Usually the factory charges listed on the sticker If the sticker is still present. Personally I don't bother weighing it in when I recharge my leaky dehumidifier I added a little bit of leak stop and I charged it up by superheat while watching discharge temperatures and monitoring it for quite a while of runtime I don't remember the exact numbers but I got it working pretty good.

 

Check out post number 92 on this thread. This is how I've been charging these two dehumidifiers up for 2 years now. The leak seems to be greatly reduced from the leak stop I installed now as well.
https://hvac-talk.com/vbb/threads/2228824-Electronics-question-TCL-dehumidifier-model-TDW30E19

 

The by-feel charge wants to be: no frost on the evaporator coil and a cool suction line at the compressor - but not beyond that. If the side of the compressor below the suction line connection is also cool - the system is overcharged.

PHM
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Beauty thanks guys.

I’ve been debating between stop leak and top it off vs sucking it down fixing the leak and then weighing it in. Odds are good it’s going to get the stop leak treatment at this point.

 

Date code says 2021 so 3ish years old

 

Still; just changing & monitoring establishes a baseline. Does the refrigerant leak out in a month or in two years?

What is Your Goal? Is the primary goal to have a dehumidifier this summer? Or is the primary goal 'to do it because you want to do it'? <g>

PHM
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If you have the spare time, pull the gas, braze the leak (you already found it, half the battle is over), pump it down and weigh it in. Note the numbers with the factory charge in Sharpie on the back panel, then if it leaks again, you know exactly where to top it off to. It'll only take a couple hours, you know it's not contaminated since the leak's on the high side, so you can probably skip replacing the drier and a long pump down.


Sent from my Pixel 6 using Tapatalk

 

Brand name?

Teddy Bear

 

GE APEL50LzQ1

 

I decided that the piercing valve will probably leak worse than the pinhole and it’s not worth the effort of fixing it beyond getting it running. Gave it my old standby by feel charge of once all the evaporator coils are cold and sweating, and the suction line immediately after is just starting to sweat (automotive I always did so the inlet and outlet felt about the same on orifice tube systems), and called it good enough. It’s doing what it needs to do!

 

Why not braze in a valve?