I got the unit working last weekend! I'll post pics as soon as I go back inside the case. It ran sweetly until sometime today. When I came home from work, i noticed no puddle below the unit, no frost on outside coil. I went inside and observed no heat, unit purring away...?? Upon further inspection, I found that the high side service valve / tube I brazed in had rattled itself in two.
Oh well, I need to get back in there anyway to hide stuff and tweak anyway.
Note: the unit is in prototype phase; it's gonna look bad until I trust it. The wife says it has to be done before Thanksgiving since everyone will be coming to our house this year.
A quickie view of the failure. I bent the two service tubes a little so they would fit through the vent window for easy access... To get to the liquid line, I have to open the case.
From what I observed over the 4 days I had this unit running, I know it will provide more than I expected.Temps here have been well into frost territory at night. The unit puts out too much heat to run it all out; Saturday night I had to let it cycle when the house got to 85! Outdoor temp at that time was 37.
I've got some concerns, though. Mainly, I don't trust that the txv is not overfeeding the evap coil when it's cold outside. Sunday night / Monday morn it got down to 26 deg f and the suction line was frosted heavily all the way to the compressor body. When I adjusted the charge, it was around 60 deg f outside. It had 6 degrees superheat in heating (txv) and 10 degrees superheat in cooling (cap tube). When the unit defrosted, it melted from the outdoor coil to the reversing valve, but from the rev valve to the cxr the line stayed frozen. Strange. But then again, the unit finished defrosting in like 3 minutes.