Teardown of an electronic refrigerant diverter valve
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 29 мар 2023
- Thanks to Rob for sending this for a teardown. It was pleasingly simple inside, while still allowing full computerised control of the diversion between either or both outlets.
It's fully hermetically sealed without any direct magnetic coupling, to avoid refrigerant loss through seals. I had to use the Dremel to get it open.
It's used to selectively divert refrigerant between the fridge and freezer sections of a single compressor system, but could also be used in other applications.
Unsurprisingly it uses a similar technique to the air flow diverter vanes in air conditioners.
If you enjoy these videos you can help support the channel with a dollar for coffee, cookies and random gadgets for disassembly at:- www.bigclive.com/coffee.htm
This also keeps the channel independent of RUclips's algorithm quirks, allowing it to be a bit more dangerous and naughty.
#ElectronicsCreators 
Наука
I love your show! When I was a child my mother would buy "sacrificial appliances" at yard sales to protect her good small appliances from my curiosity. It blows my mind that you have almost a million people watching you take stuff apart! Keep showing us! Curious viewers want to know!
A lot of the channel viewers took their toys and random appliances apart when they were kids. It seems that Mother Nature designates some of use as engineers from birth.
@@bigclivedotcom At a very coarse approximation I think it might boil down to a brain that is a) deeply curious and b) wired to prefer interacting with inert thins rather than other people. And yes I do think both of those manifest basically from birth.
The first time I saw this motor construction was a pond water pump. I was so used to a commutator based motor that I thought the complete isolation of the moving parts was some kind of magic/witchcraft. A couple of minutes with an angle grinder set me straight. "With an angle grinder" are probably words for life
The little pump in the cat water fountain and the slightly bigger pump under the washing machine work that way here, though without the multi phase/ stepper engineering. Simple. When the seals fail both will work for a while, until the vibrating rust cuts through the enamel on the magnet wire in too many places.
Yep. Many small water pumps use this type of configuration. Very safe, and leak free.
The most obvious example of a such complete isolation of the moving parts is probably the compressor in the same refrigerator :-)
Clive has given us a view that even us technical guys have seldom seen. It's truly amazing how these small but important control mechanisms work to make our everyday lives easier. Thank you so much, Sir!
This interests me quite a lot because I work on older refrigeration equipment, extensively. This is quite the bit of engineering, and totally something I hope never to have in anything I own. There are much simpler and more robust ways to have a fridge and freezer operate off the same compressor. I can imagine the fate of the plastic gears when the condenser fan fails and this is presented with extremely hot gas; or how it works after a few years of service and crystalized POE oil ends up in the working bits. The manufacturer will make some small change to the design and discontinue the prior part, rendering the whole refrigerator landfill fodder with no alternative parts available.
In spite of my negative comment, I love seeing how you analyze things and explain them. I really do appreciate it! Just dissing on the issues we are facing with consumer products in general.
I have a fridge with this exact valve. It's a three section. The fridge does not cool one of the freezers, and will shut off all cap tubes once one of the sections is at temperature. The compressor will stay on in this event because the freezer has not reached temp, but the computer thinks the valve is open. it's clear from the tear down that something internal has moved to a bad position. Thank you.
I expected something way different for the Valve I wasn’t even close. Thank you for the look inside
I had a fridge with a freezer compartment in my cottage, and I noticed that when it got very cold in the winter (the cottage was not heated), the contents of the freezer would defrost. I surmised that it was because the fridge basically stopped at ambient temperatures under 5C, and your video just confirmed that.
This is a problem with combined fridge/freezers that don't have this valve (or two separate compressors) and just one thermostat in the fridge compartment. They assume normal room temperature because then the fridge secetion will heat up enough so that the thermostat in the fridge will turn on the compressor. If the room tempertaure is not enough to heat up the fridge section (in a cold garage in winter etc) then often there is a semi hidden switch which will run the light bulb in the fridge section continously at half power (simple diode in series). This will generate enough heat to cycle the thermostat and keep the freezer section frozen.
What a beautiful piece of engineering! Thank you for the detailed explanation of it.
