Back in the summer of
1992, the NACAT [automotive] show was held at the Purdue Armory,
about a mile from People's Welding Supply. Terry Linthicum (then
owner of General Refrigeration Supply) had mentioned that he had
once seen a refrigerant based sign at a trade show, years ago.
Similar to a "neon" sign, but made of copper, and
frozen solid by a refrigeration system, a thick white sign is
formed (A Freon(R) sign?).
GHG & Bill Hardaway (pictured at right) set out to build one, 3 days before the SHOW.
A sheet of plywood was
acquired, and spray painted black. 3/8" refrigeration copper
tubing was bent, cut, brazed, and molded to spell out "GHG
COOL" and fastened to the front of the plywood. An R-12
Copeland 1/4 HP low temp condensing unit was on sale at General
for less than $100, so we got one, and a set of manifold gauges,
and expansion valve, and hooked it all up at Peoples. It was
charged with GHG Refrigerant-12 Substitute(R), [now R-406A], and
it worked! It built up a nice ice coat in a few minutes. The
gauges were attached (with copper tubing) to the condensing unit
along with thermocouple temp probes on suction and compressor
discharge temps. This way, a was
demonstrated with instrumented temperatures and pressures for all
to see, no BS. The whole shebang was loaded on a flatbed truck
and taken to the armory.
Pictured at the left are Dave Deerr, owner of Deerr's Radiator and Air Conditoning and George Goble (GHG), inventor, showing the COOL sign inplace at the NACAT show. Deerr's Radiator & A/C was the first auto air shop to use this refrigerant, starting back in 1991.
The original COOL SIGN
wasn't very portable, and could not be shipped via common
carrier. It was disassembled, the "GHG" part of the
evaporator was thrown away, and a cage was built along shippable
containment. The new evaporator (the original "COOL")
was mounted on top of the condensing unit, along with a
"drip" tray to catch the melt when the sign was turned
off. This new "cool sign" now travels the country and
is used at various trade shows for promotion. (right)
As one can see, the ice builds up nice and thick after it has
been running for awhile.. just something neat to do..
--ghg