air compressor

[Mastercaster]

Here is an air compressor assembly that I put together. This was at work and was just going to be thrown away. It's just a shame when somebody is throwing something away just because some idiot boss has no clue and does not care. I plugged it in and it worked so I brought it home. It is a laboratory grade air compressor. It is good for 100 PSI. It is probably a $500.00 pump. I went and bought a 7 gallon portable air tank and did a temporary hook up. It did not take long for it to reach 80 PSI. I formed some sheet metal and wrapped it around the tank and bolted it down and made a platform to mount the compressor too. I plumbed it all together. The pressure switch turns on at 60 PSI and turns off at 80 PSI. A pressure safety switch will open and relieve the tank at 100 PSI if the pressure switch should happen to fault. there are two pressure regulators one for casting and one for painting, that is if I would ever actually build and paint something.

[FMW]

Here's my paint station.

A cabinet holds a pressure tank (7 or 10 gallon, I forget which) and a cheap, incredibly noisy compressor. The compressor has a built-in pressure relief valve that is adjustable up to 100 PSI. The quick connects let me feed either the tank in the cabinet or the "portable" 5-gallon red tank for bike and car tires. The idea is to start the compressor, go somewhere else for five minutes or so to preserve what's left of my hearing, and then go back and shut off the compressor and paint in relative quiet.

The pipe goes outside the cabinet to a hose connected in an in-line pressure regulator and a 3-way quick connect so that I can run three different air brushes with three different colors at once.

On top of the cabinet is my paint booth. It is a dual-fan unit with the air vented to the outside. It's lined with newspaper to keep the booth itself cleaner. Since I do a lot of rattle-can painting, I put a set of louvers (really a cheap, on-sale window blind) on the bottom to keep the direct spray off the filter section.

I think I like arotarot's system with the pressure switch better than mine. However, if mine had a pressure switch the noise when the compressor came on would probably startle me so much I'd drop what I was working with and ruin everything.

FMW

[Danno]

You both have nice setups.

I've gotta organize mine ...

[Mastercaster]

That is quite a set up you have, Jan. The one thing about this compressor I put together is that it is relatively quiet. Louder than a airbrush compressor but quieter than most. I put an old t shirt over the intake filter and it quiets it more. I don't really understand compressors of today. I have a small oilfilled one outside that is so loud I can't even hear myself think. I have another larger compressor that is a speedaire and it is about the same loudness as this new fangled thing I put together.

[FMW]

I'm not really up on compressor technology either. All I know is evidence indicates that the quieter the machine, the more it costs and the cost slope is pretty steep.

FMW

[Mastercaster]

I suppose this is more modern price gouging. It is probably part of the OSHA safety standards. The quieter or more efficient the product is the more it will cost so it will take much longer to recover the added expense

[FMW]

I did a little internet research on the subject. It looks like to get a quiet compressor, it needs to be one that is "oiled" as opposed the the oil-less compressors usually used for painting. In order to get clean useable air out the these they need serious filter systems to remove the oil from the air, or some kind of barrier mechanism like a diaphragm. Both the oil and the oil remover add cost. For me, removing myself from the area for a while works.

I know some commercial airbrush artists use huge, heavy CO2 tanks for a pressure source. Lots of smooth, clean, dry "air". But you have to lug the heavy tank to and from the CO2 filling station and pay for the fill up.

FMW