Progress on the VMC-44 cooling deck

[Slapshot42]

It's a great project glad to see you are going slow and not rushing the process!

[jholmgren]

Yep - taking it slow, it is for me so I'm not on the clock.  Gives me a nice distraction from the usual stresses of life.

Jim

[Eric]

 Looking good.. the inside of the cabinet doesn't look too bad.. no serious rust.... enjoy threads like this...
Thanks for sharing with us and letting us watch the progress. 

[sc1101]

Great job Jim. Keep up the good work and thanks for posting as you go along. It's nice to see the process and how good it looks before and after. Keep up the good work.

[Jared]

looks great jim

[jholmgren]

Reassembly on the cooling unit is almost completed!  I need to finish dressing and connecting up the new wiring but it is pretty much done.

Sorry for the poor lighting in the pics but it's getting late and we had a really busy day so I'll try to get some better pics next weekend.

Jim

[jholmgren]

It's ALIVE!!!!

I finished up the wiring on the cooling unit tonight so I thought I'd take it for a spin while on the stand.

I plugged it into a surge protector (just in case something awesome happened) - turned the thermostat off and then flipped on the power for the surge protector.  The evaporator fan kicked right on and when I moved the thermostat the condenser fan and compressor started right up!  10 minutes later and the evaporator coil was down from 72* to the low 50's at the furthest part from where the copper tubing enters it with parts of it already in the 30's.  I'm stoked!

I just need to install the wiring clips to tidy it up a bit and it's ready to go back in the machine... when I finish that part of the project. 

Just for grins - here's a before and after shot and a close-up of the new wiring.  The "after" shot is a still from a video of it running, so it's a bit blurry.

[Slider-Bob]

Fantastic job Jim...Appreciate seeing the progress step-by-step. Great thread!

[jholmgren]

Here's a short video (:22) I took last night during the very first 'startup' of the cooling system.  The observant among you may notice that I have the evap fan on upside down.  I did fix that afterwards.   

The click you hear in the beginning of the video is me flipping the power switch on the surge protector to kick everything on.

https://vimeo.com/124172498

Jim

[jholmgren]

Base of the cabinet is all cleaned up with a fresh coat of gloss red.  It's starting to all come together!

Before / During / After