Whenever you are about to use violence to open something and do a jump cut, I half expect the next scene to have blood everywhere, your fingers covered in band aids, your bench still smouldering and the ambient flashing of blue lights outside 😀😀
the "multiple windings slightly out of phase" concept is also used for launched roller coasters, where linear stators are placed on the track and simultaneously attract and repel the permanent magnets on the underside of the trains due to there being multiple coils (usually 3) inside each assembly. the train essentially "rides inside" the sine wave generated by the stators, and then you vary the frequency to accelerate or decelerate. it's neat to see something similar in a different form factor!
Sine wave! Of course! Was mulling over a custom linear actuator system design and assumed I would have to make a custom firing order for each coil but sine wave implementation is so much easier. To be fair it was just food for thought about a possible future project, nothing I had actually looked in to.
@@PseudoEmpathy make sure you grab a bunch of accurate hall effect sensors as well, and some type of high frequency reading device (an inexpensive PLC with a high frequency IO module would do the trick). if the Eddy current frequency between the permanent magnets and the stator coils is off by even the slightest amount, you will end up braking instead of accelerating
however, this also has the secondary benefit of the stators acting as brakes by default - so if you need to stop the thing, just cut the power and the stators will do 95% of the stoppage for you (Eddy current brakes cannot completely stop a moving load).
Genius. A nylon gear and valve pivot on a pressed bearing plate. Engineered to fail, £1500 American style fridge freezer becomes trash. Recycling nightmare in the making. Much kudos to the guy who repaired his and sent in the broken part.
Fascinating, thanks! Would love more of these teardowns of common household gizmos as we use them every day and have no idea what goes into them.
I can see a common failure mode in this type of valve in that the electronics wouldn't know how fast the valve turns as such, so if it becomes sticky it may turn to the start position but then not be able to fully open unless there's extra electronics to count how many turns the motor needs to go from one stop to the other.
It's a stepper motor, so the motor can control the precise position by the number of pulses from the homing position.
There isnt really a way for it to become sticky. The gears operate in liquid R600a which would clean off anything sticky that isnt going to be within the refrigeration circuit to begin with as that would kill the compressor.
@@bigclivedotcom Oh aye! I forgot about that. Early morning fluffy head. :)
I'm glad I retired out of the appliance repair business. started in '81 and the closet thing I saw in my time is 50's and 60' refrigerators with hot gas defrost which had magnetic valve that diverted hot gas to the evaporator, basically like a heat pump. tis is a very interesting system, there are two types of systems with the split evaporators, Parallel cycle and TDM cycle , I'll let you young folks go from there, thanks for the video. interesting the advances in the trade
Clive you're the best !!!! I really likes appliances and appliances part and your video explains more than I know like how it was made
Love your videos. This refrigerant valve is basically a miniature motorized single lever faucet
I always learn something from this channel - without having to un-engineer stuff to do it.
Ah, you reminded me of the unmistakable "clankclankclankclank" of a lighting rig full of Goldenscan HPEs all homing their stepper motors after switch on.
Yes, very interesting. Would love to have you show a stepper motor working/further explanation on what's happening when it rotates, etc.
The best way to do that is to use some magnetically responsive film and lay it between the two coils (without the drive components), and then step the motor bit by bit to show the fields flipping around.
Check out 'Brushless DC Motors and Brushed DC Motors explained - BLDC Fan (2)' by Post Apocalyptic Inventor. It's an old video but 10 minutes in he shows how to get a compass moving with 2 electromagnets and a switch. A very rudimentary start on how things work. A stepper motor is a specialized BLDC motor.
I'm pretty sure you could find an animated explanation online, but if I try to put a link here that isn't to youtube or wikipedia, youtube will silently delete my comment, so you get to google it yourself. Basically those little metal triangular "fingers" conduct the magnetic field from the coil to just outside the rotor. As you change the polarity of both coils, you move the rotor over one step each time. It's like a regular motor, but with way more poles, and because there are so many poles, you need the fingers to get the field to the right place, as opposed to having individual coils wrapped around the stator.
@@gorak9000 I know what you mean about YT deleting comments. I ALWAYS copy before posting, and then do a refresh, because SO many times I write a thoughtful comment, just to find YT has deleted it. I have experimented and normally it is an external web address or perceived to be a link that gets it killed, but a number of times not sure, but VERY frustrating.
