Me & my compressor. The adventure continues....

A glorious day it was last night when I got the compressor pressure control box wired correctly and going ( Thank you Chuck and Wray et al). It is very quiet and came up to around 120 spi and shut down just like it was supposed to. I ran my handheld sandblaster for just enough in the fading light to know it was working and could seem to supply that and my DA well enough. But, when in drained down the 20-30 gallon tank enough to come back on the motor dragged something awful and blew the circuit again (20A). FWIW, I drained the bad oil (appeared mixed with water [grey]) and refilled this AM with new 30wt ND oil. When I plug it back in, it starts up running at about 75% speed as observed at the belt and then after about 10 seconds it starts to bog down again and I trip the GCFI pigtail to kill it before tripping the breaker again. Every time I turn it on, it does the same thing (tried it about ten times). I cant as yet give you any motor specs on the comp as some DPO (yup, tools have DPOs as well) painted over the stick on label and I am not sure how to take off the paint but not the label ink (anyone have atrick for that?)
I would love to figure this out as I really could use a compressor and a new one IS NOT in the cards right now.

So, to sum it up. Why did it run fine to get it up to pressure but now it only bogs down?

Ahh OK, I am having fun here actually trying to make this work :-)
I found that taking the orange walmart extension cord out of teh loop and replacing it with one of 12g cords made a world of difference. I also got the label cleaned down to the letters and it tells much. It tells me that it is not as powerful as I had thought but maybe someone here can tell me much more. I have not found anything on the compressor itself just the motor. Here is the label from the motor;

is this the motor that originally came with the compressor?

Not known for sure Chuck, It is a mongrel affair. It appears to fit in with the base and the pump itself. The tank is from a dead Craftsman comp.

I sent you a pm

Just some more stuff for the group and Chuck.
The pump is painted Ford blue under it all and the motor now ID'd as a Century Motor is grey. Not know if they cam together originally or not. It is a bit of a Frankenstein affair. I cant find any markings on the pump other than 'L 50' cast into the head of it.
Looking for any info on any of this. It does seem to work fine now that I have the 12g extension cord running it.

That looks like a pretty standard light-duty compressor motor. Any wiring that might be inline and is lighter than 10 ga will drop the power supply to the motor, causing your issue. Whenever possible, its better to have the compressor plugged directly into the wall, as close to the breaker as possible. Run a longer air hose rather than a longer extension cord!

I've used solvents on a scotchbrite pad in the past to remove paint off a decal. You just need to test a few solvents, starting with something as light as WD-40 to soften the paint until you find one that will remove it without stripping the decal as well.

Disappointed to find out it is such a low power motor. It 'seemed' big enough size wise. I cannot find much of any identifying clues for the pump itself. It has no label and I cant ID where one may have been. It was Ford blue originally (the motor was grey).
I wont get to really play with it for many days now. It will do very well powering a finishing nail gun for our sunroom however so that helps big.
For whatever it is worth this is the unit itself (random beer bottle tossed in for size reference)

Disappointed to find out it is such a low power motor. It 'seemed' big enough size wise. I cannot find much of any identifying clues for the pump itself. It has no label and I cant ID where one may have been. It was Ford blue originally (the motor was grey).
I wont get to really play with it for many days now. It will do very well powering a finishing nail gun for our sunroom however so that helps big.
For whatever it is worth this is the unit itself (random beer bottle tossed in for size reference)

That looks like a fairly small pump. At any rate it should be well matched with the motor. That compressor should be good for most small air tools and nail guns and ok if used conservatively with larger like sandblasters and D.A sanders. I would definitely not try to paint with it though.

Maybe you could get a smaller pulley for the motor and make use of mechanical advantage. I don't know how fast you need to run the compressor but you might be able to make it work. Just a thought.

-David

cfrench Wrote:

It is wired for 110 right now. It seems to work well enough with the 12g cord. When I start cutting into the GT within the month I mayb pull the comp into teh barn to direct plug it into the socket.

""The differance is 220V does not need a neutral""

The other difference is I would have to run a 220 line into the barn from the house. Right now I'll stay with the 110 and the big cord.

if you decide to run it on 220 make sure you have a good ground

Pull the damn electric motor off, and go to Northern tool and get a 5 HP Briggs and Stratton. Then you can use it anywhere you want!!!

I had not considered an option like that. I do Love the quiet it now has.

Carl-
the pressure switch should have an unloader that bleeds the pressure off the compressor when it shuts off, so that it doesnt have to start with a load, that is what the small line from the pump head to the switch is for. If you don't hear a distinctive hiss when the motor shuts off, it may not be working correctly. Will the compressor start normally with no pressure in the tank?

Its also possible that if it runs a lot, the valves are shot. The main symptom would be very low air production, taking a LONG time to generate enough pressure to trip the switch.

Rick, I'll check on 'the hiss' It did run great with an empty tank and ran great after that with the 12ga cord.

Hap, It does not seem to take very long to pump up the tank (30 gallons). I guess I can use this for as long as I need to and over time get a 220 line to the barn and replace or upgrade the compressor.

Been busy for a few days and will be busy for another few days so it will be some time before I can even I can take the tarp off of it.

Better to run a long air hose than a long extension cord. Wait until HF has a sale on them and buy a couple.

The longer the hose the dryer the air at the biz end.

I second the HF option. I buy Goodyear hoses at our local store for $7.99 for a 25' hose.