Compressor oil.

[Gordon WParticipant @gordonw]

I have just realised that I have two compressors. The other one is a home brewed concoction, an HGV brake compressor belt drive, into an old gas cylinder. This works well and is quiet (ish). Cheap to build and better than the real cheapos.

[Bob Brown 1Participant @bobbrown1]

Posted by Howard Lewis on 06/02/2015 13:03:14:

The thought comes to me that, as a pressure vessel, the reservoir ought to be tested periodically, although I must admit that I never have. (Mine is supposed to have a plastic lined tank, but corrosion might still have taken place).

Howard

Interesting point, as far as industrial air receivers are concerned any thing over 250 bar/litre so an air receiver running at 10 bar and greater than 25 litres needs to be tested every couple of years. All but the smallest fall into this category but not sure how this effects home use or a model engineering society as we have a small one at our track for blowing out tubes, will ask on my next visit.

Bob

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

As previously mentioned we have one at work which is used to blow out threaded holes and displace rinse water after using the Ultra Sonic.

After about 2 years use it started to run for a long time before shutting down and I checked all the items like oil and draining water which came out brown. The next thing that happened was that the quick release valves started leaking and on opening one up found that the steel spring had rusted away. By this time we had replaced with a new compressor and I claimed the prize thinking I can fix all this but it seems I could not as the cost and complexity of replacing parts got bigger and bigger. Vibration was shaking things apart and I was forever having to replace the air filter after I found it on the floor, so I scrapped it and now I religiously vent the tank and check oil levels on the replacement which is a lot quieter and maintains pressure even over a weekend.

At a previous place of work I did a lot of routing in plastic using a high Rpm air motor. To drive this we had a Broom and Wade vane type compressor which barely kept up with the air motor. The noise of the air motor and compressor combined was more than the nearby workers could stand so it was mostly used early and late for the work. The work consisted of routing out the dense foam for fitting of instruments into travel cases. All done with a jig and layers of foam glued together with some intricate shaping.

Clive

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