Air conditioner

Abstract

In a multiroom air-conditioning apparatus, refrigerant flow between plural outdoor side units is controlled so that abnormality (lack or excess) of refrigerant amount in an outdoor side unit in operation is redressed. For example, when surplus refrigerant exists in an outdoor side unit, the refrigerant flow is so controlled that the surplus refrigerant is pushed out (flow out) into an outdoor side unit in non-operation. In addition, the output of the air-conditioning apparatus is smoothly variable (controllable) in accordance with an air-conditioning load over the whole air-conditioning load range from the minimum (zero) load to the maximum load.

Description

technical field [0001] The present invention relates to an air conditioner having at least one room unit (indoor unit) and a plurality of outdoor units connected in parallel to an inter-unit duct extending from the room unit. Background technique [0002] A multi-room air conditioning unit for simultaneously cooling and heating several rooms of a building is already known. This multi-room air conditioner is disclosed in published Japanese patent application 2-85656, and its structure should make a plurality of outdoor side units (each unit has parts such as a compressor, an outdoor heat exchanger) and one and The pipes between the units connected to each chamber unit are connected in parallel. An advantage of this type of multi-room air conditioning unit is that it facilitates the use of high capacity systems for such units. [0003] Usually, the design concept of this type of multi-room air-conditioning device is to control the flow of refrigerant between each outdoor uni...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

Therefore, a disadvantage of the conventional multi-room air conditioner is that each controller cannot be fixedly used in any state without improvement or replacement.

This will cause a problem: in the case where part of the refrigerant accumulates (that is, naturally accumulates) in an outdoor unit that is adjacent to a working outdoor unit, the working unit will The outdoor unit will be short of refrigerant, so the working outdoor unit is in the so-called "gas deficient state"

[0005] In addition, when a large amount of refrigerant flows concentratedly into one outdoor unit, there will be a problem that the excess refrigerant tends to accumulate in the outdoor heat exchanger and other components of the outdoor unit.

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