@@BrilliantDesignOnline It's worth checking from another browser also, where you're not logged in. I've had one recently look fine, but then "not be there" when checked sans my login. Quotes there because there's a name for that, but I'm avoiding the same frustration here.
I work in the central development for a large appliance producer for built in fridge/freezers.
At least our valves calibrate by stalling to either extreme aswell. That's done on powerup and every now and then (24h or so), that takes only a few seconds. We don't use any feedback - it's just counting and indexing. If no cooling is detected as expected it will register an error and retry or error out.
Ours can only feed either fridge or freezer at a time. These diverter valves are a higher end feature. Some other designs use an air flap to vary air flow between fridge and freezer and only cool the freezer. Other designs only use one cooling circuit and basically rely on over or undercooling either compartment.
very interesting to see all the little things that make every day items (like a fridge) working. amazing job as always!
GM BC from Paul in Orlando. I appreciate your exploration and attention to detail of oddities. Your visual representation of items with a closeup view which is comprehensive in scope. I’ve learned a lot about devices / circuits and enjoy the content. Carry on my friend 😊 your the best!
Well, thanks to this, I now know how the tiny pump in my cats water fountain works. Cheers Clive.
I always love the way you explain things, it is a joy to hear your comment with often a lot of humor.
Very simple but interesting piece of engineering. I’m used to valves being mechanical- overall great video once again clive.
"It must come apart" Big Clive. Thank you for all the cool videos and break down of those items. 👍
more mechanical stuff like this, please!
Another fascinating teardown video, thanks Big Man
Very neat...thanks Clive & Robb!
Now you need to track down, and disassemble, the driver board that controls the motor. Guessing at least two temperature sensors for fridge and freezer as input.
Well, that was highly diverting. Thanks, BigClive!
Like it.
This is cool. I have a 12 volt portable fridge / freezer with dual zone controls and I was wondering how they managed that.
Some of them do it completely differently: ours at home just has the evaporator at the freezer side, and a valve that closes down the air path to the fridge. When the fridge is cold enough already but the freezer is not yet, it closes the valve and keeps cooling the freezer. When it needs to cool down the fridge, it opens the flap valve so air circulates there, and cools both sides. If the freezer is too cold but the fridge isn't cold enough yet, it only circulates the air, without turning the compressor on at all, just trading heat between upper and lower sections (fridge and freezer).
@@Kalvinjj @Kalvinjj neat!
If you continue following that logic, you could also omit the valve completely by using a reversible centrifugal fan: if it spins, say, clockwise, it sends the air through both the freezer and the fridge; If it spins anti-clockwise, it sends the air through a shortcut, circulating it in the freezer, only.
Well done Clive, brilliant teardown. These have been around for a good few years now on domestic refrigeration where zoned cooling is required (higher end fridge freezers, wine coolers etc) Another development, originally from Embraco, but no doubt others are doing them too now is the variable speed compressor.
Clive your timing is perfect, fridge section of our fridge/freezer died on Monday with the fridge making some odd ticking noises, you've just explained it!
These aren't common, so check if your model actually has one before you assume its something complex. Most electronic controlled fridge/freezers these days have a single evaporator in the freezer then blow cold air to the fridge, so you probably have a airflow problem; either iced up, or a fan or baffle broken.
Plastic gears are sure going to last a long time! Engineered obsolescence at work here.
Fantastic explanation, thank you!
Thanks, Rob!
Another magnetic material consumption. Thank you Clive
Electro mechanical devices are just the best...! Thanks for the video
What an elegant piece of design. Cheap, yes, but it looks like it should work for years.
Unfortunately these fail constantly and are one of the most common failures on Samsung (and other) dual zone refrigerators. Probably due to the nylon gears stripping out. Before I replaced mine with an Electrolux, this valve failed 4 times in 6 years, and I know many other people who have also had the same failures. You can even search for Samsung freezer or refrigerator compartment not cooling, and this is almost always the culprit. It gets stuck in one position, which will allow coolant to flow only to the evaporator for one compartment.
I'm used to the old style refrigerators, which flow refrigerant to an evaporator in the freezer and use a fan to force cold air into the refrigerator section. I don't like electronics in appliances. It just makes them less reliable and more expensive to repair. My uncle still had a functioning refrigerator from the 50's in his basement, while the refrigerator in his kitchen was lucky to last 7 years before failing. It's like new clothes washers, with direct drive motors. They use less water during rinse cycles, which creates a higher load on the motors and they fail earlier than older, less efficient transmission type washers, that laundromats use. I've had Speed Queen washers from laundromats, that have been running for decades with easy repairs.
