Looking at buying a small (130-180 cfm) diesel screw compressor. Something like an Atlas Copco or Ingersoll Rand (Doosan) I know how they work, but that is only theory, practical knowledge is very little. What do you look for when buying a used compressor, to be used for machine blow downs and other intermittent use. Not like running jackhammers for eight hours straight or anything like that. I was looking at one (ingersoll), but when the seller shut it off the auto air blowdown did not kick in to depressurise the system. Another one (atlas copco) did. Some ran a bit rough at the start, but they all blew air out and idled down when at pressure. These things are pretty sought so not cheap, but is it a bit of a gamble regardless?
Have worked on Sullivan-Palatek 210 models a lot. Not a bad unit. Have had to change the flywheel coupler on one. Medium job not too complicated once the hood is off. Have worked on Atlas Copco units. Parts are very expensive on anything made by Copco. They do make pretty quality stuff. Have worked on their generators and rock drills also. Sullair makes good units also. Worked a lot on their 750 -900 CFM sized units. Very industrial. Do a quality inspection and take a sample from the hydraulic tank, and from the engine. Simon C
Have you looked at Blue Diamond yet? Amongst a heap of other machinery, they sell refurbished used compressors that are imported from Japan. I bought a 70cfm unit from them some years ago and it presented almost as new. They’re in WA but no trouble to freight over here. https://www.bluedm.com.au/diesel-air-compressor-125-cfm-used/
No not looked at them. Probably a bit more then I was wanting to spend. Although I do feel used screw compressors might be a bit of a lucky dip. Looking at online auction results and it is all over the shop price wise for machines that look the same. Looks like Genelite is another importer of used Japanese compressors. Thanks, do not see Sullair much in the smaller sizes, same with Gardner Denver. Seems to be mostly either Japanese like Denyo or Atlas Copco or Ingersoll Rand. The older ones, Compair seemed to be popular at one point.
We have an 80's Sullair 185, Ford 4 cylinder gas engine. We picked ours up used from an equipment broker, but it started life as a municipal machine for unknown years. Fairly straight, did not run well until we had the carb rebuilt. Now it starts very well, even down near 0°F. Rebuilt carb, gave it a tune up, replaced air filters, and that's about it for the last 12 years we've had it. I had a spring break on the governor arm, but that was a quick fix. We wanted a diesel compressor when we were shopping, but this one came along at too good of a price to let it go. It's proven to have been the right choice for us. The compressor side has been dependable. Keep oil in it and run it. Worst thing is one of the hose reels on the front leaks too bad to use, but we never needed both hoses at the same time anyways. Just moved that 50' hose over to the other reel and made one reel with 100' of hose (which has been very useful for us).
Always found it interesting the way in the US you had industrial machines with petrol engines. You never saw that here until you got down to the single cylinder stuff like pumps and lawnmowers about the only other thing with petrol motors were passenger cars or small 2wd commercial vehicles. Pretty much all the industrial stuff in the earlier days say 1970's had Perkins 3 and 4 cylinder diesels. Used to see a bit of air cooled Deutz and Italian diesels like Lombardini or Ruggerini powering things no doubt other brands as well. Fuel prices pretty much drove that.
There is still a fair amount of petrol powered wood chippers, generators, light plants, pumps, air compressors, etc from the 1970s/1980s/1990s floating around and still a viable option to run. Locally, the rental yards are switching back to petrol powered options as the emissions equipment on the diesel variants have become a nightmare in maintenance costs. I have a lot of hours on a Bandit 15XP drum chipper that was powered by a modern Ford 6.2L petrol engine, rated @250hp. The engine runs at 3,000 rpm and would just blow right through a 15" diameter log with no issues. I was hesitant to rent such a large petrol powered unit for tree service, but the comparable option in diesel was almost twice the weekly rent. I put the 15XP to work and never looked back. If I was shopping for a new 15" drum chipper, I would seriously consider a petrol powered option today. We ran it once for a week in February when the high temps were only in the mid 20's F. Being a modern gas engine with EFI, a blip of the key and it roared right to life every morning. No plugging it in, no ether, no sluggish starts, nothing. Fire it up, let it idle to warm hydraulics and off to the races. Would the diesel powered 15xp run just as good? Yes. But the diesel engine option cost another $5000 on initial purchase, and you have to maintain the emission equipment because it has DPF and SCR now.
Been seeing the Ford V-10 with an industrial ID tag, on Onan Gensets as of late.
Yes, there were a lot of those and the 5.4L V8 used in generators, especially Generac units. I really haven't seen the industrial v10 used elsewhere though.
SMAC. Service maintenance air compressor. Kubota diesel. Screw compressor. The one we had had a hydraulic pump, welder, generator and jump start option. One come up on a online auction not long ago.
Over here there are zero legal requirements on emissions for any off road engine. Only road registered cars and trucks have emission requirements.
Oh man, that would be a blessing. From my understanding, the emissions regs only focus on off road equipment over 75 hp or greater, so the small stuff doesn't have the DPF/SCR, or at least none of the smaller diesels I've been around did.
