Compressor Maintenance , remote housing and control questions.

[DSEL74]

I have some questions on compressor care. My instruction manual says to open the tank valve and let the air out after use. Is this normal/common? Do you need to do it at the end of each day or can it be a scheduled weekly duty. I'm not sure if this is to let the moisture out of the tank or just so there is less stress on the seals etc when not in use or whatever.


The second Question is to BobL and the like who have remote located the compressor to outside the shed. I'm wondering do you remotely control the compressor? Power, pressure etc?

Can any one recommend a "regulator?" the thing that you put in the line to capture the water? I was spray painting today and noticed there was some moisture in the lines at times.


I was given some hoses with fittings and a line splitter (T piece quick connector) all very good quality they came with I think it was called a Jamec fitting. The compressor and my spray gun have Nitto fittings. I made up a adaptor Jamec to Nitto, and another Nitto to Jamec. For the four pieces to make the two adaptors it cost me about $40. Other than the el cheapo fitting packs which never have what you want is there a good place to buy fittings at a reasonable price with reasonable quality?

[Sawdust Maker]

I'll have a watching brief on this one as I'm interested in the answers

[BobL]

I have some questions on compressor care. My instruction manual says to open the tank valve and let the air out after use. Is this normal/common?.

Yes its is.

Do you need to do it at the end of each day or can it be a scheduled weekly duty.

It depends on use and how worried about rusting your tank out. Light use probably vent once a week, medium use - daily. Heavy use - hourly.

I'm not sure if this is to let the moisture out of the tank or just so there is less stress on the seals etc when not in use or whatever.

It's to let the condensed water containing dissolved gasses out of the tank otherwise it will eventually rust the tank out. If a pre-cooler is used then the tank may not need to be vented otherwise the tank should be vented depending on use. There are cheap auto vent valves available on ebay (thread somewhere by CBA) on ebay to do this on a preprogrammed basis or you can use a retic solenoid connected to a 24V power pack. If I had to do it again I would go with the auto vent valve.

The second Question is to BobL and the like who have remote located the compressor to outside the shed. I'm wondering do you remotely control the compressor? Power, pressure etc?

There's no special control - I've just moved the power switch to inside the shed and put it on a timer so that it doesn't fire up after 9pm. The rest of the silly amount of electrical work I did on mine was so that I could automatically vent the compressor on automatic turn off, and to control the temperature inside the external enclosure.

Can any one recommend a "regulator?" the thing that you put in the line to capture the water? I was spray painting today and noticed there was some moisture in the lines at times.

I think you mean "separator". I don't do much spray painting with mine and I use a cheap one from Bunnings but if you want to do it seriously then a cheapie would not be enough.

I was given some hoses with fittings and a line splitter (T piece quick connector) all very good quality they came with I think it was called a Jamec fitting. The compressor and my spray gun have Nitto fittings. I made up a adaptor Jamec to Nitto, and another Nitto to Jamec. For the four pieces to make the two adaptors it cost me about $40. Other than the el cheapo fitting packs which never have what you want is there a good place to buy fittings at a reasonable price with reasonable quality?

I've settled on Nitto connectors and get mine from Supercheapauto parts, usually I wait for sales or specials. It really is worth buying the real name brand and not just "Nitto Style" connectors. I have some of both in my shed and notice that some of the knock-offs are starting to leak.

[malb]

Basically agree with all BobL has said, drain frequently to clear moisture from the tank. Worst case I came across was one of the budget direct drive compressor systems that hadn't been drained in its lifetime. User had remover the tank end plug and plumbed through the shed from there bypassing the inbuilt regulator as he used; downstream regs at the outlets. One day it began reticulating rusty oil/water emulsion, because the 50L tank was half full. Stuffed all of his downstream regs, gauges, water traps, and a couple of tools as well.

