LOL
Yes steel. I had the same thoughts. Also living in Arizona I figured it'll be a little dryer here most of the time.
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New compressor landed today.
- Thread starter diamond
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My blasting cabinet is small one from HF. I think it will but when I get it up and running I'll update. Might be a while tho. Have a few other machines to get up and running first.
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I have one compressor in the old shop that puts out 21cfm at 175 psi, and it won't quite keep up with my large bead blast cabinet. In the new shop I will have three compressors linked for a large blast setup in a container outside. The great majority of the time one unit will be sufficient for my needs. Mike
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I have a California Air Tools compressor as well. It is a smaller model with Aluminum tanks (no problems with the tank, and no risk of water making the tanks "rust through"). It is a CAT-4610a, and is twin cylinder with two tanks of 2.3 gallons each. It has been solid in it's performance. It is only about 2.2 CFM at 90 PSI.
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I'll be Captain obvious here but cfm ratings are kind of a best case. The way you route the air is important. Directly connected air lines vs long runs, filters, bends, etc. The diameter of the lines too. All that said, those CAT compressors are really quiet which is nice if you don't have an out building.
Oh...and rig up an after-cooler/separator between pumps and tank if you care about tank longevity.
I hear you about the routing affecting CFM. My HF sand blast cabinet says it requires "average" 9.5 CFM. I don't know what the min/max of that average is. So it's kind of up in the air (pun intended) if I'll have enough. I'll be running 3/4" Maxine. My longest run should be about 40' or so and the blast cabinet will be at the end of that. If I ever get around to using it I'll find out. But for everything else I do, this is likely more than enough.
Perhaps one beef about the CAT, the tank has a 1/2" outlet and that came came from the factory reduced to a 3/8" filter/reg. That may be a choke point and I'm considering upping it to 1/2" but I wish it had 3/4" port in the tank to match the distribution. Maybe matching the tank port to the same diameter as the distribution piping isn't an issue but in my mind I want to think it is.
CAT has the same compressor with a dryer between the pumps and tank, but it's WAY more expensive! CAT-60040DCADC I hope I didn't fool myself but I decided I didn't need it at $3900 vs $1500. I guess I'll monitor how much the auto drain puts out of the tank to see how much moisture is actually going in there to see if I need try to do something about it. The model I have has some electronics (thermal overload detectors or something?) on the lines from the pumps to the tank as well as some depressurization valves that I guess are there to help the motor on startup. I don't know how much of that I'd be messing up if I tried to put a cooler inbetween and void my warranty or mess up the pumps. It's a bit different setup than the old Porter Cable I had with just a simple pipe from the pump to the tank.
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I have the 2hp horizontal tank version of that. I'm happy with it... BUT, there was one time that I heard it click on, and instead of starting, the motor sat there, stalled. I quickly shut it off and of course it's worked ever since. It has, however, made me leery of leaving it unattended, even if it does have a thermal shutoff.
BTW, there's no excuse, since the 220V power cord plugs into an outlet about 3 feet from the main breaker box, so it's not an issue of the supply voltage dropping. I think that they size everything so that they motor is just enough to work. They also have pressure vent valves, which vent the compressor outlet to atmosphere for a bit before imposing the compressed air's load onto the motor. Perhaps that valve didn't open. Since it only did it that one time (so far), it's hard to know what happened.
Raining on people's parades is what I do
BTW, there's no excuse, since the 220V power cord plugs into an outlet about 3 feet from the main breaker box, so it's not an issue of the supply voltage dropping. I think that they size everything so that they motor is just enough to work. They also have pressure vent valves, which vent the compressor outlet to atmosphere for a bit before imposing the compressed air's load onto the motor. Perhaps that valve didn't open. Since it only did it that one time (so far), it's hard to know what happened.
Raining on people's parades is what I do
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YMMV...but here is my after-cooler install if it helps: https://www.hobby-machinist.com/threads/dry-shop-air-step-1-compressor-after-cooler.94795/
Total cost for all of it was about $225
Good to know, thank you for sharing @kb58 . I typically don't leave my compressor on when I'm not in the shop but I'll be watching for that. Did you contact CAT about it? I'm curious to know what they might have said if you did.
Hey @MtnBiker nice build. I'll have to check into Hose Power. I noticed the comments you shared about not really needing the after cooler for very intermittent compressor use (my use case primarily). Unless I read that wrong.
I am looking into building a dryer manifold *after* the tank but that's not about protecting the tank of course. I'm hopeful the auto drain on the tank will suffice but I'll have to watch to see.