare nut sockets. Not exactly this size torque wrench, but this is the only picture I have of such a setup. And a regular Flare Nut wrench is there is one to hold on the other side if needed. Picture shows large size flare nut wrenches. I've never had one to leak that I fastened using this type of wrench or socket. If there is a thin coupling between two flare nuts on lines, there is no choice but to use a "Service Wrench" (not in HVAC systems, but they were in the picture anyway).

I wouldn't even use regular fixed size wrenches. A flare nut wrench or socket grabs a flare nut all around. They're commonly called "line wrenches".

[Jim Becker]

If I were someone that did this kind of work regularly, I'd certainly invest in the correct, industry specific tools. I actually discovered I do have a 1" open end wrench (but only one) as I bought it for some tractor maintenance a few years ago and that would work for the smaller line, but I do not own a 1.125" wrench as there's never been a need.

I did take a short period of time today to rip out a bunch of the blocking I had installed in that bay to make installation of the new, shorter line set easier once it arrives. I've had time to redesign a few things in my head anyway, and the new arrangement will work just fine...support above the area that I believe the lathe will live but open with just the normal horizontal girt otherwise. Yea, I wasted a couple of 2x4s and some scrap, but at this point, I really don't care. Doing a quality install of the mini split is more important to me.

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I also fixed a mental mistake in my electrical panel that I suddenly thought of at about 4am when I woke up to, um...take a walk. I forgot that the neutrals for the four GFCI breaker circuits had to land "on" the breakers. That's now fixed. A little thing, but it would have been perplexing when nothing would work. LOL

I may try to build the other three speaker supports this weekend as there's really nothing else I can do inside and I do not want to start the drywall until my help is available. If I can get those three supports/enclosures done, I can get the speakers hung and check that off my list. Hopefully, the salvaged material I have stacked and covered is ok and usable.

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As an aside, today's heavy rain was pretty loud out there in the essentially empty shop!

[derek labian]

I dont know what your Mr Cool came with as far as thread sealant but I had trouble getting my flare nut connections to hold vacuum until I added some Nylog Blue equivalent. No problems since. Also very interesting regarding the bending system for the lines, as Tom suggested I needed a pipe bender for inwall install radiuses. Maybe its a Mr Cool thing?

[Bob Riefer]

Around the steel not being flat for mounting...

Back in my pole barn sales days, one of the old timers showed me his preferred method... He had a pile of Azek (that white PVC sheet material) "blanks" he had fabricated by laminating two 3/4" pieces together and then cut into 6" x 6" (or whatever dimension you like) pieces. So 6 x 6 x 1.5 thick. He had a router bit that matched the rib profile well enough (from memory, I'm guessing it may have been a simple chamfer bit) and he would line up a blank, mark where the rib is, and route the groove. A dab of silicone in the routed groove before installing made for a nice, waterproof fit. A nice looking, functional, flat mounting surface. He was really fast at it.

Years later when I had steel installed on my barn, I mimicked his approach by just cutting a channel with a dado stack. That also worked really well and was faster for me.

[Jim Becker]

Derek, yes, Mr Cool makes the line sets so they are "easy" for a DIY-er to do necessary bends...at the compressor end of the lineset and on the tails from the interior unit. The latter has spring steel surrounds which support the copper tubing during the bends and at the compressor/condenser end of the lineset, the small line has the spring steel and the larger line has a spiraling. On the compressor/condenser end, the accommodations are about 24". I'm going to leverage that better for "round two" by moving the outdoor unit about a foot farther "north" so that the exit from the wall is direct to the connections. That places the bending accomodation in a good spot to help with the necessary bending without exceeding the minimum radius. Removing all that blocking on the wall is going to be very helpful this time around and there will be no excess line set to bury. Now if I were not using this DIY setup, I probably would have had a lineset fabricated that had actual 90º fittings at the wall exit. However, even with my "heartbreaking mistake", I'm still likely saving nearly two grand over an HVAC company install.

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Bob, I actually have created a CNC template to cut the steel pattern in the back of "something" if I needed a flush mounted block of some kind. I made that because of the original lighting solution I was going to use up over the person-door, but changed to a different fixture that didn't require it. It wasn't worth pursuing it for this little opening in the back as trimming back the spray foam and slathering a layer of caulk to smooth it out followed by paint will pretty much make it nice and clean.

