Robinair A/C machine won't work

[gearheads78]

Anyone know about these machines? Just bought a used (barley) Robinair 17800B recovery / recycle machine for my home shop. It was bought from a closed down shop at auction so I am stuck with it so I need to get it working.

All of the fuctions start but does not matter if I am trying to recover, recycle, fill the unit from a fresh tank of 134 I get a HI-P (High Pressure) message and the function stops. Ive checked all the trouble shooting in the manual and talked to tech support at Robinair (They were no help other than offering a number to a repair man)

Ive hoping this is a common issue someone can give some pointers on. It looks near brand new and the run meter only shows 5 lbs of refrigerent has gone though the filter.

thanks in advance

[68c10airstream]

Last time i used one was in 1999, so it's been a while! I believe you have a recovery tank on board and what happens to our shop unit was exactly the same situation. We would remove the tank, turn it upside down, look at a temp/pressure chart and we had to bleed the non-condensable gasses off (air) to get the pressure down to spec. The entrained air raises the tank pressure and it has no place for it to go, as this comes from the cars being evacuated and recharged, and hoses being connected/disconnected as this introduces air also. From memory i think at 70 degrees it was to be 80 psi max.

The procedure my boss showed me was to remove the tank at the end of the day and turn it upside down The reason for being upside down was there is dip tubes for the valves and if it was upright you would bleed off refrigerant, not air, so when inverted the air goes to the top (actually the bottom of the tank) and the dip tubes can then draw off the air. As you bleed the pressure/air from the tank inadvertantly you pull a little regrigerant along with it and it cools the tank which lowers the temp/pressure. We used a temp gun to shoot the tank surface and look at the chart at the same time. Hopefully this is close and you could now do a google search to verify. Just thought i would post as i had a few minutes to spare, Good luck, Brian F.

[truckdude239]

Sounds like there is 2 much freon int he machine i once over filled mine when i was putting freon into the inside tank and with wouldnt let me do anything untill the level was down.

Other note mine broke and had to have a soilnoids r3placed this week

[gearheads78]

Ive tried everything. I'm going to have to have a tech look at it.

[chebyshortbox65]

Sounds like the storage tank might be full last one we called a tech for that same issue he said to plug it in an leave ot it will purge it self also said don't use an extension cord less them 12 gauge they have issues with low voltage just my .02