home made compressor

[vespajono]

hello people im jono and new here, heres my question.. i want to make an home made aircompessor for spraying for models etc, if i brought an compressor thats broken could i repace the motor with a fridge motor? i ask this be cause i have aplan to make a compressor from a fridge motor and using a fire extinguisher but thought i can buy a broken compressor for £10 -£20 so i would get all my gauges and bits from it then i wonders if i could replace said broken motor and replace with fridge motor i would be grateful if some one could let me know if this is easy enough, thank you for your time and have enjoyed reading some of your bloggs, i look forward to hearing from you soon,

 

[bad_idea]

You need to be very careful playing with compressors. It is too easy to blow it up and turn the tank into shrapnel. Worse yet, it may blow up unexpectedly when you aren't around but maybe the kids are. Don't mean to be Debbie Downer, just please study up on how compressors work before you start tinkering.

To answer your question, I wouldn't use a fire ext. for a tank because it isn't designed for that. Refer to previous shrapnel comment. If the fridge motor develops the necessary horsepower to drive the planned pump, then yes it will work.

 

[vespajono]

thank you for your reply im just thinking bout it now and realise i need to do my home work but saw the broken 50 litre compressor and thought well a fridge motor does the same thing as in produces air, if you have any facts numbers or any thing id need to know i would be grateful as i said its just at the ideas stage but enjoy learning and making things any ho thank you soo much for replying i will take ur warning on board,

 

[kbs2244]

You will be lucky to get 80 PSI from a fridge compressor.
Your fire ext tank will hold that just fine.

 

[vespajono]

thank you for your info im very gratefull, this garage journals great every ones so helpfull, thanks again

 

[metaleltr]

You will be lucky to get 80 PSI from a fridge compressor.
Your fire ext tank will hold that just fine.

You can easily get 500psi from a fridge compressor, more of they are used in series.

 

[AeroNautiCal]

Perhaps consider being a little more realistic!

There are currently 166 listings for a model makers compressor on eBay.co.uk, including this 'as new' set which is at 99p, plus £4:99 shipping.

By all means build something if you want to, but if you want to spray models, without spending much money, then something like this to get you quickly started, and on which you can gain experience, seems like an affordable proposition.

 

[racingtadpole]

A mate of mine built one out of two compressors connected through non return valves (must have) and a regulator. He did a lot of spraying with a HVLP gun with it. He didnt have a storage tank on it. If you're only spraying models with an airbrush I would think that you would have no issues using only one compressor without a storage tank based on what I saw of Mal's set up.

If you have the choice of which fire extinguisher bottle to use, try and get a CO2 one, they have a higher test pressure on the cylinder (by a huge amount) than the water, dry chem and foam types. I use a couple of old CO2 extinguisher bottles I use to make my nail gun portable from time to time. They work OK but I still get nervous, and nobble the air pressure down toward the lower end of what the nail gun will run at.

Hope that is of some help.

 

[PA-Buckeye]

I think there is information out there on the www about using a fridge compressor for airbrushing because they run smoothly and don't pulsate like the (low cost) hobby compressors.

At least that's what I seam to recall, because I pulled the compressor off an old fridge that had a hole in the freezer compartment coolant lines. It's in a box in storage waiting for the day I can get around to testing out the theory.

 

[onewaydave]

Yeah to the fridge set up. They are also MUCH quieter than the affordable alternative. I have no clue to the aplicability of the fire extinguisher. I would think that with a little scraping you could find a suitable tank.

I'll also bet that you could make an entire setup to air brush for about nothing. Well, your time and a few bucks here and there (US).

Do your research and be safe.

Dave.

 

[racingtadpole]

I did some searching on the interweb and there is a huge amount of info on how to do it available, and a lot of how to videos on you tube.

 

[terryr]

Fridge motors are very quiet, and they can pull vacuum as well. I use one for evacuating AC systems.
I also used it to de-gas the PS fluid when I did hydroboost brakes.

I was going to build a small compressor for the house , but found a great deal in a store. Noisy as hell tough.

 

[warren57]

If you're considering using a hermetic refrigerator compressor for an air pump, it will definitely pump air the same as it pumps freon in a gas state. The problem is a refrigerator compressor has an internal motor and windings. These windings are cooled by the refrigerant suction line (the larger of the lines). When pumping freon the suction line brings back saturated freon gas to the compressor. The saturated gas is boiling (at low temp.) inside the pipe thus causing it to cool. This cooling is called subcooling and is utilized to cool the motor windings. Without subcooling it likely would overheat and burn up the motor windings.

 

[kbs2244]

When I researched building mine I came across the overheating argument.
I decided to go ahead with the project since the cost was nill.
I used that compressor for around the house tire filling, blowing off dirty projects, etc for over 10 years.
It came on at 40 and off at 90 PSI

 

[Mattlt]

I seem to remember an issue of Model Railroader from 20+ years ago where they made an airbrush "compressor" from a hand-operated garden sprayer. The 2-gallon jobbies you'd use to spray your weeds, along with a regulator and some gauges, IIRC. I suppose it would have been good for airbrushing but not much else.