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Exactly right. I think it's because of the stupefying disbelief that someone would try to TIG metal that filthy.

Very cool! I got my Champ off FB Marketplace too. It's amazing how many repairable and useful machines are out there that just need a little TLC to have a new lease on life. I briefly toyed with replacing my motor with single phase and upgrading to 7.5hp since it's the same pump and just a...

It's debatable just how welded they are. You don't weld aluminum by starting with material straight off the junk pile and not cleaning it. WIre brush it clean. Preferably with a stainless bristle brush over brass and DEFINITELY not plain carbon steel bristle. After a thorough wire brush for...

I can tell you it's almost certain not to hold. Aluminum has poor fatigue life to begin with, and since you've conveniently peppered in countless crack initiation locations, a failure is a statistical certainty if subjected to any kind of cyclic loading.

The only thing sadder than an old tool truck is a brand new one. Some poor shlep...

Yeah, definitely want to coast otherwise you can get some flyback voltage (motor turns to generator) that is hard on capacitors. In other VFD applications this is why you sometimes need braking resistors to absorb that flyback and protect the VFD output stage.

I think my experience will be similar, only at a smaller scale. I can probably run mine as more of a 3hp unit. As a home gamer with pretty modest air usage, an 80 gallon tank plus two aux tanks (116 gallons total) will last quite awhile when full pressurized. By the time I'm at risk of running...

Since I had some recent experience with a Dwyer Omega PX119 pressure transducer, I had explored the option of using this transducer in lieu of pressure switches/pumptrol type setups. But ultimately, the PID control and such didn't make much sense, and I still had to have a pressure switch...

With copper these days, it's really tough to beat black pipe, especially when you add up the death-by-1000-cuts of the many small fittings. It's not the piping itself that gets you so much as the adapters, unions, couplings, bushings, tees, elbows blah blah blah.

just the plastic stuff. PEX A or B as I think of it. The PAP piping with the aluminum liner is a totally different beast specifically designed for compressed air, so I don't think anyone considering trying to "get away" with PEX is referring to specifically engineered air piping. It's more...

Well, I'm circling back on this, finally getting to focus a bit on getting this old (not that old-- early 2000s) Champion VR5-80 up and running. The current state of affairs: - I've cleaned it all off, removed the automatic oil level monitor that was puking oil everywhere. I don't need oil...

SDR9 Pex is only rated 160 psi at 73F and it drops fast with heat, hitting only 100psi at 180F. If you are going to make PEX work, I'd suggest only doing it in the "Cold air" part of a run-- after any tanks and such, and also use a larger size and instead of regulating at the point of use...

I just measured the threads on my R15’s discharge pipe tube nut and I can confirm 16tpi thread. The McMaster part cannot work properly. So if you’re like me and trying to find a way to divert the pump discharge to a cooler or such before hitting the tank, it’s sort of square one now. The...

It's not. for most machines, they will run on 240 as well as 480 and just double the current draw. And if that's a guy's usage, then of course 480 isn't worthwhile. But in my fantasy shop, 480 vs 240 is the difference between a 400a welding or a 300a welder, so of course we have to have 480. And...

Touché-- But this was all in the context of dream/wish/fantasy, so of course my welder is 400a and my shop needs 480V 3 phase.

I have no experience with Rolair personally, I'd have picked a different example if I could find some other 5hp electric wheelbarrow to illustrate the idea. Baseplate/skids IMO have a lot to recommend them. I used to play combo amps for electric guitar, but then I switched to separate heads...

ANother advantage of a divorced tank setup: you can plumb your setup with a high-cracking-pressure check valve on the air tank inlet and let the system piping come up to pressure BEFORE you fill the tank. If you let your system sit for days at a time, and it has any slow leaks (and they always...

Right. And how will you power the 400a welder that needs 480/3ph?

You really need to think about 1) transient peaks, and 2) how long they last. In other words, don't think about flow rate in terms of CFM, you need to think in terms of total volume of air-- cubic feet or SCF. It comes down to how much your air demand exceeds the compressors output. That...

Certainly not a universal solution. But to be clear, we're not talking about "getting 3 phase to your home shop." We're talking about 480V three phase. That's an entirely separate discussion. If you live in a residential area, your line transformers max out at 240V across two 120V legs that are...