How does a low charge on an A/C cause the subcooling to be low

[PeterDonis]

Well done. You would have been a good physics/engineering professor.

Thanks!

 

[fourthindiana]

Thanks!

You're welcome.

 

[fourthindiana]

PeterDonis, in the OP (almost a year ago), I asked how low charge on an A/C causes the subcooling to be low. I gave my explanation for why low charge on an A/C causing low subcooling is counterintuitive. You told me that I am not taking into account the effect of the reservoir of refrigerant between the condenser and the expansion device. You were highly skilled at explaining the shortcomings of my own thought process on this. You answered various questions about this based on my point of view.

I am curious as to how you would explain how low charge on an A/C causes low subcooling when you are just explaining this from scratch, not rebutting someone else's explanation of it. I suppose you could give a highly informative explanation of how low charge causes low subcooling in, say, 200 words or less.

How does low charge on an A/C cause low subcooling?

 

[PeterDonis]

I am curious as to how you would explain how low charge on an A/C causes low subcooling when you are just explaining this from scratch, not rebutting someone else's explanation of it.

Look at post #24 from @jim hardy as an example of such an explanation. He simply describes the process of adding charge to the system and seeing what happens.

More generally, you seemed all through this thread, and still seem, to be looking for "the" explanation of how low charge "causes" low subcooling. But that very way of framing the question misleads you. There is not a single explanation and there is not a single cause. There is a whole system which is continuously flowing, and as you change the charge level, various things happen; and there are various ways of looking at the whole process. Focusing on one particular thing will not help you understand the whole process; rather, you need to understand the whole process first, and then you can simply "read off" particular things from the whole process.