Yea I am not familiar with US emission laws, but I do know that some small things here powered by 4 stroke Honda motors have a sticker on the side saying "Not for sale in US or EU". Also I remember reading quite a few years ago people who were importing Indian made Lister CS clones into the US got stock confiscated as it did not meet emission regulations. So they bought them in pieces labelled "compressor parts"
Reminds me of our original compressor which was part engine/part compressor. It had a VW motor…two cylinders operating normally, drove the other two cylinders to pump air. It put out plenty of air but would heat the hose up pretty quickly and became too temperamental in the end. It was produced by CompAir.
My grandpa's neighbor had an engine compressor like that, but it was a modified Ford 302. Grimmer-Schmidt made a lot of them, still see the come up for sale from time to time
I have heard about those VW compressors before. Never seen one though. I apparently must be a tightarse as I wasted my time going to the auction. There were 5 on offer all ex hire company. 130 and 185cfm all went for around the $10 000 mark. Even the one with the out of ser4vice tag. And the one that started poorly and the one that was surging at idle.
Queenslander, I'm guessing by the labels and key, that VW has a starter motor? I'm chasing a magneto for an old crank start VW industrial motor if you or anyone else has one? Can't help any with your compressor RC. What's the downside to the 3 cyl piston compressors run off a Honda, not in the same CFM league? A few blokes I know with a couple of dozers just use them.
Yes, it is electric start…. wouldn’t fancy hand cranking it when it gets in a mood. What’s your motor on?, sounds interesting. Compressor choice basically comes down to capacity, although screw compressors would definitely be longer lasting and cheaper to maintain in a high hour application. I chose a 70 because, at around 400kg, we can leave it permanently on the back of an old 1 tonne ute, along with toolboxes etc.
Sorry for the hijack RC. It's for an ex-army 15KVA generator, has both Aust and US voltages (switchable). Yeah she's not much fun to crank, no decompression lever, so its two hands on the crank, get it against compression and hit it with all you got. You'll only get it one revolution, so you hope it hits off, if not, stop and repeat. You can't just keep winding it over, too much compression. But having said that it actually started pretty good, from cold, 3 cranks on choke, then choke off and it should go. Hot, first or second crank she would be away. Til it got really hard to start, nearly killed me cranking, working out it had no spark, was intermittent. Long story short, not many people rebuilding magneto's these days. Spoke to Ronny KEILOR in Eidsvold a couple of years ago, but he reckoned at the time that his eyesight was to bad and couldn't do. Spoke to a business in Sydney, he does aviation stuff and reckons he wouldn't mess with mine, so its in the shed just needing a sparking device. Looked at converting it to electric start, but lot of parts to swap over, so ended up buying a 15kva Genlite for portable stuff. The big 3cyl diesel i already had, wasn't much fun carting around fencing etc.
I have a cobbled together thing of my own creation here. A 3 cylinder compressor head about 40cfmdirect coupled to a hydraulic motor what all goes on the forks of my Dingo. I also have a large air tank I sometimes connect to it to clean out bores on the odd occasion, but it runs hot and the dingo will start to boil on a hot day running it as well. I have found blowing down cars/trucks/tractors etc is better then pressure washing them, or if you have to pressure wash them, makes that job so faster. I also stir the plunge dip with a compressor these days as we still dip cattle semi regularly. Stir up the tank of cattle lick if it has sat idle for six months. Cleaning a tank out stir up all the rubbish in the bottom to get it into suspension so it comes out the outlet, saves shovelling later on. I am lazy so like to use fossil fuels to do the work as much as possible. As for the magneto, I would have thought old engine buffs on theinternet would be able to kelp. Smokstak forum, or even antique caterpillar enthusiasts like ACMOC. .
Iam pretty sure this is the place that I went to years ago chasing parts. Little old fashioned shop, but they knew exactly what I needed and had it in stock. https://www.mickmotors.com.au/aboutus.aspx I’ve found that the 70cfm compressor is just big enough to blow the frogs and associated sh*t out of a 100ft. bore.
Yep it certainly is (was) the place to go to. When I bought it years ago, it had no spark, so I found him and got the last good magneto he had for them. Apparently he used to set them up and provide specialist support to the ADF when they were in service. Same story, the shop that used to rebuild magnetos for him shut down a few years ago (owner retired), he didn't really know anyone who would be interested (or even could) rebuild it. TBH I've replaced it with another generator and really am getting to old to hand crank start a 1600cc 4 cyl engine anyway. I just hate the thought of something with still a lot of life left being scrapped or parted out for the lack of one part.
I built a VW 1600cc sand rail years ago and upgraded the ignition to a Pertronix kit. I'm not 100% sure if thats what you need, but the pertronix kit is very easy to install, and it resolved my incessant miss fire issues. I had mine dolled up with a 1641cc big bore kit, aftermarket heads with over sized valves, and compression had been raised to 10.1:1. With dual 40mm carbs, that rail was a pretty decent runner for a tight budget.
Managed to get a small rotary screw compressor. It is a Denyo 90CFM about half a tonne and no wheels, just fits in the back of a ute. A little kubota diesel. 2000 hours on the clock and $850 at auction. Of course it was non operational. The key switch was entirely missing. I thought it had just popped inside but removing the electrical panel revealed just wires. And the fan has bits chewed out of it from bolts falling out of the cowling, then it dropping onto the fan and the radiators were full of oily dirt as some air fittings arouund the regulator are loose. I hot wired it and it fired up straight away sand started making pressure and compressor oil went everywhere out of the cooler. Some hamfisted mechanic had tightened up the fitting onto the oil cooler without supporting the cooler side with a spanner and split the outside of the cooler. Should be an easy repair though once I investigate what materials it is made up of.
