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“ The newer more sophisticated electronic controllers connect and reside in the refrigeration cabinets in supermarkets .”
Because these devices are smart and complex , involving internet connections and protocols , technicians are required to be trained on their use to get the best out of them . Taylor says he believes that inadequate training means many such systems are
underutilised with a lot more benefit available to be exploited if there were better training .
Image credit www . freepik . com
A less dramatic but arguably more practical benefit of advances in tool technology , he says , is the improvement in the quality of simple hand tools commonly used when working on a plant . “ We ’ ve seen some highly advanced digital manifold sets come to market in recent years . The old sets were seldom calibrated and used to get rough treatment , becoming less and less accurate . The new digital tooling – such as vacuum gauges – have made work more accurate . That ’ s become a necessity with advances in blended refrigerants which are more difficult to work with than pure refrigerants . For instance , they have a glide built in which needs to be taken into account .”
Much of this R & D applies equally to HVAC and refrigeration . “ For instance , monitoring systems are now starting to incorporate air conditioning and refrigeration together , working in tandem , whereas they were regarded as separate entities previously .
“ The drive to natural refrigerants is ongoing and is already here in South Africa with some of the larger supermarkets already having multiple CO 2 store installations , and even some independent supermarket chains . We also have a number of transcritical CO 2 systems in the country , which is at the leading edge of CO 2 technology with parallel compression and other technologies . South Africa is quite advanced in that respect .
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RACA Journal I July 2023 www . refrigerationandaircon . co . za