Road/Diesel Compressor advice

[armalites]

Hi all, a while back I bought a Vixen blast cabinet. I was running a petrol compressor in parallel with my workshop compressor for a couple of hours and they were running a good portion of the time, not ideal.Decided not to continue in case I ended up with more expense

I also have a Clemco pressure pot that I've not used yet.

Don't have 3 phase yet and not sure I can justify the £7k I've been quoted.

Started looking at road compressors, do I spend a bit more money and buy a low hours machine?
The Clemco pot would need 140CFM unless I downsize the nozzle.The Vixen needs about 30CFM.
I could buy one that does both that would hardly be stretched on the cabinet and use more fuel or do I buy a 70-80 and hire one for the pot when I need to?

It's doing my head in, got £2K tied up in the blast kit that I can't use(it was one of those spur of the moment things lol) but don't want to end up with a £2k compressor that's knackered.

Seen a few at my local machinery auction, just making sure I know to look for. At the last auction the one I pegged as the best option was back in the auction this month. Either it had a fault that only showed up with time or the buyer needed it for a job.

I'm just a bit wary of buying a really old one unless it's only £100s and not £1000s

Words or wisdom welcomed...

Carl

 

[brightspark]

Hi all, a while back I bought a Vixen blast cabinet. I was running a petrol compressor in parallel with my workshop compressor for a couple of hours and they were running a good portion of the time, not ideal.Decided not to continue in case I ended up with more expense

I also have a Clemco pressure pot that I've not used yet.

Don't have 3 phase yet and not sure I can justify the £7k I've been quoted.

Started looking at road compressors, do I spend a bit more money and buy a low hours machine?
The Clemco pot would need 140CFM unless I downsize the nozzle.The Vixen needs about 30CFM.
I could buy one that does both that would hardly be stretched on the cabinet and use more fuel or do I buy a 70-80 and hire one for the pot when I need to?

It's doing my head in, got £2K tied up in the blast kit that I can't use(it was one of those spur of the moment things lol) but don't want to end up with a £2k compressor that's knackered.

Seen a few at my local machinery auction, just making sure I know to look for. At the last auction the one I pegged as the best option was back in the auction this month. Either it had a fault that only showed up with time or the buyer needed it for a job.

I'm just a bit wary of buying a really old one unless it's only £100s and not £1000s

Words or wisdom welcomed...

Carl[/quote low hours ones fetch big money x hire or at the sales .its pot luck if u can get a good one at the right price privately its preferable u can get one and run it at full whack for a few hours before u buy . i bought one for 150 quid and it worked great till i ran it for 20mins and the bloody thing boiled over. more than likely the head gaskets gone , when i hget time il look but if theres problems with the air end they cost big bucks to fix

 

[gulf]

Unless youre doing alot of blasting, a hire for a full day or two isnt too expensive

 

[armalites]

Unless youre doing alot of blasting, a hire for a full day or two isnt too expensive

It's going to be an on going thing so it wouldn't take long to ramp to the cost of a compressor given then hassle of collecting returning. It will be transient but I like to able to do it at short notice hence the reason for buying one. If I buy right then in theory it won't lose any money, I just want to make sure I get the right thing.

 

[gulf]

Well I bought mine,an ex BT machine,low hours,got it cheap as it had been stood,but a good service and a new silencer and it its paid for itself afew times over -over the years.Its good to have your own gear,especially if jobs come in at short notice as you say.

 

[dannyp]

if you get an old one if they use agricultural type engines you can often rebuild them very cheeply with parts from agriline.

i went for an ingersol rand with deutz diesel, engines are generaly good for a lot of hours, downside is parts are expensive but they are very easy to work on. aircooled motors tend to drink a littel more than watercooled engines but it one of those bits of kit that dosent actualy do that meany hours so i thought the extra simplicity is worth the bit of extra diesel

 

[armalites]

Thanks Danny, I had been looking a Ingersoll as they seem to have the highest outputs in the smallest packages. I think I will end up paying a bit more a get a decent one as it seems sometime £5-600 can sometimes be the difference between an old nail and mint one. There are few things that make it more complicated, I heard that people often beat them up up so they look older and less likely to be nicked.