Yep, that should keep your wheelbarrow tyre pumped up. Looks like with a bit of TLC, it should be a good unit.
I hope so. I was not sure what size I needed. Reading other forums about people blowing down headers and hay making equipment they seem to be mostly using around 185cfm units. But I see Queenslander with his 75cfm ute mounted one and thought if it is enough air for his equipment it should be enough for mine. There was one the same as his at this auction. It made $950. The cooler is made of aluminium and I cannot weld that so I have got a fellow lined up to TIG weld it. A have ordered a new fan and think I have identified all the filters and I picked up a drum of oil for it today as well. The leaking internal air fittings I will just put some loctite hydraulic thread sealant on the threads. Pretty amazing stuff that is to seal up pipe threads.
Loctite 545? I had never seen the stuff before last summer. I went to a local hydraulic shop to have a test hose made for testing the SCV's on a couple of our tractors. I told the parts house guy what my goal was (connect to tractor SCV, 3 ft long test hose, 0-5000psi gauge read out), and he got it all collected and then assembled it for me. He only put like 3 dabs on the male threads and then ran it all together and torqued it up. I asked if that was enough sealant (i had only ever used PTFE paste that people goober on), he said, "it might be too much. It won't leak." It held 3000psi under constant pressure when testing with no issues. Pretty neat stuff.
All the stores sell 569 hydraulic thread sealant here. Loctite products have gone up in price substantially in the past few years. The fellow could weld up the cooler later this afternoon, so I visited him and what we thought was going to be a quick easy job turned out to take an hour. He had to cut out the first row and blank it off and reattached the inlet pipe to the next row. I pressure tested it this evening in the dim light (our shed has crap lights) to 30psi with air and could not find any leaks. Even more amazing was the filter shop had the obscure compressor oil filter in stock. Got a universal start switch and will have to do some inventive wiring with a relay as the original starter switch was a bit odd with it's terminals. I think I have everything I need now except the fan and giving it good clean down to have it running again. No photo's as it is too dark.
Yeah, the 75 is probably the minimum for this application but I wanted to be able to carry it around comfortably in the ute along with other gear. A couple of things that help, I always try to blow down at the end of the day… the tiny amount of moisture in the air tends to make the dust set overnight. The lance I have is just a ball valve with a length of 3/4 gal pipe but with a short length of 3/8 hose on the end so you can poke it in through the rad. grill and in to other nooks and crannies. This lance looks like it might deliver more bang but have never tried one because of the horrendous price. https://www.peerlessproducts.com.au/products/tornado-extreme-air-blow-gun
Might be a fair bit of "Australia Tax" on them. Only US$300 over there. Force 5® Safety Air Gun - 48" The most powerful safety air gun on the planet, the Force 5® Series is designed for heavy-duty industrial and construction cleaning applications. Built for the toughest environments, they deliver maximum compressed air when and where required. Featuring a dead-man trigger, the Force 5 Series are... guardair.com
Got it running for brief 20 second periods late this afternoon (as I have no fan for it yet) and it performs exactly as it should. Blows more air then cyclone Alfred https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14475127/Cyclone-Alfred-Bureau-Meteorology.html I am pretty chuffed.
That's not much of a recommendation RC. I've had bigger farts than Alfred.
So how long and what size hose do people use for blowing equipment? I was thinking 5/8 air hose should be big enough without being too large. 20 metres (65ft) long enough maybe.
Iam using 15 metres of 3/4 and my homemade lance to blow down with. Also have a reel with 1/2 hose for the lighter jobs.
Looks awesome. I found a pressure drop calculator and 3/4 looks to be the size to use. Pressure drop on 5/8 is a bit. Spent two hours with the pressure washer cleaning it up. Changed all the oils and coolant. Put the old fan back on it temporarily until the new one comes and it looks a million dollars. Blew heaps of smoke for a start, then that has all cleared up and runs clean. Everything is easily accessible on this unit. Getting a heat storm here now. I am over the constant 38C days.
We have ¾" hose x 100ft on our 185cfm compressor and a homemade Lance. Lance is made from ¾" black pipe necked down with a reducing 45° coupler to ⅜" for the final foot or so. It works really well for blowing off all sorts of equipment. A ball valve at the base makes it easy to regulate air flow. It is definitely a two handed job as you don't want the Lance getting away from you with the ball valve cracked full on. I'm going to make a shorter lance with a 90 bend on the end for blowing out air filters.
When the auction the one I got was going on, they had another 2 there. A 185cfm and a 130cfm. I put a low bid on the one I got and put what I thought a big bid on the 185 one. It was an online one that at the end, it you put a bid in in the last minute the timer resets another five minutes. It had a cracked off exhaust, plus the throttle linkage was that worn it would not rev up the motor, but the compressor pumped well and had full oil in it. 4400 hours. I ended up being high bidder on it, but it was passed in. they wanted $9000 for it. I told them I forgot to add the photo of the tig repaired oil cooler. I thought it was air tight, but when I retested it there were a couple of the tiniest pin holes. I have had success with loctite making welds watertight, so I crossed my fingers and put some on. Retested a couple of hours later and no leaks. And what is it with isolation switched on mining equipment. Everyone I have come across has two isolation switches. I removed both of them out of this one. It seems to be up there with the little yellow arrow things on wheel nuts. I am yet to come across a wheel nut that has come loose.