That's from a top end fridge or one that has the freezer on the bottom. Usually all the refrigerant goes to the freezer and by opening or closing a door inside the fridge ( the thermostat ) you allow how much cold air you want to go to the lower part. That keeps it simple, more reliable and cheaper to manufacture. Very interesting tear down.
Nice look inside, this device is has similarities with aquarium pumps that also need to seperate electrics from liquids. Thx for the video 😊
Just living for the BC late night uploads!
Great video and a clever mechanism. Thanks for the teardown. You saved me about $1900 for buying a fridge and chainsawing it apart AvE style to see the diverter. 8^) Cheers! PS forgot to mention that the valve piece may be injection moulded crystalline polyphenylene sulfide (PPS - trade names Ryton or Supec) with glass fibre - same stuff the back terminal housings of halogen car lamps are made of. Just an educated guess.
What an elegant design. Just enough to work, and nothing extra.
Surprised at how small the ports are, thought they'd hinder the flow of the liquid refrigerant. I guess the flow of liquid is miniscule with the much smaller amounts of refrigerant involved in domestic fridge freezers, especially with R600a which is usually less than 100 grams 🙂
This always amaze me how little mass of refrigerant is enough to cool down fridge and freezer
Nice coils!
You could use that magnetic viewing film to show the poles of the magnets of the rotor.
Too risky, they still burn people as witches for such sorcery on the Isle of Man
I'd love to seen that if you have that sort of film Clive. It'd make a great short
I've found them very reliable unless you heat them up too much when you're brazing them in. I've looked at the PCB a little. Looks like they short the 12-14v rail to ground through the windings with IGBT. When you plug the machine in you can feel or hear the rotor hit the home position repeatedly.
Yep! When plugged in initially, the motherboard will turn on a series of components: condenser fan, compressor, 3-way valve - which u can hear if it’s relatively quiet - move through three positions. (I used to hate them)
What a beautiful and ingenuous, albeit fragile, piece of engineering!
It won't last many years (unless all the system works as intended - not always the case), but at least it's interesting.
Neat - I haven't seen this application before. Besides the HVAC EEVs (electronic expansion valves) Clive mentioned (might have said "TXV"), this type of stepper motor is also used on some EGR valves (on Toyotas at least). They drive a kind of worm screw instead of the gears in this one.
Thank you, man. You are clever
thanks brother, iv always wondered what was inside those things, its always surprising how much torque little tiny servos can deliver
Intersting teardown. Those plastic bits and bobs will likely take on an interesting shape if the condenser fan were to quit.
Impressive knowledge of refrigeration for an electronics guy.
I used to work for Hussmann doing installs and conversions on supermarket refrigeration systems.
Fascinating!
Very interesting
Very interesting Clive. I was surprised how simple the port selector was. I expected to see O rings.
That was great, thanks Clive. I just wonder how many they had to build before the got all of the sections to work as they wanted.
Cheers to you.
I've never heard of a fridge where you can set the top and bottom individually before but I buy the cheap stuff when the fridge goes every so often. For something that has alot of computer control capability it's very simple inside, i was expecting it to contain a PCB and its own internal circuitry as things in this day and age tend to do but does make parts cheaper doing it like this.
Although the one advantage of not having a central control brain is while the parts were more expensive as they had their own brain, it was technically more cheaper as the main module goes for one thing its a big deal.
We have a dehumidifier with hot gas defrost and this has some sort of valve in there, and I wondered how they made it gas tight so assumed the whole valve was sealed in the system and was acted on by an external magnet, but couldn't get into the valve to see (without being destructive), so seeing this more complicated valve acted on by external electric magnets gives me that answer and so the refrigerant is safely contained. Good to know as I was wondering if the more complex gas defrost feature could have been a point of leaks.
Yes was very interesting
Our Samsung with a section that can be a beverage temp, fridge temp, freezer temp or off. I bet this is what it uses. Three total sections in the fridge can be independent controlled.
Get some of that AvE magnet showing film. Cool stuff
So close to a mil!
