Dang, that sure is awesome! Gotta love how the compressor looks to have a standard electric motor base welded to it. Looks like they were trying to make an open drive unit as economically as practical. There's got to be a reason this exists! Regardless, it sure is cool. ;)
I wonder if most of these were sold overseas? The first time I heard of one of these was a nearly identical refrigerator in Argentina which he posted about which apparently was still running with its original SO2 charge.
Fascinating. Ever think about using an old R12 car AC compressor for a belt drive system to use that old motor you fixed up from the bush? Of course, you'd also need a refrigerator.
Definitely a good choice to replace that oil capacitor, multimeter capacitance measurements don't factor in leakage current so a lot of absolutely cooked caps will show up as "fine" as long as they're not a direct short. Usually when they're leaky you'll see a higher value than specified.
If anything the 250 or 500v or such winding test on their meter would be more apt to show leakage current when there shouldn't be any at rated voltage.
I wonder whether GE had a gigantic number of these compressors left in inventory and wanted to market them to a special market segment? Or, they were sold to a buyer who, for whatever reason, demanded a 'proven' technology, not that new-fangled hermetically sealed stuff? Beautiful quality, great restoration! I'm old enough to remember when GE went from really good home appliances to so bad the new Haier versions are better quality. There's a sweet spot between raw, purely profit driven manufacturing and offering consumers a level of quality they're willing to buy. GE missed it and by the time Welch and Co. were done with them, they weren't even listed in the top 500....
I worked for GE for 21 years and everything that you say is true. Profit not quality driven. Zero investment in new technology and sell off of every valuable old school section of the business. The Jack Welch years were the beginning of the end for the company. The only people to benefit were him and his cronies. and the stockholders for a short while as they bought out multitudes of businesses and gutted them.
It is interesting in design. I think that back in the day, they had concerns about how long runner would last, and used steel springs instead. Frigidiare used springs and rubber bushings for theirs.
Is it possible to build a vintage hermetic service kit? There are approximately zero for sale on earth. By the way that unit there has a nice hypnotic sound to it.
Thanks for your comment! Hermetic service kits are indeed hard to find and something to be carefully preserved. Sometimes they show up on eBay. That is how I find them. This little compressor does sound nice, as well!
The housing presses over a machined "pilot" area. The gap is so small that weld spatter can't fit through the gap to the interior of the compressor. That's how all welded units are sealed. They fit together tightly before welding, so no spatter can get inside.