This should do. It got the lawnmower clean. Bit of 3/4 pipe and welded some 5/8" ID stainless tube I had onto the end. Then the end plugged off and a 10mm hole in it. About 15 and a bit metres of hose, as I ordered 15m and there was about 3 or so metres left on the reel, so they just gave me the lot for 15m. Went to the rubber shop and they had some hollow foam insulation stuff for about $6. So put some of that on the 3/4 pipe and taped it with tape. Although heatshrink would probably be the best.
Looks like it'll do the job quite well.
Yep, that’ll do the job. If you’re in the market for a 1” rattle gun, I can recommend one of these. Mightn’t have quite the grunt of the big name versions but I couldn’t justify spending 2-3k. $700 from Trade Tools.
Decent looking impact wrench for the price. Got a 3/4 Ingersoll Rand here but gee it does not seem that powerful. Seems everyone is oohing and ahhing over the cordless stuff these days. I only have a little drill, 1/2" impact wrench, pathetic angle grinder and grease gun in cordless, and their lifespan is not that great for the price.
I told you fellas I was lazy. LOL Now after blowing out all the tractors, the dip draining pen, the vet crush and scales and some troughs... Now I want a bigger one. That foam on the pipe makes a huge difference. Cannot hold the pipe, but the foam area is as cool as. https://www.clarkrubber.com.au/products/33887p-pipe-insulation
Our lance gets really hot if you have to spend more than 15 minutes running it. I always wear good gloves when blowing stuff off, but now I'm going to try your pipe insulation idea. I fired up our big compressor Sunday night to clear a blocked manure line. All of the manure slurry gets transferred from the center of the farm to a processing building 600 ft to the north through a buried line. Every so often, too much sand will get in one spot and plug the line. We have a 1000 gallon tank set up that we use as a blast tank. Air up the big tank to 130 psi, pop the valves in the right orientation and away goes the plug. Once the pressure drops off, fire up the transfer pump, and away goes the manure. Takes a good 30 minutes to air up the tank, then just a couple minutes to clear the clog. Would not be possible without the big compressor. This was the entire reason that drove us to buy this compressor in the first place. The manure needs to transfer over four times daily to keep up with the cows and there isn't but 12 hours worth of storage at the transfer pit. So any plugs need to be addressed promptly before other issues arise.
You do not worry about blowing the line up dumping full pressure into the line? I once blew up a water line trying to clear a blockage.
Maybe some day we'll end up digging it up and replacing a section, but we've done this a couple times a year for over ten years now. The line is 12" diameter DR18 pipe with max working pressure of 235 psi. I threw the dump valve at 130psi. I'm sure the bedding sand that is mixed in the slurry is eroding the interior pipe. We know our concrete floors in the barn are eroding away from the daily scraping as some of the imbeded rebar is showing on the surface of the concrete now.
That is pretty decent plastic pipe to handle that pressure.
Got the new fan in it and welded up a cracked exhaust tubing. It has had a good workout now. Got a bore cleaned out this afternoon with the help of some large air tanks ready to put a solar pump on it. The windmill is throwing out all it's oil plus it pumps to a high tank and I am sick of the high maintenance the differential compensator/stuffing box creates. It always leaks water. I am also going to keep an eye out for a bigger compressor should the price be right like this one was, along with I have ordered a couple of air tools. A long die grinder, since my old air one died after many years, then I replaced it with a ryobi cordless one, which died under warranty, so got it replaced, then it quickly died as well so I got my money back. Plus a narrow headed angle grinder, both of the same brand as the 1" drive rattle gun Queenslander posted a photo of previously. He is a bad influence as I am also looking at those toolboxes he has. https://www.tradetools.com/renegade-industrial-100mm-air-cutter-extended-1hp-rieac4 It was interesting the bore cleaning. I put the 1 1/2" poly down to the bottom and blew it until clean water came out and I was sure I was on the bottom. Then it seemed to go down another six feet, like there was a hard crust down there it broke through. Strange thing is I know another person who was cleaning out an old bore and the same happened to them, they thought they were on the bottom, then broke through a hard layer and went down a fair bit more.
I don’t have a suitable air tank so usually only get one brief shot that looks like that, then the water just comes up in big gob fulls.. good enough to blow the frogs and crap out. There was a time when we had 20 bores, all but 4 with windmills. In the days before ProPol column it was a major job keeping them going, we would regularly pull 2 in a day. Half of them went with the place we sold, so now down to a single mill, the rest all solar and mains submersibles. Checking this pump this morning and spotted these evil little bastards.
They're not red hornets, so just give them a pat and be friends. Red hornets are the evil bastards, they'll draw blood.
For some reason I’ve developed an allergy to paper wasps later in life. Red Hornets sure do have a kick, as do bees to a lesser degree but these wasps bring out a painful all over rash and sometimes a tightening in the throat. I try to keep an EpiPen handy over summer.