 

[dannyp]

buying plant can be tricky, i wouldnt say people beat them up to make them less nickable but they do get beaten up allright one of the problems is the lifting eye on top.

as trailers go they are a twerp, when mine is behind the van i can't see it at all, when it's behind the pickup i can just see the top of it if there is nothing in the back so as you'd think reverseing them dosent allways work to well. then the enevitably get picked up with a 360, and a littel tap from one of them makes quite a big dent.

nice straight low hours units will allways fetch strong money id would say don't be scared off by a few dents and scratches but id avoid one thats really tramped up unless its proper cheep and it look like its just been done in one big oops. rather than years of neglect.

if / when you get one i'd suggest giveing it a proper go over. make sure all fuel pipes are sound and that the wires are all tidy, then give it a good wash down with penty of detergent. biggest killer of this type of kit can be fire. theres a lot of heat under that caseing when they are working hard and a motor covered in diesel soaked crud is at some point going to catch fire. when they go up they go up but easy to prevent so even more anoying

 

[brightspark]

buying plant can be tricky, i wouldnt say people beat them up to make them less nickable but they do get beaten up allright one of the problems is the lifting eye on top.

as trailers go they are a twerp, when mine is behind the van i can't see it at all, when it's behind the pickup i can just see the top of it if there is nothing in the back so as you'd think reverseing them dosent allways work to well. then the enevitably get picked up with a 360, and a littel tap from one of them makes quite a big dent.

nice straight low hours units will allways fetch strong money id would say don't be scared off by a few dents and scratches but id avoid one thats really tramped up unless its proper cheep and it look like its just been done in one big oops. rather than years of neglect.

if / when you get one i'd suggest giveing it a proper go over. make sure all fuel pipes are sound and that the wires are all tidy, then give it a good wash down with penty of detergent. biggest killer of this type of kit can be fire. theres a lot of heat under that caseing when they are working hard and a motor covered in diesel soaked crud is at some point going to catch fire. when they go up they go up but easy to prevent so even more anoying

thats what happened to one of mine i was blasting my house and the air suddenly stopped . hmm ran out of diesel . no chance it was on fire . that ******** that up it was a good machine and i only paid 150 quid for it

 

[dannyp]

i know that feeling to well, i caught mine just in time it started sounding a bit funny went to have a look and flames were just popng out one of the vents, it now has no sound insulation in it and a charred air filter houseing so i was really lucky with that.

20kw genset i had wasent so lucky, that had pritty much burned to the ground by the time i went to reset the trip. allways been a lot more carefull looking after engine driven kit since then

 

[Jim Davey]

I've got a nice Compair C20 I keep around for when I get the call to put out a gouging kit, run a plasma or a couple of needle guns. Took it in as payment for a bad debt and it's paid it's money back ten times over. It's still got under 700 hours on it and I must've had it five years now so you can see it only goes out for short term one or two day hires, rarely more than a week, it looks pretty beat up so I don't have to fret too much if it's left out on site but I've serviced it a couple of times and kept the diesel tank clean (did snap a compressor drive belt once, but that was a doddle to fix) so I'd give a vote for Compair.

 

[Jim Davey]

Customer of mine brought in a 400 amp Arcgen that had been fire damaged, he knew he had a diesel leak so he used to run it with the door open so he could keep an eye on it. Anyway, he was cutting up some steels with a 9" grinder with his back to the machine when his grinder slowed then stopped, he took off his ear defenders and turned to look at his set to see it properly ablaze. He'd set it alight by spraying sparks right at the fuel soaked rag he left in the machine to mop up the leaks.
He bought it to me for a quote to fix it but it was just too far gone, shame really as a 30p copper washer would've saved his machine from a fiery death.

 

[armalites]

Thanks for everyone's advice. I managed to buy a 2007 130CFM Ingersoll for £1600, done 1200 hours. It's skid mounted which is probably why the price reasonably cheap and that didn't matter to me as I can move it with the tractor. The difference having that amount of air available is amazing. I've got an old 47kg propane cylinder with a none return on the inlet and a 3/4 bsp water trap on the outlet acting as an air reservoir. Compressor fills that cylinder from empty to 100psi in a matter of seconds.