The chronicles of designing and building a -80C freezer
Click image below to launch slide show:
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- First attempt at the high stage (404) condenser.
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- Starting the low stage (R508) condenser prototype
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- A closer look at the power handling which includes triple redundant power selection, various contractors, power supplies, VFDs, and battery charging/discharging circuit.
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- The high stage cart in production. This holds the 2 404 condensers, 2 refrigeration plcs, ln2/defrost plc, battery backup and power handling panel.
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- A closer look at the PLCs
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- Production of the -80 nest evaporator (upside down for production).
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- Test room that is cooled to -20C to control moisture.
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- Installation of the first nest in the test room.
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- A nest being prepared for shipment.
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- High stage cart with 404 condensing units installed.
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- Dry fit of the first round of low stage production systems. Unfortunately this was not the final configuration but the company we were making these for had a tight timeline so they had us build production models before the prototype was fully functional.
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- Start of production of high stage condensers.
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- Charging the prototype high stages outside the test room. Here you can see we have installed the battery backup for the LN2 on the bottom left.
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- A look at the prototype low stage/-80C picker nest module. We test the functionality of the low stages with 404 before charging them with 508, which is much more expensive.
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- A view of the prototype nests installed before we insulated them.
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- A view from the opposite side of the room which shows the nest manifold with stepper expansion valves as well as the lie profile air handlers used to cool the room to -20C.
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- A screen cap of us hitting -80 on a nest for the first time.
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- A closer look at a current lie stage condenser (AKA Brutus) installed at a customer facility. With a significantly larger heart exchanger.
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- The customer installs an automated sample selection system around the nests and condensers.
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- Another look at the customer install. The copper pipes way in the back are for the LN2 backup/defrost module. More shots of newer, cleaner production models to come, thanks for checking this out!