I wonder if there's a reason for that, dietary or environmental or whatever. I know a couple of others in the same boat, not just paper wasps specifically, but have gotten more allergic to any stings as they got older.
Pretty much the same here we had somewhere around twenty before we split up and I have around 10 now but still help with the others if required. I think when my father was involved in his families partnership they had near 40 to keep maintained. All done manually back in his day with hand threaders with a dedicated old petrol bonneted bedford truck that had all the gear mounted permanently on it. These days we have electric threaders and I had been getting a good learning curve moving over to propol pipe and as a windmill dies, going to solar. A lot of our mills have been rebuilt in the last 25 years so will have them for a while to come yet. What seems like a lifetime ago I used to help the neighbours out a bit, and they were not as advanced as us on the mill pulling equipment gear. The day a pair of stilsons that I think were used to help build the ark went to the bottom of a well, I was not disappointed. I just came across this youtube channel last night. I had never heard of fracking water bores. I just thought it was an oil and gas thing. I was also surprised by the depths of those bores in the US and the fact they do not case them to the bottom, and they will case a bore with such poor supplies. We would not bother casing anything less then 400 gallons an hour, and here they are equipping bores that do 60 gallons an hour. H²O Mechanic The Best Channel on YouTube for Water Well Information & Help. I try my best to Answer Any Question You may Have Regarding Plumbing and Water Well issues. This is Strictly Educational Type Content but intended for Entertainment Purposes only. You Assume All risk if you attempt to DIY, hiring a... www.youtube.com
This is our largest mill, a 21ft Southern Cross, still in very good condition. The water is very corrosive and propol wouldn’t be an option on such a big mill so we had stainless pipe down it. Also had a compensator and 3 1/2 inch pump so it eventually became too expensive and time consuming to maintain. Would have to wait 100 years for it to wear out so we reluctantly dropped a Chinese solar pump down. I remember touring the SC foundry in Toowoomba back in its heyday, sadly now a Bunnings store.
I am not the bravest person on heights, but those R pattern ones I hate. My brother ended up with the 17ft one we have on a 45ft tower. I only ever climbed up right to the top once. Climbed to the first platform, then up the tower a bit more then contort yourself onto the little ladder they gets you up top. It is not that it is hard, I just hate heights. I like that solar setup with the panels right up high.
The most unnerving part is standing on that tiny platform and reefing up on the crankcase cover. This particular brand of pump doesn’t supply a mount for the array so we built our own to keep the panels out of reach of curious cattle. The Chinese pumps may not be the best on the market but they certainly forced the European brands to meet the market. I’ve had zero luck with the Aus. brand that begins with M and will never buy another one of their products.
Chinese ones is all I have got as I was late to get into the solar game. An uncle and cousin have done nothing but blow money on not sure if they were lorenz or grundfos and they were going through $3000 pumps every year, their setups were costing them $7000 installed, on top of the bore drilling cost. Compared to my ebay special $500 delivered 210W pumps. I think I have got them just about turned now though. My only issue so far with the chinese ones is the rotor likes to strip the thread in the nut that is embedded in the rubber. One only lasted six months before it stripped out. But I am going to loctite that rotor into it's nut next time. The higher quality Tuhorse rotors have a tiny grub screw on their rotors to lock them all up tight. Plus the chinese ones seem to be mostly all interchangeable. Rotors are standardised, the controllers will work on different brands. They seem pretty good. I had no problems with a 210W with 250w panel keeping enough water up to 100, 2 1/2 year old steers.
Hey RC I saw that water bore fracking a couple months ago. I was going to post on here and ask about it from the guys that do the oil fracking and see if it could be something to investigate. Seems fantastic if the bore’s casing is still good enough to handle it, what was your thoughts?? I found their channel looking at inspection cameras for dropping down bores, the Chinese cameras are getting very affordable it seems. Interesting to hear what you guys think about the Chinese pumps too. We found when the Grundfos pumps started being made in Mexico, instead of Denmark the quality when to rubbish. They must have got their act together a bit as the last couple haven’t been too bad. We have been looking very hard at the cheap ones though as the cost of the others is ridiculous. How big of an air compressor do you guys think is needed to clean out a bore? I have an old Atlas Copco, I’ll see if I can find the specs. I never thought it was big enough to try, but reading though your thread it seems I might be very wrong!
I think my old compressor is an XAS40 and the brochure/manual I found says 91cfm at 102psi… I don’t think it does that much though. Not sure how to check that. You would need bigger if the bores were deeper wouldn’t you??
As RC did, you will need a buffer tank so you can send a blast, stop the air flow to recharge, and then send another blast. That's the same premise we use when unclogging our underground manure line. 1000 gallon buffer tank charged to 130 psi. Dump the 2" ball valve and watch the pressure dissappear. When the pressure is gone, so is the blockage. I also use a 30 gallon buffer tank when running our ¾" pneumatic impact wrench as our 80 gallon compressor doesn't keep up with it. We have a big tank, but not a big compressor head so it takes time to recover. With over 100 gallon of capacity, I can usually blast through a couple bolts before having to let it recharge for a bit.