I thought most fridges just have a coil in the freezer, and a little door that opens between the freezer and the fridge - if the fridge is too warm, it opens the door and cold air from the freezer circulates into the fridge to cool it. At least that's how old fridges that lasted forever worked. I can see how making it more complicated like this ensures it craps out faster, and people buy more fridges overall
This feature allows the user to independently control the actual temperature of the freezer and fridge. It's certainly arguable whether that is a necessity.
@@kjdude8765 It did with the old system too, just instead of steering refrigerant with a valve to 2 coils, it steered cold air with a door. If the little flapper door breaks, it's really easy to replace. If this breaks, how many people are going to evacuate the refrigerant, cut out the old valve, braze in a new one, vacuum down the system, and put the refrigerant back in? This pretty much guarantees that when this part breaks, the fridge goes to the dump and you buy a new one.
@@gorak9000 Both solutions are in production, and flap+fan is the cheaper one. This is usually used in bigger, more advanced units, where cold air ducting has it's own downsides Also, this valve is pretty reliable and not that expensive to replace. There are much worse things than that :)
Thinking about it some more, one advantage of the more complex arrangement is that it doesn't dehumidify the fridge compartment as much, so fruits and vegetables won't shrivel up as fast.
@@gorak9000 The old system gives you two temperature controls but only the refrigerator is regulated. If the ambient temperature changes or one door is opened more than the other the freezer temperature will change. I suppose the flap could be automated but that adds more complexity. The single evaporator system might also limit system efficiency.
Just got a 12 V car plug to USB converter. The reviews are promising, mentioning molten wires and smoke!
I’d love to see you do a comparison between the stepper motor & a servo motor.
Clough42 did a series of videos about making his lathe lead screw motorised & he reckoned the servo motor was a better bet than a stepper motor.
You were almost right - as far as i know this valve switches between freezer+fridge or only freezer, basically bypassing fridge evaporator.
Very Nice!! Love Ya Man!!!
Interesting, I wonder if these are common now, used to be that simple combination fridges turned the light on if the freezer section needed cooling and the fridge didn't. That was the reason incandescent bulbs where still allowed for this application, effectively as a heating element.
Air Con reversing valves can be the solenoid type or motor drives like these.
"Very simple"! I'm glad you think so. I think it's black magic.
Frankly, I find the the ingenuity amazing and I understand only part of what your telling us. What I didn't grasp at all is how it gets the signal to divert the gas between the freezer and the 'fridge, where the signal comes from, how it's interpreted and how the diverter reacts according to the signal.
I also have to wonder at how these things are assembled. Mind boggling.
03:38 The stepper motor 'finding a zero point' thing is (AFAIK) what they used to do in floppy disk drives in the 80's and 90's
They'd have the floppy disk stepper (or whatever motor it uses) drive something like 40 positions towards where 0 is
and you'd hear clicking depending on how close it was to the 0 point (so quite a lot if it was at position 5 or whatever)
Well, the Apple II ones did, because Steve Wozniak was too much of a cheapskate to include a limit switch. Not sure if there were any others.
@@gcewing iirc the Commodore floppy drives (for the C64) did it as well, which is where I know of it from
I've also seen on LGR some small laptops and stuff which make the same thudding noise as they hit end of travel, so it might be fairly common
New one on me. Must be the more expensive FF's that have a diverter valve, last one I took apart only had one circuit but more evaporator dedicated to the freezer section. Nice little tear down. I wonder what else this could be used for.../
First time I've seen this too. Most do seem to balance the freezer and fridge sections on a single refrigerant circuit for manufacturing economy at the expense of long term efficiency.
@@bigclivedotcom Fridge freezer the first expansion is into the freezer side, then the cold gas travels through to the fridge side. Temperature control is in the fridge side, because freeze temperature is set by the pressure on suction, so it will always freeze, and then the fridge side simply adjusts how long the compressor runs to cool down the fridge to a desired point. Would say that valve is used to allow the freezer to be set to a higher temperature, and then divert the refrigerant to another expansion device for the fridge side when the fridge still needs cooling, and then both sides get turned off when a defrost cycle is running, but the compressor is kept operating for a minute or three to ensure the evaporators are all empty of refrigerant. Does not need much of a seal, as the pressure is always on the one side, and a slight leak is not a worry in the sealed side anyway.
