Sodering copper tubing!

[muddog16]

I was reading the topic on roof tops and the great information that boogiethecat gave, it made me starting thinking about when I replace my cooling lines for defroster, generator, and a/c lines. The questions I have are these;  What type of sodering should be used in these systems, silver, lead, etc?  And recommended spacing between support straps? As always thanks for the excellant information!

[belfert]

Aren't copper lines for A/C usually brazed, or maybe that is only for home not vehicle applications?

Brian Elfert

[prevost82]

Hi Pat...for water lines (coolent) use acid core solder. For A/C lines use silver solder

[Nick Badame Refrig/ACC]

Hello muddog16,

In our field of commercial refrigeration, we mostly use silver solder. However there a lot of instances where we need to accomadate for vibration.

I this case we will use silver bearing solder [staybrite#8] It is much stronger than your standard Plumbing solder, and the reason for using it is, You can

solder at a lower tempature to keep the copper from becoming brittle. So the soft copper can still withstand vibration! [as it's designed to]

Hope this helps-

Nick-

[NCbob]

I'm certainly not an expert on this but a few years ago I was watching some HVAC guys making up the copper tubing for the compressor to evaporator side and marveled that they were passing Argon through the tubing while they were soldering it.  In asking why..they told me that it kept the impurities out of the inside of the tubing.  This was hard copper tube.

I'd never heard of this before...but then I don't profess to know everything.  Perhaps Nick or someone more knowledgable than me could point out the benefits of such a practice.

NCbob

[Nick Badame Refrig/ACC]

Hello Bob,

Argon gas is used when we are brazing with silver solder at high temps. the argon gas prevents oxydation inside the copper pipes

which can contaminate the refrigeration oil, clog orfices, and lead to premature compressor burnout!

Nick-