From the videos I watched, they drill down so far and case it, then they just keep drilling and the majority of the bore is uncased. Their packer thing that plugs the hole, they put in the uncased solid rock section. Given they use 1500psi+ to jam the packer in there I could not think any casing could handle that, certainly not plastic. Around here as the bores are essentially shallow, anywhere from 30 to 120 feet, they generally drill something like an 8" hole, put 6" casing right to the bottom, slotting the casing as required, then gravel pack the outside area with small round gravel, then the top section gets cemented. Seems the compressor size mostly used to blow bores is around the 400cfm range. That should get all the water out and you can see how much water you have. Of course the smaller the annular space the less air you would need. Essentially the bigger pipe you put down to deliver the air, the smaller the gap between it and the bore walls, so the air has a higher velocity. I think a lot of people just use 1 1/2" poly to deliver the air, but tied of very securely right at the top of the casing. Otherwise it just gets blown out. I cannot blow out all the water with my setup, but I can clean them out. Here are the tanks I use.
So I was looking through all my old photos and came across this one. Bore is about 80ft deep with 5 to 6" casing casing and compressor was a XAS175 Atlas Copco. It blew the water up like this continuously. it only had flexible yellow hose down it.
You can not help some people can you? Since compressors I can physically look and test run are pretty rare around here, I ended up having to pay pretty much auction market value for this one. I have noticed in the capital cities they seem to go at half the price they go around here. After looking at a 400cfm one that was listed on a popular nation wide auction site, that was pouring out oil and the motor would not rev up for some reason it sort of makes you go hmm with unseen second hand gear like this. 185cfm, 4000 hours. Puts out heaps of air. Starter motor is getting a bit tired, but other then that and the cracked cheap plastic feeling cowling, it seems fine.
Hey .RC. Not sure if the start of your last post was aimed at me or not… if it was I think that is a fair call! I apologise for not replying, I have had a bit going on and have been very slack at getting back to you. All our bores are a lot deeper at about 5-600ft plus. I am thinking my one will struggle at the depth but I really don’t know now and you have inspired me to try it out. I think I might have to add the extra air tank as well to give it a fair chance. Looks like a good find there with your new purchase!!!
Yea I am not sure how it works but I know it takes 9.8kpa of pressure to lift water one metre. 500-600ft is pretty deep although the static water level would be much higher I assume. I am not sure how it would go. For those sorts of depths have you considered a sand pump. Generally used with the old percussion rigs, we have also used them to clean bores out, although a lot shallower. Generally a pulley up the top of the windmill tower, a long skinny wire rope and a car or tractor to lift it in and out. Slow, but it sort of works. I connected the two compressors together this afternoon and tested it out on an unused bore here. It worked well, but the bore is pretty shallow only around 65ft deep and did around 4000 gallons an hour when it was drilled.
You could have a potential side hustle there. Buy compressors at auction, a few minor repairs and on sell for huge profit!!
I am not sure what the demand is out there. I am finding them excellent for just keeping the grass seeds out of the vehicles at the moment. I am planning on experiment with using mine to clean stock water tanks out with. I was using my little air angle grinder the other day and the supposedly 12cfm petrol compressor in the shed could not keep the air supply up to a grinder that is supposed to only use 4cfm. The bi monthly auction that two months ago the four compressors all sold for $8500-11000, yesterday the ones up for sale were all passed in with in most cases only a single bid around the $5000 mark. I paid AU$8000 (US$4800) for the 185 thinking it was about the going rate for a working good condition 185 cfm machine at auction. I can not pick it why the prices are all over the place.
Amazing this mine spec crap they put on devices, how much it degrades the system. I thought the starter motor was on the way out as it would barely turn the motor over. It had the usual two isolation switches installed and a lot of cable from the battery to the switches to the motor. Removed all that crap and suddenly the starter motor spins like a new one. Must have been a bit of a voltage drop with all the extra wiring and connections. Those mine sites must be stupidly dangerous places with tyre wheel nuts all coming off and tyres flying everywhere. Every one is colour blind and can only see orange as a colour. The requirement for multiple isolation switches everywhere rather then just what is required. Crap falling from the sky on open clear plains place requiring hard hats at all times. Out of control vehicles going everywhere because the wheel chocks were not put in placewhen parking at the office car park. Just bloody dangerous places.
Looks like it's stirring up all the junk quite nicely for removal. Stock tanks are a pain to keep clean. Wash them one day, come back tomorrow and find one of the cows already crapped in it.
Yea it really stirred it up. It is a 10 000 gallon water tank. Made on site way back the 60's. It only around 5 to 6 ft tall so it just grows large amounts of algae and slime and a weed we call duck weed and even water lillies were growing in it at one stage, no bullrushes though. They do not get cleaned out very often as it has been in the past a back breaking job of when the water level is down, get in there with your 20 litre bucket and shovel with a foot of crud in the bottom and start shovelling and bucketing it over the top. OK when you are young and strong. I am not young and strong any more. Probably been 20 years since this was last cleaned out. The modern plastic tanks get no light inside so they never can any crud in them when using bore water as nothing grows. If you pump out of dams into the tanks a different story, they just get mud in them.