@@SeanBZA Seems like an easier and cheaper way to get mostly independent temperature control is to have separate evaporator fans with independent speed controls.
"stalls it against the end", a technique used forever, including Wozniak's Apple disk drive!
Neat teardown. I really understand it. Is it a unipolar motor? The 6 leads makes me think so
Not my joke but I still remember it - "Every lock that ain't locked, when a Dremel is around" (with apologies to Roger Miller)
The spring pushing on the valve does not need to be very strong a in operation the pressure in the housing will be higher than the pressure in the outlet pipes so it will push the valve against it's seat.
We just had one changed in our 2-zone fridge, the valve wasn’t faulty, but a pipe coupling was leaking.
"let me pull out of here..."
He said calmly to his lady friend
Surprising thin holes
My ICECO 75Qt chest refrigerator/freezer can control both compartments separately. I bet it has one of those valves.
What a coincidence. Electronic Refrigerant Diverter Valve was on my 2023 bingo card. Nice.
If it helps, the typical electronic expansion valve I work with uses 255 steps.
is that also intended to be the metering device?
those output holes are fairly small, I imagine youd see a significant TD across this thing.
No on a domestic system the length of the capillary tube is the metering device.
What amazed me is how small the holes are for the cooling liquid to pass through.
Cool 😎 👍
I love seeing how so many of these appliance parts are both optimized to be as cheap as possible but also super reliable.
problem is these aren't super reliable lol
they are designed to shut some tree hugger up about efficiency, the newer systems are over engineered crap that doesn't last
neat! this confirms my suspicion that our GE fridge is definitely a Samsung design; the selector valve in it is pretty much identical to this one.
Wouldn't be surprised if they are all sourced from the same supplier. Bit like how used to be with car electrics. Designers would just pick a starter or alternator from the Bosch/Lucas/ANOther catalogue that fit the requirements
@@JaenEngineering and manufacturers that cared about quality used Bosch 😂
Having watched Tim Hunkin's video on pneumatics yesterday, I wonder if you could use this to control a small pneumatic device.
It's fairly easy to get pneumatic manifolds for lots of small solenoid valves. But the cost soon adds up.
The power on sequence reminds me of the old apple 2 disk drives on boot- it would thwack the head to reorient back to track 1 with a rat-a-tat noise.
Ever see the You Tube Channel, Flop-o-Tron.
Now I finally recognize what that weird noise is sometimes when I open my samsung fridge: a stepper motor!
I've always wondered what's inside those. I'm curious how it stays lubricated since it's moving liquid solvent. Also would it malfunction if liquid floods into the rotor cavity.
It's designed to be flooded internally with liquid refrigerant.
All fridge/freezer combos I have ever worked on, are only a freezer. Then a bi-metallic strip opens a vent as the fridge needs more/less cold air from the freezer, with the 'least/most' cold setting knob just moves the hinge point so it is more/less sensitive. So the Fridge purely steals air from the freezer with no power consumption or electrical parts (other than the light + door switch), AND the freezer is the only part using refrigeration, with expected thermostat, defrost heater, fan, etc.
I've only seen them with a manually-controlled vent (labelled freezer temp) and the thermostat is in the fridge.
I was mightily disappointed that there wasn't a schkermatic this time! ;-)
The color of that valve disk reminds me very much of the polymer PEEK. If it was made of PEEK, that would also explain the poor scratch resistance. But I'm just guessing here.
I thought sintered metal... like a soft brass maybe?
The blown up pic on the right at 9:00 makes it look like it has some crystallization (?).
PEEK is wonderful stuff when it comes to chemical resistance - while also being more machinable than PTFE.
Clive, have you attempted to terminate a low current on to the pin (pip) that protrudes from the casing and one of the center tap pins?
There's no connection between the pins and case.
@bigclivedotcom Hiya Clive. So, from my light reading, the pip is part of what is called a Rod-Base Baffle with a YY attachment point. It allows for heat exchange within the chamber of the valve and the case. It is affixed within the shell, preventing leaks. For this reason, no drill is necessary. So essentially, it's a heat exchanger.
very interesting thing. 2x👍
Orifice or small hole ? Well I would be happy with either and so would Mr Stiffy who has just woken up.