AC Recovery Machine.

[avrguser]

Hello, I hope this is the right place to talk about AC recovery machines. At this time I have 2 cars with broken AC, I did some math and realized it'll be better and cheaper to get my own setup so I can work on AC anytime I need than pay a shop every time and hope they won't mess up anything. So there are basically two types - a stationary one that most shops use (very expensive and very heavy), and a portable one, which costs and weights less, but every single unit is separate and it has bunch of hoses, etc. I couldn't really find what's the difference between them, like do the have the same features? The stationary machine costs on average 5k and it's 200+ lb, the portable one, you can buy a whole setup for around 1.5k and it'll be less than 100lb. So why it's such a big difference if both do the same? This is what I need:

1. I want to use it for my own cars and maybe home AC as well;
2. Looks like the stationary machines have built in computer for AC diagnostic, will I be able to test AC with the portable one?;
3. I need a machine that will do recovery and recharging, also measures and separates oil and vapor, I'm assuming that's important for a car AC;
4. How do I know if the refrigerant is contaminated, will I be able to find out this with any of these machines?

Please explain to me the basic stuff, I want to know what exactly do I need and what's the difference. Also, am I required to get a license or anything like that to use the equipment at home? Thanks.

 

[e9999]

I don't know much about this, but I would guess that a lot of the problems with car A/Cs have to do with losing the refrigerant. In which case there is nothing much to recover. And it also (last time I looked some years back) cost only like $20 or $30 to replenish with a modern refrigerant and that's very easy to do with just a gauge and a couple of adapters. So I guess I would not buy a refrigerant recovery machine myself at $1,500+ , FWIW. I suspect that shops use them because they have to due to regulations, or because they want to save expensive Freon. But I guess you already figured out that you actually need/want one. May I ask why, so I know better?

 

[jpoole]

Agree with the question of why, there may be a good reason but I can't think of one myself.

If you need to open the system to do work you can take it to a shop and pay them to evacuate the system. From there you can make your repairs and then you can get a vacuum pump and gauges from a place like Advance Auto, Autozone, Oreilly's or similar for free. You pay a deposit, get the tools then get your money back when the work is done. A small digital scale may also be helpful if you are recharging by weight.

It would take a lot of system evacuations to recoup the cost of paying a shop to do them for you I think and once your AC system(s) is right they tend to stay that way for years.