Got a fair bit out but the pump can only pump out so close to the bottom. Years ago in this area there was this chap who went around cleaning out wells, what we call a well is a hole dug by hand with either timber or round concrete liners. Usually shallow under 30ft deep. Anyway he had a 400 odd cfm compressor and some 3 or 4" pvc pipe and at the end of the pipe there was a steel section that had a bit of small diameter pipe that entered into the main pipe and pointed back up to the top. Blowing air in there created a suction and sucked up all manner of rubbish in the well. It was not really a venturi, more of a lift pump sort of thing. But I see there is a company making a proper venturi device for cleaning out pits and stuff. https://shop.plcsusa.com/venturi-water-pump-only/ But it is a bit pricey. Maybe some tapered exhaust tubing cobbled together might work? If you are wondering what the stick is for. It is so birds can perch there to get a drink and not drown.
There is a bloke near here that uses the same principle on a much smaller scale. He makes them himself from copper tube, pvc and poly pipe. Permanently mounted down a 80ft bore with a 10-15 cfm compressor, they lift water into a tank at the surface but won’t push any further. In the days before cheap solar pumps we used an air pump invented by a bloke by the name of Malmborg at Coominya. He didn’t have it patented correctly and another outfit marketed them under another name for a while, but they weren’t near as good. We had a 15cfm compressor in the shed on mains power with a 3/4 poly air line running 2km to the bore. It would deliver 4-500 gph into a tank with a double acting float valve and look after itself. The key was having a quality compressor as it would do some big hours at times.
I will take your 1" renegade impact wrench, and raise you to a 1" vevor, for half the price. VEVOR 1 Inch Air Impact Wrench, Up to 5175 ft-lbs Beast Reverse Torque Output Pneumatic Impact Gun w/ 8 Inch Extended Anvil for Repairs and Maintenance of Heavy Duty Machinery / Semi-Truck / Bus | VEVOR AU Shop VEVOR 1 Inch Air Impact Wrench, Up to 5175 ft-lbs Beast Reverse Torque Output Pneumatic Impact Gun w/ 8 Inch Extended Anvil for Repairs and Maintenance of Heavy Duty Machinery / Semi-Truck / Bus at lowest price, 2-day delivery, 30-day returns. Shop now at VEVOR. www.vevor.com.au
Very impressive.. includes shipping as well which is also impressive for something that weighs 21kg. At that price I could probably handle another.
Now that you have plenty of air, have you thought about a double diaphragm pump ? From What I read, they handle mud & slurry.
My finger slipped and I seem to have ordered one. Might finally have something that can undo truck wheel nuts. The 3/4 IR I have struggles with some. And when I forget one side is all left hand thread, I will be able to snap them off.
That’s good, I’ll wait for your review.
Well it is on it's way. I see that jaypaydirt fellow bought one as well and gave it a slight workout. This is the main reason I wanted something more capable. Lift rams off my 922 loader. 2 3/8" nut that the shop that rebuilt the rams for me about 15 years ago used loctite on as well. The little Ingersoll did not have a hope in hell as I have found with lot of bolts I have tried it on. Got badly done on the seals though. The last shop made new pistons, re welded the trunnion and honed out the barrel and modified the head seal to a new modern design. So I did not get a kit for it as I did not know what they modified and what they kept original, but took the piston and head to the local hydraulic shop for new seals. Turns out their piston seals were $130 each, and needed four of them. I was a bit shocked at the price. When I got home and googled their part number. They charged was about the going rate for that brand, but I saw a cat part as an interchange number and cat price was $55 each with the same dimensions, but ex Brisbane. Since I have had to borrow the 2 3/8 socket, and not the first time I have had to borrow a big socket, Found this set. VEVOR Impact Socket Set 3/4 Inches 29 Piece Impact Sockets, 6-Point Sockets, Rugged Construction, CR-M0, 3/4 Inches Drive Socket Set Impact SAE 3/4 inch - 2-1/2 inch, with a Storage Cage | VEVOR AU VEVOR Impact Socket Set 3/4 Inches features 29 high-torque, 6-point sockets made of durable alloy steel, perfect for mechanics handling heavy-duty vehicles. www.vevor.com.au
It has arrived. I am actually quite happy with it. Quality out of China these days is pretty damn good. It does not have that cheap **** feel about it. Even the forward reverse toggle feels nice and the detents are positive but not hard. Came with a 1/2" BSP thread which was good as I was half expecting that hard to get fittings for NPT thread style. Two 1" impact sockets were included as well, 32mm and 33mm. They were not deep sockets, but not shallow either. It is heavy, sounds like a chainsaw and really goes through some air. At full revs the 90cfm compressor can not build back up to 100psi when running it no load continuously. The socket square on the end is a firm fit. There is only one big nut around here at the moment, so I tried it on some truck wheel nuts. I think one hit and the nut was free and two hits doing it up and it was as tight as anything. I think it will be worth it for me as I have no big impact wrench. Those already with 1" impact wrenches mileage may vary. If you had a set of track pads to change over, it would be easily worth it. Big nuts off ram ends. the sort of jobs you do once in a blue moon. For AU$370 delivered including 10% tax, which I will claim back, seems to be worth it at least for me. This is the actual manufacturer http://www.lztools.com/product_category_22395.html Here is it compared to the 3/4 Ingersoll Rand 2145 qimax.
