Fixing an air compressor! Is it worth it!

[Ueee]

Thinking about it now we had a dd compressor where I used to work. It was our site machine. The main air line from the head to the tank failed one day on site, the flaired end had worked its way out of the flair nut. It was fixed on site by annealing the best we could and flairing again by shoving the nose of my leatherman pliers in and rotating. The pipe was chromed and had the thinnest wall I have ever seen. The fix was forgotten and it did not fail again whilst I was working there.

Ew

[BobL]

I've been looking at compressors for a while and have just been to look at used 3P, 70L, 4HP 4 cylinder Clisby that looks like it is is in good condition AND most importantly it fits inside my existing compressor enclosure with mm to spare, so I have decided to buy it.
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Pick up is tomorrow.

I just picked it up and its in the back of the van but too heavy to move by myself. Will have to wait till I have help.

[jatt]

Yeah picked up a Peerless (think its 'rated' at 15 CFM). Had to be single phase. Happily pumps up truck tyres and is designed to crank up to 150 psi, not that I will need to do that too often. Ample for the workshop.

No affiliation, but workshop/ assembly plant is across town, and have had good service in the past from them with the shop welders.

[BobL]

Yeah picked up a Peerless (think its 'rated' at 15 CFM). Had to be single phase. Happily pumps up truck tyres and is designed to crank up to 150 psi, not that I will need to do that too often. Ample for the workshop.

If it's single phase - single motor it cannot physically deliver more than ~12CFM. The biggest single motor (3.2HP) /Single phase Peerless delivers 10.6 CFM. They do have a twin motor job that does twice this.

[Marc]

You can buy 3kw/4HP single phase compressors that deliver 18cfm

[Ben Dono]

Well I got it up and running again!
I ended up making some Frankenstein fittings from a NPT nipple and a 3/8th brass compression fitting. I turned half of the compression fitting down to 12mm and drilled out the nipple to match. Pushed them together with flux and brazed them. I then drilled out the compression fitting, brass olive and nut to 10mm. It went in like a treat except I was sold the compression fittings as 10mm. I don't think they checked it properly but it worked well in the end.

I used Teflon tape as it was rated to 310deg. It was a guess but it cycled up 5 times with no sign of the tape melting. I will keep an eye on it though.

I did read an article on picking compressor sizing. One of the comments that I thought had merit was buying two large single phase compressors and plumbing them in. If you need more cfm's flick on the second compressor. Of course you need to check your circuits. Probably 2 separate would be needed or two of the phases if you have 3ph.

The debate was that most of the time your using the air duster anyway and a 12cfm is plenty. If your doing more serious work, the two together will double your output. Two high end compressors cost less than the same brand with twin pumps/motors as well as being cheaper than a three phase equivalent. You potentially have a worksite compressor if you ever need it out of the workshop.
If you needed a whole lot of air a lot of the time, a three phase runs more economically.
I have not looked too closely at the costs yet but the few I looked at worked out.

[Karl Robbers]

Considering I'm starting to get disappointed with some of the high end brands I'm having problems with at the moment..... Milwaulkee ya dropped the ball!

Milwaukee never had the ball in the first place. They are only a re brand of some lower end tool whose name escapes me now, and are very overpriced for what they are. I have had the misfortune of using a few Milwaukee tools and I hated them all.
At least when you buy a cheap air compressor, you know it's a cheapie. Nothing worse than paying good coin for a cheapie in a high end box.

[jatt]

Have a few Milwaukee units here. Batteries, even more so than the other stuff here in the shop, seem to be their let down.

Wont bitch too much cause their rep gave us a new batt when we voiced our disappointment, so hopefully I will last better than some of our other ones. Not gunna guarantee of course that, they would do that for everyone. We have a few items and several batteries.

[BobL]

You can buy 3kw/4HP single phase compressors that deliver 18cfm

I saw some of these the day after I posted on the Clisby website when I went looking for the specs on the compressor I bought recently.
This one claims 20CFM http://www.clisbyengineering.com.au/...se20es100.html
I'd like to know how they beat the physical limit of 4 CFM per HP.

[Ben Dono]

Depends when you bought them. I had a big set of v28's along with 8 of the batteries when they first launched them. They were by far the best tools I had used. At the time I also had a few big hilti drills and a hilti cordless along with a Ramset hammer drill, Makita 18v L ion set etc..The milwaulkee were taken care of but used very hard on site. They did not miss a beat for 5-6yrs. The makita cordless circular saw out classed the v28.. But not by much.

I think they skimped on the manufacturing about 4 yrs ago.

[Ueee]

Way off topic now but i thought the milwaukee's were just AEG's? So basically just ryobi's. Once that may have been a good thing but that was many many years ago.

Ew

[cba_melbourne]

Way off topic now but i thought the milwaukee's were just AEG's? So basically just ryobi's. Once that may have been a good thing but that was many many years ago.

Ew

The old German made AEG were pretty good and long lasting tools. The blue AEG ones could be compared to green Bosch. The black AEG/AtlasCopco branded ones were the premium range, comparable to blue Bosch and Metabo. But that was in the 80's and early 90's. Before their tool branch was taken over 2009 by TTI Techtronic of Hong Kong (which also own Milwaukee and Ryobi and Hoover and Vax and other vacuum cleaner brands....). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AEG

[Ueee]

Well i didn't know they owned Hoover!
I think most older power tool brands made good quality tools at some point- Ryobi made some great tools in their hay day. But corner cutting and shareholder satisfaction have long since taken over. I must say though i have a Blue AEG power plane that was given to me by my grandfather about 15 years ago. Not sure how long he had it for. It is absolute crap, all the bearings are in plastic housings.

Ew

[Oldneweng]

Before their tool branch was taken over 2009 by TTI Techtronic of Hong Kong (which also own Milwaukee and Ryobi and Hoover and Vax and other vacuum cleaner brands....).

Well i didn't know they owned Hoover!

Interesting. The way things change over time. I worked for SouthCorp for some years. They owned Hoover at the time I started. They also owned Rheem. Why a Wine producing company owned these brands I have no idea. We have got some tanks and stainless 44's made by Rheem.

SouthCorp was bought out by Fosters, which split the wine and beer divisions and created a new wine company, TWE. SouthCorp originated from Southwick Brewery way back. The wine division was split off to become SouthCorp. Monopoly on a real world scale.

Dean

[Ueee]

Way way OT now, but Dean do you know Richard Gibson? Calls himself Scorpex these days. as in ex-southcorp......

Ew