Home Made Compressor, Would you buy it

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Jonm

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Please note, I am not asking for advice.

I saw this on ebay

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/27486191...,osub=osub,crd=crd,segname=segname,chnl=mkcid
Looks like the upper and lower brackets have been welded to the gas cylinder tank. Lever to engage/disengage the motor from the compressor. Very low maintenance guards around the belts and pulleys. Personally I would not go within 100 metres of it if it was running.

It does remind me of a compressor I borrowed, when I was young for car paint spraying. That compressor had an excellent devilbiss water separator and gun. Compressor was driven by a massive single phase motor, on starting it would sometimes need a kick on the pulley to get it going, made easy by the non existent guards. Tank was also an old gas cylinder with pressure relief valve screwed in to boss welded in to a hole drilled in the tank, but that was the only weld, other than original welding. Fantastic spray gun but looking back I should not have used it.

Anyway, what do people think of this, would anyone use it?
 
That looks like Frankenstein's Monster...lol
The welds look well done to the tank, wonder what
pressure it will go up to.
I'd be like lets have a go but knowing I not to.
 
I can't speak about this eBay compressor, but I have seen ones that were terrible, but also
rat/ harlequin ones that were over-engineered and much better and safer than the run-of-the-mill
Asian made ones from the store. The risk is always yours, but if you know a thing or two about such
units, you can buy a very decent product even though someone cobbled it up from things re-purposed.
If not better give it a miss.
 
No do not know much about building one so it's not for me.
I was using an air compressor from a dentist, It did not hold much pressure but
it was useful for blowing air, cleaning dust while turning.
Kept it for years. sold it to a farmer he wanted it to blow up is tyres said it
might not do it but he wanted it...lol
 
An air compressor is basically a fragmentation bomb that given enough time will go off. I wouldn't be messing around with anything homebrew unless I was the one that had made it and knew what I was doing.
 
hog&bodge said:
That looks like Frankenstein's Monster...lol
The welds look well done to the tank, wonder what
pressure it will go up to.
I'd be like lets have a go but knowing I not to.
Click to expand...
The welds we can see do look ok. I think it would have been better if there was a metal frame holding the top part and the tank was just strapped to the frame. But then if you know what you are doing with welding then why not weld everything to the tank.
 
Jonm said:
This is in the section “ buying advice”. Basically I am saying I am not asking for advice on whether I should buy it, just interested in what people thought. As I said “Personally I would not go within 100 metres of it if it was running”.
Click to expand...
If it did explode, could you sue the seller? Or would caveat emptor apply? Asking for a friend :)
 
If the sum of the parts was worth the 50 or more then yes but I would never use it as is. The parts could be put on a good tank but by the time you go through the work of transferring the parts and making new air lines etc you wouldn't be saving over buying a new one.

Pete
 
Trainee neophyte said:
I might house it outside, in a separate concrete bunker. The good news is that the pressure is about the same at either end of a very, very long hose.
Click to expand...
The problem would be that when it reaches pressure you have to manually disengage the drive, and how would you turn it off. One way would be to let the pressure relief valve activate and have the pressure regulating valve at the downstream end of the pipe. To turn it off, wait till it runs out of fuel.
 
careful

a neighbour of my dad was killed by the shrapnel when his home-made compressor exploded - being used to drive a home-made log splitter
 
Its a propane cylinder. Last i checked they are rated to 28bar and tested to double that. The pump is reciprocal and most likely capable of 10 bar max. A catastrophic failure of the tank is going to be somewhat unlikely. If it does fail it will fail at the threads on the pipework first but thats pretty unlikely too. The pump will deadhead before the tank fails. The welds amwont have weakened it much and its still way above the 7-9 bar of a typical compressor.

Would i buy it. Nope. But only because i dont need a petrol powered compressor. I reckon the mechanics of it are pretty well done. The trolley is a bit ropey though.
 
Also,its a briggs amd stratton 3hp if you tried really hard and gave it a push it might pull the skin of your roce pudding. I reckon you could tune the belt slip so it cant dewadhead the pump.
 
Uh, hello, anything goes wrong with that thing and you have an accident, or worse, someone else does, you're on your own. Good luck with the loss of earnings claim made against you from the person who got a piece of that 'ok weld' in thier head!
 
Seems to me to fall into that catogary of “if you had made it yourself” it would be a great little machine if it worked okay and did what you wanted it to do, but personally I have to say that it doesnt look appealing,,,I see its still got no bids,,,but its got wheels and I think the sea is nearby,,,,
 

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