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Difference that tubing size makes

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Solitaire

Registered
Joined
Aug 16, 2004
I tried a search on this, but it didn't seem to be working. Utmostly quizzical.

I recently managed to acquire an evaporator from a large commercial refrigerator. This means I have a nice big single pass radiator, copper tubing, aluminium fins, never used (it was new but one of the brackets was defective). The only problem is that the tubing is 3/8" diameter, and I really was planning on having a 1/2" system. Now I have this nice piece of equipment I am reconsidering... will I see a significant performance difference between 1/2 and 3/8 tubing?

If 3/8 is much worse, I might just use 2 of these evaporators in parallel. I managed to get 2 of them.

(I also discovered that the fins on these things tend to be razor sharp. Yes, I found out the hard way)
 
It's not a huge temp differnce between 1/2 and 3/8, just a few degrees. Do what ever is easier, don't let the tubing be the main factor in what you decide to do.
Since you got two of them, use both. The more cooling, the better.
 
Judging from some measurements, each rad has about 30 feet of copper tubing in it.

This is going to take some serious head pressure.

I might convert one of the rads into a "dual pass" one... that is, split the flow and have 2 half-length circuits within the same area.
 
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