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What is Trane using a rotary in? Besides minis and they don't build them anyway, the Chinese do :(
The unit we are installing next week has a Samsung rotary in it and it is a 2.5 or 3 ton XB I think, will know more when it comes in. It may not come to fruition but with it going to field testing it is very likely that it will.
 
There is a new ac brand called comfortstar, all units made in china, and their small sizes (2.5 t and under) all use panasonic/hitachi rotary compressor. They are super quiet. All these compressors are originally made for mini split system, and their failure rate in mini split system is way lower than the copeland. But not sure in centre ac system.
 
So you say this is a field test for Trane with a rotary? The 3 ton XB13 has a LG scroll in it now.

Nordyne has a Samsung rotary in their cheapest 1.5 to 3 ton 13 SEER units. We've sold exactly 1.

Back to Trane, when they started buying Ameristar from Midea, they told them there must be scrolls in the units, no rotaries.
 
Rotary and Panasonic go together like "Scroll Inside" does with older Rheem units from when Scroll wasn't the standard. Most mini splits are under 2 tons and my understanding is that rotary compressors do better in smaller sizes.

The most common window units are in between 1/2 to 1 ton and they commonly use rotary. They usually don't use high quality brands like Panasonic or Hitachi. They're almost always Made in China. Not just CHINA MADE, but China design/brand as well. The portable unit I have has a " Zhuhai Lingda " brand compressor :gah:

Scroll compressor has no moving parts except for the moving rotor and bearings.

Rotary has a spring loaded vane that rides along the rotor and a discharge reed valve. So, "twin rotary" would have two sets. Rotary compressors usually discharge into the shell, so it is able to deflect discharge gas off baffles and drop the oil back down to minimize oil in discharge stream. Reduced oil circulation improves heat exchanger efficiency.

The suction goes directly into the compression without going bouncing off of the space in shell, so rotaries have a distinctive suction accumulator and a discharge line on tip of the compressor shell.

Image
 
So you say this is a field test for Trane with a rotary? The 3 ton XB13 has a LG scroll in it now.

Nordyne has a Samsung rotary in their cheapest 1.5 to 3 ton 13 SEER units. We've sold exactly 1.

Back to Trane, when they started buying Ameristar from Midea, they told them there must be scrolls in the units, no rotaries.
I am just going on what I was told by the boss man. He may have it wrong..... I will take a peak when the equipment shows up and report back.
 
Rotary and Panasonic go together like "Scroll Inside" does with older Rheem units from when Scroll wasn't the standard. Most mini splits are under 2 tons and my understanding is that rotary compressors do better in smaller sizes.

The most common window units are in between 1/2 to 1 ton and they commonly use rotary. They usually don't use high quality brands like Panasonic or Hitachi. They're almost always Made in China. Not just CHINA MADE, but China design/brand as well. The portable unit I have has a " Zhuhai Lingda " brand compressor :gah:

Scroll compressor has no moving parts except for the moving rotor and bearings.

Rotary has a spring loaded vane that rides along the rotor and a discharge reed valve. So, "twin rotary" would have two sets. Rotary compressors usually discharge into the shell, so it is able to deflect discharge gas off baffles and drop the oil back down to minimize oil in discharge stream. Reduced oil circulation improves heat exchanger efficiency.

The suction goes directly into the compression without going bouncing off of the space in shell, so rotaries have a distinctive suction accumulator and a discharge line on tip of the compressor shell.

Image
They also can take a long time to come around to steady state if they have been off a long time and migrated liquid into the sump - no suction to boil off that liquid as the shell is high side, so the motor has to heat it up.

Those big old tecumseh's (most of what I have seen are 10 ton) behaved that way to, and I have always wondered if they were scrolls, or some sort of rotary design.
 
They also can take a long time to come around to steady state if they have been off a long time and migrated liquid into the sump - no suction to boil off that liquid as the shell is high side, so the motor has to heat it up.
In a way that's a good thing. When you have a lot of refrigerant in oil and you reduce pressure on it suddenly, it will foam over like shaken up soda and wash out the bearings. When it's on the high side, pressurization as opposed to depressurization suppresses this. This brings up another question.

Does rotary suffer more in performance when it is turned on/off often...?
 
There's still the issue of refrigerant diluting the oil, especially during startup when the refrigerant wants to condense into the crankcase. A crankcase heater can help minimize that.
 
In a way that's a good thing. When you have a lot of refrigerant in oil and you reduce pressure on it suddenly, it will foam over like shaken up soda and wash out the bearings. When it's on the high side, pressurization as opposed to depressurization suppresses this. This brings up another question.

Does rotary suffer more in performance when it is turned on/off often...?
Just an observation - it can look like a low charge for 10 minutes or so, then all of a sudden SH & SC will come around.

As far as performance and efficiency from cycling, I have no idea.

Rotary has been around for a long time - I wonder why it hasn't caught on sooner here -- just un-American like soccer or the metric system?
 
Remember the Fedders fiasco with rotaries in heat pumps?

Now the Nordyne IQ drive has inverter rotaries and Carrier/Bryant are introducing them as well. I notice that both manufacturers are shutting the compressors off in cold weather. I think Nordyne is 14° and I think Carrier is 10°.
 
I am trying a rotary compressor myself

I am trying an LG rotary compressor. Oddly enough; in a Coleman condensing unit. <g>

I'm a little sorry that I didn't add a discharge check valve - because it backspins on shutdown - but LG engineering told me that it didn't make any difference in their testing.

Mine is about 17K nominal but it's installed with a 5 ton condenser coil and a 3 ton TXV evaporator. So I really don't know how many BTU's I'm moving, although I wish it was less, but the condensing unit pulls about 5 amps. And really; the condenser fan motor is probably most of an amp of that total. <g>

I want to try using a 12,000 BTU compressor in that same setup but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

This is the second season with the rotary. It sounds weird but other than that it seems to do everything well.

PHM
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Besides Nordyne, who else is trying a rotary?
 
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I am trying an LG rotary compressor. Oddly enough; in a Coleman condensing unit. <g>

I'm a little sorry that I didn't add a discharge check valve
There's already one in each chamber so the gas it just compressed doesn't flood back in. LG (is it Made in Korea? ) generally makes ok products and I would trust it over some China made with label from a brand you never even heard of.
 
So why does it backspin on shutdown? When it stops this one sounds like a tiny screw compressor with a back discharge check valve.

PHM
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There's already one in each chamber so the gas it just compressed doesn't flood back in. LG (is it Made in Korea? ) generally makes ok products and I would trust it over some China made with label from a brand you never even heard of.
 
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Anytime we do a compressor replacement on any out of warranty unit, I put a Copeland scroll in it. Even the American Standard units with the big orange cans get a Copeland scroll with a homemade mounting plate.
They work flawlessly.
 
It just does a little stop-speedup(backwards)-stop kind of deal. It sure sounds like backspin to me. There is a little chattery kind of sound too - now that I'm thinking about it.

PHM
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Rolls back or bit or spins and spins? There's a small amount of gas pocket, so that can push the rotor back into suction side (where there's no valve).
 
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