[derek labian]

Thats really neat, i wonder if they patented.. that seems like a big selling point for dIY systems.

[Tom M King]

Those lines are pretty impressive. I don't understand what I'm seeing with those fittings though. I'm assuming the extra coupling is to cut down on the possibility of buggering up the ends of those lines. There is no doubt you're saving a couple of grand.

[Greg Quenneville]

When the lines are connected do you have to pull a vacuum and fill with coolant?

Greg

[Jim Becker]

Those lines are pretty impressive. I don't understand what I'm seeing with those fittings though. I'm assuming the extra coupling is to cut down on the possibility of buggering up the ends of those lines. There is no doubt you're saving a couple of grand.

When the lines are connected do you have to pull a vacuum and fill with coolant?

Greg

Tom, the fittings are a type of brass quick connect that AFAIK, only Mr Cool uses, but I could be wrong about that. These lines are pre-charged with "the stuff" so the quick connect method means no pulling a vacuum before opening up the valves on the compressor/condenser which is also pre-charged. The act of tightening up the nuts opens up the seals that keep "the stuff" inside the lineset under pressure from the factory. Really, if I had not made a poor mental/physical mistake, this thing would have been up and actually running within a couple minutes of me tightening up the connections at either end with those admittedly horrible adjustable wrenches. The company designed this so "normal people" with reasonable physical dexterity can do the complete install, as long as the electrical needs are in place, of course. You test for leaks twice...after physically connecting the line set to both ends of the system (since it's pre-charged) and then again after you open up the valves at the compressor/condenser to release the refrigerant. If you do detect a leak, the line set will re-seal when you back off the nuts and, of course, you'll have wanted to also close the valves on the compressor/condenser, too.

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Today's activity this afternoon after we got back from a Costco trip was to mill up some reclaimed material for the other three flat panel speaker "enclosures" and get them put together. I will hopefully complete those tomorrow and maybe get the speakers hung this week as something to do pending other work.

[Tom M King]

That makes even more sense. I was wondering what those fittings were. So the wrench type doesn't matter much at all.

Ordinary flare nuts are easy to distort. You can tell when one is distorted because a regular wrench will fit on one pair of flats, be too loose on another opposite pair, and won't go on the third pair of flats. Flare nut wrenches and sockets pull on all the points around a flare nut, so won't distort the nut. This quick connect system eliminates that possibility for the ordinary person trying to figure stuff out on their own from screwing something up.

This system is about as idiot proof as it gets. I expect it's been through several generations of change, and should be reliable now.

[Jim Becker]

Yea, 4th generation now. I'll try to remember to take some closer photos of the actual connectors. There are o-rings involved and there is lots of thread there before you have to get to the final tightening so it helps insure that the person doing the work can carefully hand-thread enough of the nut to avoid buggering the threads. These are a lot more "friendly" than flares for the DIY setup. The actual physical quality of hte fittings/nuts is nice, too.

They also eliminated the need for the DYI-er to connect wires to the inside unit compared to the previous generations. That electric power and control cable is now a coated MC cable already attached which means there's no opening up the case of the inside unit during the install, other than opening the normal filter door to attach some kind of small "freshening" pad to the filter and to slip the WiFI remote control "dongle" into a USB port. In a normal install, one just includes the cable while bundling/wrapping the line set. For my in-the-wall installation, I don't even need to do that since it will exit the wall right at the compressor/condenser and there's no need to wrap it into the line set at that point.

[Tom M King]

Also, I wonder if they give a recommended temperature range for making those connections. R410a runs at very high pressure. The higher the temperature, the higher the pressure. If it was really hot out, the pressure would be high in the lines.

The way you can tell if refrigerant is contaminated in a recovery tank is by measuring the temperature and pressure. If they correspond like they should, the refrigerant is okay.

That's one of the most important things the HVAC manifold gauge set helps you do. They have two gauges so each one can measure pressure with one on the vapor line, and one on the liquid line. The compressor turns gas into liquid, and the evaporator turns liquid into gas. With both the gauges hooked up to each different line, and a temperature probe on each line, you can tell how efficiently the system is running, and whether it's low or too high on quantity of refrigerant in it. It seems like voodoo before you understand it, but it makes sense once you do.

[Tom M King]

I'm glad to understand how those DIY lines work now, and am impressed with the design. Lot of threads to start is another good thing.