More CO2 Blast Freezers And WTH Is A Surge Drum, & What About MASS FLOW ?? Episode - 544 Audio

More CO2 Blast Freezers And WTH Is A Surge Drum, & What About MASS FLOW ?? Episode - 544

CO₂ Rack Startup From Hell: ICAD Firmware Resets, Allen-Bradley Pain, and 20 Gallons of Missing Oil

On the Advanced Refrigeration Podcast, hosts Brett Wetzel and Kevin Compass unpack a miserable CO₂ spiral freezer rack startup that ran long, went sideways, and left one host stranded with one T-shirt and dwindling underwear. A blast freezer startup rep moved painfully slow, firmware updates on ICAD B controllers reset passwords to all zeros, and time was lost fighting a remote engineer over 20 mA feedback that pegged valves open. After finally starting the rack, they hit a major oil return problem—roughly 20 gallons added with little coming back—suspecting oil logging in the freezer’s liquid vapor separator/surge drum, possibly worsened as temperatures dropped to around -43°F suction. They review the rack’s piping (desuperheater, gas cooler, flash tank, heat exchangers, accumulator drain logic) and debate causes like separator sizing, violent vessel behavior, and the need for an oil return/skimmer-style cycle before product loads arrive.