# Compressor



## firebird (Mar 14, 2009)

Hi

Some of you may remember this compressor I built back in December 2007. Its in the tools section if anyone wants to take another look.







Its served me well so far but I decided to fit a bigger tank to increase the amount of available air. I quickly 'acquired' another larger fire extinguisher and was putting it in the boot of my car at work when a customer asked what I was up to. A brief explanation followed. He then said I've got one of those in my shed, it doesn't work but you can have it if you want. I never turn down anything free but you can imagine my surprise when he turned up with a small compressor. It was in a bit of a state. A broken plug, a broken air pipe to the automatic cut off and the air filter broken off. Anyway I fitted a new plug and repaired the pipe, plugged it in and away it went. They are noisy little devils though. I know a couple of people who have them and they have commented how noisy they are. Well I stripped it down and gave the tank a coat of paint to clean it up a bit.











The last thing it neded was an air cleaner so I brought one home from work (motor trade) and cut it down a bit.











I found a brass water fitting the right thread and a couple of big washers.






Then coated the raw paper edge with silicon and stuck a piece of foam rubber on.











And the point to all this is I can hear you all saying. Well the point is, with the new larger air filter fitted the compressor is noticeably quieter. Maybe it acts like a silencer in reverse. I'm sure there is a technical answer. As for the bigger fire extinguisher Julians got it now. He's going to mount 2 fridge pumps on it to give twice the amount of air. Should be interesting.

Cheers

Rich


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## John S (Mar 14, 2009)

Nice.
Don't know why it is but these direct drives are bloody noisy.
When we packed the truck garage up in 1990 we had a big Ingersol Rand twin, nice compressor capable of running up to 1" drive impact wrenches but too big for home use.

I managed to sell it to a local garage if I bought their direct drive machine off them which wasn't big enough.
What a noisy bloody thing, it was Ok to run up first thing in the morning and have a full tank all day but when I got the big CNC which had air clutches and tool change it could have been a problem with neighbours.

I then got a hydrovane because of the noise, it's been a brilliant compressor, it's just starting to pass oil thru a bit and requires a service kit but not bad for about 8 years constant use.

JS.


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