Definitely value for money, unfortunately I’ll have to wait until I can come up with a valid proposal to put to the minister for war and finance before buying another rattle gun.
Ended up making a venturi sucker device to clean dirty water out of pits and holes. A home made version of one of these https://www.trenchlesssales.co.uk/product/venturi-water-pumps/ Used stainless steel exhaust components to build it. 2 1/2" tubing with a couple of reducers down to 38mm to create the constriction that creates the venturi. Then some 8mm ID pipe to blow the air in. Total cost around $80. Pumps about 5000 litres an hour and has a pretty impressive sucking action. Uses a good bit of air though, probably 70 cfm or so. My stainless welds look crap though. Should have been tig welded, not that I can do that.
How about fuel rate? I optioned for a diesel vs gas on a firewood processor. 10,000hr life vs maybe 3000 plus burns under a gallon an hour where the same hp gas would be near 2x that. Diesel fuel being cheaper and safer too.
Gasoline is cheaper here here than diesel. 2.86/gallon vs 3.49/gallon. (18% cheaper) On the big chipper I ran, it had a 250hp gas engine burning around 30 gallons a day. A comparable diesel unit would have been 15-20 gallons a day. Fuel consumption isn't the worry but the costly emissions systems on the diesel units if they have problems are a concern. Common rail powered machines have expensive injection systems, expensive emissions systems, etc. The gas engine jobs are straight forward and reliable. Parts are considerably cheaper as well. I prefer a diesel powered chipper, as they power through the wood much nicer, but I can't ignore the economics of running a gas powered chipper.
Just like that a poly pipe decides to split and leak. So a practical demonstration of what it is for.
Looks like it'll be pretty handy, much better than trying to bucket it out or fix it blind under water.
yea, it is usually blind underwater in the middle of winter as these cracks in the pipe always seem to happen just after the first cold snap. And of course I usually forget to bring the gumboots as well.
It was used to clean rust and sludge out that had accumulated there over fifty years. It was the 185cfm and the 90cfm connected together, the 185 alone could not accomplish it.
I have a 20 year old I-R 185 CFM with an Isuzu diesel in it. We use it for jetting wells and sandblasting. It was purchased new and has about 250 trouble free hours. No emissions and prior to the acquisition by Doosan.
I noticed our Sullair 185 started to run really hot a couple weeks back. When it cooled down, I found it was 2 gallons low on coolant. Topped it off and it still ran really hot. Took the rear cover off and found the radiator severely plugged. Yes, I used the compressor to blow out its own radiator. So far this summer, I've used the Sullair to un plug our buried manure line 6 times, and probably spent 10 hours blowing off radiators. It needs some shop time as it's starting to leak engine oil bad. I think I've added 2 gallons since May, one quart at a time. Looks like every gasket from the valve cover down to the oil pan is seeping now. Shouldn't be too hard to reseal it, the engine is fairly accessible and parts are still readily available for the small, four cylinder Ford power plant.
Does not take much to get stuff to start heating up. Not to bad here at the moment as it is the middle of winter, getting a bit sick of these freezing cold 50F mornings though.
It's middle of summer and we had a 50F morning two days ago. Normally in the 60s in the morning, though today was 72 when I got outside at 6am
Sort of compressor related as it uses a compressor. I have had an air arc device for near on 25 years and used it on occasion but never had much use due to limitations on either air supply or welding current. The welder on youtube icweld sort of opened my eyes to what a real professional can do with low amps with these devices. I never had any luck using it with sub 350 amps and my prehistoric 400 amp engine drive died, so it never got used again after I tried it on my pricey 250 amp mig/stick combo main welder and it never ran well and I did not want to risk killing a $1500 welder. I had a cheapie ~160 amp inverter stick welder for years. Could not kill it even after half melting off the front from too many 4mm rods in quick succession. Until a fan inside it died. As they are now around $100 each delivered I picked up two this time "250" amps. Of course minus 100 amps off what they say they do and it is pretty close. I hooked the two together in parallel to double the amps and it works a treat using small 5mm carbons and a suitable compressor. I am not up to icweld quality, but it seems to run better then I have run it before. I never have to do big jobs but it looks like it will be quite handy for sorting out those endless crack repairs. If a welder dies, well they are cheap enough to get another.
Well, I don't know how long this has been going on, but I noticed this today when charging our surge tank (1000 gallon tank charged to 100psi+/-). This is a four cylinder Ford, petrol engine. Had been running about 10 minutes charging the tank when I walked past and saw the glow. I have no idea if that's a new thing starting today, or if this has been happening every time we run this compressor. Water temp stayed cool, under 175°F the entire time. Choke was off, I verified that right away. I'll talk to the boss tomorrow and see what their thoughts are. We rarely run the compressor for extended periods of time. Maybe up to an hour at once if blowing off several large pieces of equipment during harvest. Otherwise it's only 10-15 minutes here and there as needed.
Hi there, any chance you have a unit without a 'wedge' controller? I have been trying to find a wiring diagram for the past 2 years. All the ones I find or buy are for the newer models with an ecu to control everything. Mine just has a few relays and no ecu.
Looks to be running a bit lean. If the choke was on it would have the opposite effect. I would pull the carby and give the jets a clean.