Air Conditioning Installation Tips
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our learning tips Section Some helpful hints
that should be read before installation.
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How Auto Air Conditioning Systems work
How do air conditioners work?
Air conditioners
and refrigerators work the same way. Instead of cooling
just the small, insulated space inside of a
refrigerator, an air conditioner cools a whole car or
house.
Air conditioners
use chemicals that easily convert from a gas to a liquid
and back again. This chemical is used to transfer heat
from the air inside of a home to the outside air.
The machine has three main parts. They are a compressor, a
condenser and an evaporator. The compressor is located on the engine, because it
is typically belt driven. The condenser is located at the front of the car
to take advantage of air coming in from the moving vehicle. The evaporator is located
closer to the cabin of the car, usually under the dash or near the firewall.
The working fluid arrives at the compressor as a cool,
low-pressure gas. The compressor squeezes the fluid. This packs the molecule of
the fluid closer together. The closer the molecules are together, the high its
energy and its temperature.
The working fluid leaves the compressor as a hot, high
pressure gas and flows into the condenser. If you looked at the condensert, look for the part that has metal fins all around. The fins
act just like the radiator in the car and helps the heat go away, or dissipate, more
quickly.
When the working fluid leaves the condenser, its
temperature is much cooler and it has changed from a gas to a liquid under high
pressure. The liquid goes into the evaporator through a very tiny, narrow hole.
On the other side, the liquid's pressure drops. When it does it begins to
evaporate into a gas.
As the liquid changes to gas and evaporates, it extracts
heat from the air around it. The heat in the air is needed to separate the
molecules of the fluid from a liquid to a gas.
The evaporator also has metal fins to help in exchange the
thermal energy with the surrounding air.
By the time the working fluid leaves the evaporator, it is
a cool, low pressure gas. It then returns to the compressor to begin its trip
all over again.
Connected to the evaporator is a fan that circulates the
air inside the car to blow across the evaporator fins. Hot air is lighter than
cold air, so the hot air in the car rises to the top of a room.
There is a vent there where air is sucked into the air
conditioner and goes down ducts. The hot air is used to cool the gas in the
evaporator. As the heat is removed from the air, the air is cooled. It is then
blown into the car through other ducts usually at the floor level.
This continues over and over and over until the room
reaches the temperature you want the car cooled to. The thermostat senses that
the temperature has reached the right setting and turns off the air conditioner.
As the room warms up, the thermostat turns the air conditioner back on until the
car reaches the temperature
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