Building Your Own Larry Hall Icyball

DISCLAIMER: The following is information only on things I did. I make no

claims expressed or implied as to the safety, usefulness, or accuracy of this
information. (This is a high-risk activity. High pressures are involved. The
Icyball can leak or explode resulting in death or serious injury. Exposure
to ammonia can cause serious injury or death. We share these words and
photos for information only. We make no claim as to their accuracy
usefulness, or safety.)
The cold ball is about 5" dia. and the hot ball is about 6" dia.. I used off the
shelf steel pipe end caps (weld type), approx. 1/4" wall thickness if I remember
right. The rest is just thick wall steel pipe and fittings. It's overbuilt for
experimenting. On one charge it can keep an ice chest below 38 deg. F. for 24
hrs."
After my homemade Icyball was all assembled, I hydrostatically pressure tested
it to 1,000 psi. This is done by completely filling the entire assembly with water,
and then pressuring it up with some kind of hand pump. I had a pump I made.
It works similar to a grease gun, but uses water. One of the pressure gauges I
used is stainless; the other was made for ammonia systems. You cant use
copper or brass anywhere in the system. Some think Teflon sealer tape should
not be used in a system like this but I found it to seal well and last for years. I
tried another kind of thread compound, and it failed during the heat of
regeneration.
I think the original Crosley Icyball charge was approximately 6 pounds
anhydrous ammonia and 8 pounds water. My homemade Icyball was first
evacuated, then charged with 1 pound 14 ounces of distilled water, then 1
pound 6 and 1/3 ounces ammonia or 57.2 parts by weight H20 and 42.8 parts
by weight NH3. Or stated another way, the weight of the NH3 is 75% of the
weight of the H20.
NH3, itself, is 61% the weight of H20 for the same volume so the actual
volumes of water and ammonia in my homemade Icyball is .9 quarts water and
1.1 quarts anhydrous ammonia. It helps to know this in figuring what volumes
of balls you want to weld up.

I have included two sketches of my homemade Icyball.

Fig. 1
I have copies of two Icyball patents, one dated December 24, 1929, Number
1,740,737, and the other dated June 23, 1931, Number
1,811,523 (Improvements to the Icyball). I didnt stick real close to the patent
drawings. My check valve is similar to Number 17, 18 and 19 on the patent
drawing. (See sketch Number 2). The function of Object 20 in the patent
drawing, I believe, is to further separate water from the ammonia during
regeneration. I dont use this, and mine works okay without it. Some thought
does need to be given to separating ammonia from the water during
regeneration. You are actually distilling it. I experimented with putting wet rags
around the tube above the hot ball during regeneration to help condense back
the water and give a more pure ammonia solution in the cold ball. A person
could easily write a whole book on all the details of what goes on in an Icyball.

Fig. 2
The check valve: Mine is similar to the one on the patent drawing and is needed
because during regeneration the ammonia vapors have to freely travel to the
cold ball to condense. But during the cooling cycle, the ammonia vapors need
to bubble up through the water to be better absorbed and to stir the waterammonia mixture. During cooling, you can hear the ammonia slowly bubbling
into the water. I built an Icyball without a check valve, and it would hardly
work. A ball check valve would work in principle, but the problem is because of
the open bubbler tube ("X" Sketch 2), the water-ammonia mixture would raise
up this tube approximately 3 inches before creating enough back pressure to
lift a quarter inch stainless steel ball off its seat (no spring) during
regeneration. You could maybe make this work, but a bigger problem might be
getting it to seal perfectly during cooling as even a very tiny seepage would
defeat the bubbling feature. I thought of using a one quarter inch Teflon ball
because of its lighter weight, but sealing is still a problem with so little weight
or pressure on the ball. Perhaps an 0-ring seat might work, but in my research,
the only rubber that would even come close to withstanding the heat and
ammonia environment, is called "Aflas", but I didn't get around to trying this.
The liquid check valve, however, works just fine. It seals perfectly and has no

moving parts. It works as follows: (Sketch 2) During regeneration, the ammonia

vapors go up tube "Z", down tube "Y", and up and over to the cold ball to
condense. However, some ammonia and water condenses in the inch and a
quarter tube (Sketch 1) and puddle up, one and three-fourths inches to the top
of tube "X" (Sketch 2). During cooling, the ammonia vapors come back towards
the hot ball and force some of the water in the aforementioned puddle to travel
up tube "Y" far enough to create enough back pressure that the vapors will
bubble up through tube "X". That is why length "B" should be greater than
length "A" (Sketch 1). The reason for the 3/4 by 1-3/8" tube connecting the
tops of tubes "Y" and "Z", I believe, is so a siphon won't easily develop between
the two tubes. The lengths of my "Y" and "Z" tubes could be shorter if the
bubbler tube was shorter, but I wanted the bubbler tube to go clear to the
bottom. You'll notice in the patent drawing, the bubbler tube only goes part way
down, and then a separate siphon tube helps to draw the solution from the
bottom, I think. A good idea is to do what I did and make a prototype bubbler
tube and check valve out of clear plastic tubing, then using plain water, blow
and suck on it to see the action for yourself.
I have a three-quarter inch ball valve separating the two balls, but a needle
valve might be better as I found that after regenerating, the ammonia would
want to violently return to the other side and I would gradually open the valve.
I found that regenerating the system slowly is better than trying to regenerate it
too fast (two hours is better than one hour).
I hope all this helps. Good luck!
Larry D. Hall

Tips from Other Builders

Texas
Icyball
We followed Larry's design. We used steel brake lines for the

small tubes inside the Icyball. We used high-silver-content

solder for the delicate welds so that these welds would resist
corrosion by the ammonia. We added a pressure relief valve,
rated for Ammonia visible on the left side of the photo. It
contains a safety valve designed to release at 300 psi. It is
aimed down so that if it releases during the heating part of
the cycle, it will discharge into the cooling water. We also
added a small water dam in the horizontal pipe joining the
two balls. It is like part 30 of the drawings in patent
1,811,523 of R Smith, June 23, 1931. It is in the left end of
the horizontal tube, shaped like a crescent moon. It is silversoldered into that tube. The dam helps to prevent water from
traveling into the cold ball.
We fired the Icyball in two different setups: with a small
Coleman dual fuel stove burning unleaded gasoline. We used
a pail or a washtub filled with water for cooling and with a
large propane burner and a trash can full of water. Both
methods worked fine. The pail is such a small volume of
water that it got hot and had to be dumped and refilled a few
times. A low flame is the key to getting pure ammonia
without much water in the cold ball. As long as ammonia is
bubbling through during the heating phase (We listened at
the elbow to the cold ball.) low heat will give the best results.