It is common in industry etc to tap into the tank in this way and retic through the shed with a large bore tube to minimise pressure drops etc. Come through the dividing wall at the level of the tank bung, then go high to just below the ceiling or roof trusses, and along the path you wish to follow. All take off points should point upwards, then take a U turn to drop down to the outlet position. Fit a regulator and water trap on a T branch and continue the line down to a valve/solenoid/autodrain inad into a waste trap. You can have as many take off points as you think you will need for convenience and to minimise the use of flexible hose etc, and pressure drop.

If you have a mixture of oiled tools (saws, drills, grinders etc) and dry tools (spraying, venturi vacuum units, blowers, washing guns etc) you can have some outlets fitted with automatic oilers after the water trap. It is a good idea if you do this to have oiled tools, hoses and fittings use one family of fittings and the dry stufff to use another, eliminating the possibility of mixing and contaminating gear, ie connecting a spraygun to a hose previously used for oiled tools and getting oil in the air passages.

The above type of system brings the regs etc to the individual outlets so they are easily controlled and adjusted for individual toolsand actually bypasses the small bore standard regulator on the compressor, so there is much less unintended pressure drop between the tank and tool. Large bore regs, water traps and oilers are often available on ebay or can be bought via engineering or trade air supply outlets.

[Bob38S]

As above. Humidity is a big factor re draining up here in Qld.

Definately get the Nitto fittings not the copies, they are false economy.

Get a good regulator, eg Norgren not your copy from country starting with "C".

My compressor is in the shed and does not get moved often - when it did need moving it was a pain as it only had wheels at one end - fixed that - as to draining check out the link, now dead easy and no mess on the floor from stained water.

https://www.woodworkforums.com/f11/simple-compressor-modification-75659

[rrich]

We don't get a lot of humidity in Huntington Beach. Yeah we're on the Pacific Ocean but the air flow is mostly off shore and when we do have an onshore flow it's usually an overnight thing. Weather forecasters call it "Night and morning low clouds". And I'm not normally in the shop during these times.

I have a Devilbiss compressor. A cheap, oil less and little 4 gallon thing. I am guessing that it was purchased about 1997.
Do I drain the tank? Not very frequently, maybe once per year. I get some water out but not a lot. (10-20 ML)
Do I release the pressure when not in use? No. If the compressor cycles more than once while I'm in the shop, I look for leaking quick connectors.
I have messed with the pressure switch and raised the holding pressure to 120 PSI. (I don't know how to convert that to metric.)

At some point I know that the compressor will need to be replaced. Here the Porter Cable compressors go on sale for less than $100 and Harbor Freight (Cheap Chinese junk) that looks like a PC is on sale for $32. I'll probably buy the cheap Chinese junk and hope for 6 or 8 years of service.

[Optimark]

Another thing to do is change the compressor oil on a reasonably regular basis, either time if used very little, or work if used heavily every day.

In another life, I ran a series of compressors and vacuum pumps. The compressors were used every day lightly and with around 6 monthly oil changes they seemed to last about 10 years, although belts often needed yearly or not much longer replacement.

I second or third the Nitto fittings, they allow bucket loads of air through, but minimise air escaping the system.

http://www.supercheapauto.com.au/onl...=156428#Cross]

This may or may not be a help, but Aldi are having their annual get rid of stock they cannot move sale. On Saturday morning in my local Aldi they had heaps of 15m long, 10 bar rated compressor hose, fitted with Nitto (possibly style not genuine) fittings. $7.00 or $6.99 to be precise, that is a very good price and should suit most people. I scored another one for another redesign of the shed.

On another note, but related, I still run a darkroom and in that darkroom I have a small compressor fitted with an inline water trap, over and above the compressors inbuilt trap. With air being blasted over negatives prior to placement in the enlarger, the last thing one wishes to get on them is either water, or oil. You may find that as well as water, fine particles of oil could be getting into the air lines, then into your paint or whatever. Until I put this extra water trap in, I took a fairly long time to work out just where the contaminants were coming from, extra final filter = clean as a whistle air!

Mick.