Air conditioner and method for controlling the same

Abstract

An air conditioner and a method for controlling the same are disclosed herein. The air conditioner has a capillary tube equipped to a connecting tube which connects a suction pipe and a discharge pipe of a compressor and has an opening/closing valve equipped therein, thereby allowing pressure equilibrium between the suction pipe and the discharge pipe of a compressor to be maintained when the compressor stops operating, and allowing a discharge flux of the compressor to be appropriately controlled when a load is lower than a capacity of the controller under operation. As a result, the air conditioner does not require a separate bypass unit, thereby simplifying the construction of the air conditioner while minimizing the installation space thereof through omission of a separate bypass unit, leading to reduction in costs.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.