Hi I'm Ben from RIDGID, today we're going to talk about the SF 2500. This is basically a
small refrigeration system, that allows you to create a freeze plug inside of a copper line or
a steel line. The capacity on this is from 1/2 inch to 2 and a half inch copper or 1/2 inch
to 2 inch steel pipe. The standard equipment, you get a quick grip you get some velcro straps, you
get a water bottle which will explain how to use this stuff and you get the cool gel as well. Ok
also, what comes with it are these an adapter bushings and what they allow you to do, since
steel for example, is a different outside diameter then copper is. You use these adapters accordingly
to, go ahead and fit it snugly around the pipe. These other adapters that are here are for the
end, of these freeze heads and these will go. On there like so the reason that you can do that is
because if you have an area where it's a little tight. You can actually just use the end of it,
so you have 1/2 of them for half and two of them for 3/4 respectively. Ok now what we have set up
here, is just a basic small copper system. Okay we have a gauge at the top there. And what I'm
gonna do right now, is I'm gonna pressurize this a little bit. And turn this valve on. And as you
can see there, the valve should have about 20 pounds of pressure on it and that's good right
there. I'll put on my safety equipment. And what I'm gonna do is unravel this, one at a time and
position them where I see necessary, in this case this is just a mock-up we're just gonna
corner the gauge for lack of better words. I'm gonna take my cool gel... Just around here like so.
Put some of the pool gel,on the pipe itself and grab a strap here. This around the front
it might be easier. I'm gonna use 1/2 inside, each side of this is for a different size pipe, so be
sure and refer to your operators manual so that you know which side to use. The what size and
style of pipe so, we'll draw that on there like so. And it doesn't meter really matter where it
falls is just, make sure you got some of that pool gel and what that cool gel actually does is, it it
acts as a bridge between, the imperfections of the copper sometimes there could be a piece of
pipe that's partially crushed or out of shape for any reason. So that's why you use a cool gel
okay, grab either freeze head here let me unravel this. And again you don't want to pull on these
what's inside of this hose is a capillary tubing, that takes the compressed gas freon and pumps it
through that capillary tubing and when it hits the freeze head, it expands just like a normal
air conditioning system would, and that's what creates the drop in temperature that freezes
things. So I'm gonna bring this around here. Put that right there like so. And in this case since
we're vertical what I'm going to do. Is I'm going to put some of the freeze gel. There on the freeze
head. And I'm gonna put that there just like that. And I will wrap my velcro strap around it.
Okay. So now that everything is set, I have everything where I want it. What I'm gonna do
now is plug the unit in. And turn it on. Now as, as this thing turns on. Okay you have to
give it a few minutes, it depends on ambient temperature. So the hotter it is, as far as
temperature around you, the longer it's going to take to freeze it also, it also depends on
the temperature of the, liquid that's inside of the pipe, so if it's a little hotter it's
gonna take you a lot longer or a little longer I shouldn't say a lot but it all
depends on temperatures. It's gonna take you a little bit longer to freeze it, so be patient
with this and we also have a spray bottle here with some water in it, and what we're gonna do
is it starts to freeze I'm actually going to start squirting the freeze head around
the pipe. With some of this water, okay and it'll create what we call an ice bridge so
that's kind of like the gasket that ties the two together, and creates a direct connection
between a freeze head and a copper. So this is gonna get a little loud so I'll turn this on.
We have two fans up here, okay and that's the noise that you hear.
Okay so as you can see here, everything's been frozen and you can see that your lines coming from
the super freeze unit are also freezing, that's perfectly fine. Two telltale sign that things are
working the way they should, we started at about 20 to 22 pounds now we're up to almost 40, the ice
as it expands inside of the copper tubing is going to create pressure, so be careful when you're doing
this that you don't put it real close to an elbow or very close to a gauge, because you can actually
blow that fitting out. What we're going to do now is we're going to relieve some of the pressure
and you can watch the gauge up there to see that, the pressure has not been lost, so I'm just going
to drain this system out a little bit. You can see that we still have pressure in there. And
the crack this one open just to create some air so we can move the water rather quickly there we go.
Okay. I will shut both of these off now, and what I'm going to do is I'm going to grab my tubing
cutter. I'm gonna cut this right about there in the middle. And when you're doing this guys have
everything prepared that you know you're going to need, okay. So have your valve if
you're going to replace a valve or you know if you're going to, sweat this back together.
Let me shut the pressure off on this real quick.
There we go, so now our line is fine. You can see that we still have pressure. So what I'm going
to do is I'm going to do, is grab our press fitting. I'm going to gently move this out of the way.
Just as you see there, is I'm going to grab our... pressing to a model 340 with a half inch draw on it.
And since this has a stop on it. Go ahead and. Press that in place. Now once you're confident.
That everything is sealed up and you have all of your work in place. Okay, now what we're going to
do is we're going to go ahead and shut off the unit. So I have everything secured, I've pressed
that back in place. My valves are shut off, you can see the amount of pressure that we have there. And
I'm going to go ahead and shut the super freeze unit off. Now in this case it could take a few
minutes to thaw everything out, try not to remove this as a matter of fact, don't remove them until
they are thought out, because you can very easily crack these lines right now, you have to realize
that everything is frozen. So give it a chance to fall out, just let the ambient temperature
go ahead and follow this out and once it's done you can remove the freeze heads and as you'll
see, you'll see that the pressure will start to drop as those plugs start to thaw out. So what
we actually did was, we created a freeze plug in here. And that's what kept the pressure on
the gauge, now that everything is off I've shut the pressure valve off on this. And what's going
to happen is, through time-lapse video as you can see, we're going to go ahead and leave the camera
on and show you. How long it takes to thaw this out. Now what happens to the pressure as well.
These heads have thought out, both of them. And what we're gonna do now. Is we're going to go
ahead and remove the velcro strap. We'll set this on here for now. And we're going to do the same
with the other. And we'll set that right there for now and afterwards we'll carefully roll them up
and put them back in the box, now this was a small scale demonstration that we were doing here. Think
about it in these terms though, you know you have a hotel, it's full of guests. You know you have a
water line to start in the leak or something's wrong with the valve that you can't shut off. You
know instead of cutting service to the entire hotel and inconveniencing everybody. You can
use the super freeze, to isolate that valve or whatever the case may be and make your repairs
and put it back together very quickly and very efficiently. So think about it along those lines
when you are, when you go to use this there's a lot of different things that you can use it for.
You know refer to your operators manual as far as temperatures and different things like that and
what liquid you can freeze and what liquids you can't freeze and go from there. Thanks for watching.