jrlp
Well-known member
I bought one of those small 20-25 gallon upright Husky oiled compressors around 5-6 years ago. The kind you can run off 110/220v, and has a pretty nice cast iron oiled compressor on it. When I first got it, I went through, upgraded all the piping to larger size, nice regulator to ditch the tiny 1/8" input on a 1/4" npt regulator, and messed with the electrics.
Stock it would kick on at around 85-90psi and cut off at ~120. It now kicks on at 120 and off at ~165. Been that way since I broke it in around ~20 hours on it's first oil change.
Anyhow, this thing has been run hard. I always kept up with oil changes on it, full synthetic, changed air filters religiously. It actually ran a medium sized haunted house and my plasma non-stop for 2 months. I don't think it ever stopped running for more than 10 minutes, except for around 8 hours at night. It was piped in and actually filled 2 other 30 gallon tanks. It has hundreds of hours and never given me a single problem, until recently.
When it's filling, regardless of the tank pressure, I get this non-rhythmic tapping sound that you can easily hear over the compressor at 20-30 feet. It sounds like someone tapping steel with a ball peen softly. I've been through it, tightened every bolt, nut, pipe fitting, hose, wire, and belt.
What makes it weird is that it isn't constant. It will happen every 3 to 10 seconds, regardless of tank pressure. Is the pump dying?
I have a HUGE HUGE job coming up, and am going to run this this thing hard. I have over 3,000 linear feet to plasma bevel on 3/8" alone. Probably ~400 plasma cuts in 3"x3"x3/8" angle as well. This is an on-site job, well actually 2 separate ones that are related, but the first one is 40 miles out of town in the boonies.
I don't want to have to, but I may have to pick up a gas powered compressor. I have enough kW on my set (11kW bobcat) to run the electric compressor and my plasma full tilt(probably around 7kW @ the arc voltage required for 3/8"), but just barely any overhead if a helper is gonna run a big grinder or I'm running big lights.
Sigh.
Stock it would kick on at around 85-90psi and cut off at ~120. It now kicks on at 120 and off at ~165. Been that way since I broke it in around ~20 hours on it's first oil change.
Anyhow, this thing has been run hard. I always kept up with oil changes on it, full synthetic, changed air filters religiously. It actually ran a medium sized haunted house and my plasma non-stop for 2 months. I don't think it ever stopped running for more than 10 minutes, except for around 8 hours at night. It was piped in and actually filled 2 other 30 gallon tanks. It has hundreds of hours and never given me a single problem, until recently.
When it's filling, regardless of the tank pressure, I get this non-rhythmic tapping sound that you can easily hear over the compressor at 20-30 feet. It sounds like someone tapping steel with a ball peen softly. I've been through it, tightened every bolt, nut, pipe fitting, hose, wire, and belt.
What makes it weird is that it isn't constant. It will happen every 3 to 10 seconds, regardless of tank pressure. Is the pump dying?
I have a HUGE HUGE job coming up, and am going to run this this thing hard. I have over 3,000 linear feet to plasma bevel on 3/8" alone. Probably ~400 plasma cuts in 3"x3"x3/8" angle as well. This is an on-site job, well actually 2 separate ones that are related, but the first one is 40 miles out of town in the boonies.
I don't want to have to, but I may have to pick up a gas powered compressor. I have enough kW on my set (11kW bobcat) to run the electric compressor and my plasma full tilt(probably around 7kW @ the arc voltage required for 3/8"), but just barely any overhead if a helper is gonna run a big grinder or I'm running big lights.
Sigh.
Any airplane guys here? 
