I recently transported a mini fridge laying on it's front (no other way to transport it) but didn't know that oil could leak from the compressor and into the refrigerant lines. It was laying on it's front for a little over an hour, and was standing upright for about 15-20 minutes before I plugged it in. It seems to be cooling fine but it's a bit noisy; it's about 10 years old though. What are the chances the fridge is fricked? Should I unplug it and give the oil more time to settle?
Every time a refrigerator is not set upright, you’re going to need to leave it unplugged for 24 hours before you can use it again.
t. owned a mini fridge
Does this apply to air conditioners?
I suppose so. Fridges are just tiny rooms with air conditioning, so the logic should still apply to the units themselves. Let the freon settle.
If the AC unit has a hermetically sealed pump (image related), then yes it's a very good idea to let it sit in it's operating position for a day or so.
It's kinda like this one.
Oh, that looks like a scroll compressor. It should be fine if it is, though you might get a bit of reduced performance til it blows all the oil out of the refrigerant side.
For the most part, yes, though some older ones will have a divorced compressor/motor, and industrial AC's (Last I saw) all had separate motors and compressors.
If it's household and not obviously ancient, it likely has some kind of hermetically sealed compressor.
Wait, don't all AC units have this?
So should I unplug it? Or is it already too late? Looking at the compressor, the pipes connect to the back of the compressor, but since the fridge was on it's front, the oil shouldn't have flowed out of the compressor, right?
Unplug the fricker
I unplugged it, gonna let it sit for a few hours before plugging it back in. It only ran for about 2 hours, no obvious signs of distress in that time.
why are you in such a fricking rush?
seriously dude, is it so important for you to be operating this today that you're willing to shorten the life of the compressor by years?
buy a bag of ice and throw it in there if you need go keep shit cold for the day
To be fair, OP did say the fridge is 10 years old, so it probably has 5 more years left before the compressor fails, anyway. At this point, OP should start putting money aside for a new mini fridge, that way he can get a new one when the old one stops working.
If you try and run it with oil in the system itself and not in the shell of the pot, you can strain the starting windings and the starter cap.
In extreme cases you can damage the compressor itself.
Since it ran, you may have gotten off lucky, but I would still shut it off and let it sit a day, as you likely now have oil where you should only have refrigerant.
>give the oil more time to settle
Yes. About a day will be fine.