A Warning for Anyone Contemplating A Chinese Supplied Scuba Compressor

[iain/hsm]

Sadly all good in hindsight.

As I said before; "You don't know what you don't know until you get there, and often then its far too late"

Not so. By and large one of the best uses of these diving forums, is to be able to get good quality advise with robust response from guy's on the ground without the gloss and polish you get from the web sites.
And from the sales folk, distributors, dive shops, and other hangers on all trying to make a buck with sales advertising.

I think if you had raised the question earlier most of us here would have warned you off going direct to China.

Now I would advise you against your comment: "to contact Coltri to see if they are interested" reason being there not.

Look the original manufacturer Coltri knows all to well about these products, the reason nothing is done to stop them is perversely it's in there interest not to.

Coltri is well known but not the best of the best when it comes to compressors they as others know that all to well, however to you the customer you don't.

So by "allowing in" if you will a few "Chinese copies" to get out in the field perversely by comparison it makes there original poor product look better.

Comparing impossible chinese rubbish with the original but poorer Italian quality kind of works in a way.

You see my point. Iain

 

[kelemvor]

Have you filed for a chargeback yet?

 

[Peter69_56]

It wasn't done on credit card but via paypal money transfer. Had it been a normal purchase via paypal or credit card I could have argued the case.

I assume (oh so clear now), why they use non descript forms of payment to get around protection. In future I will use card or Paypal direct purchase.

 

[ti325v]

I will man up as well.
In my sad experience, these guys are 100% pay in full, upfront by bank transfer.
The compressors are junk.
I brought one 200 l/min and a back up 100 l/min as I had to build my dive boat at the last moment completely unexpected.
I was wiped out for cash and simply had to pull the trigger.
Wow serious mistake.
OP is absolutely right about separator and filter problems.
I had to do a quick cheap fix as I had no choice when we opened and make another seperator and filter out of hydraulic accumulators. The air was disgusting out of the box.
No PMV and the filter holds about 300 cc of media, there is no way possible for these things to make grade e air out of the box. Crappy metal work, horrible support. Painful lesson. One bright spot was I had to learn a lot about compressors really fast to get things running as there is no support on our island.
I did get it sorted out and filled about 1000 tanks with it, surely I never trusted it, not a good feeling when you have a dive business.
At $5 a fill it was an expensive lesson for two compressors that now are rusting away in my storage room.
After about 400 hours work the compressor had well over 50 l/min blow by, despite new rings and valves.
It kept going long enough to get a used (50 hours) coltri /16 imported from the USA for another $5000....so I am still a little ahead as far as dollars are concerned. Far ahead knowledge wise, heartache, hassle wasted time can never be returned or paid back to me.
Coltri is fine at over 1000 hours and I have invested about $1,500 in upgrades for it, and am now putting the finishing touches an a k-14. ($710 on e-bay, a new block in an old frame)
That said, I have a great supplier of dive lights and pumps for my boat in China.

 

[Dr. Lecter]

Thankfully for me, every time I consider cheaping out and getting something other than the rebuilt 15/30 Haskel I really want, a story like this pops up. Buy it nice, or buy it twice.

 

[Shasta_man]

More learning from Scubaboard. Sorry to hear the storyPeter69_56.

BTW, their dive lights suck too. Out of the two Chinese made dive lights I bought, the lense was crossthreaded on one, not so obviously and leaving only a slight gap, but it flooded on its first dive.

 

[ti325v]

Off topic.
Hello Shasta man..
I too have had bad luck with lights, but there is no way I was gonna pay hundreds per light when I need dozens. I found the right supplier.
Yeguang Technology
Or buy a brinyte light on ebay. We have more then 30. No problems in two years, they now produce 2 of my designs for sale and custom make anything I want in small quantities. (Video lights are being made now with three different color temperatures at about $30 a piece. 140* beam angles. Cree xml leds and Li-on batteries)
I wasted $1,500 on magic shine lights.
So the light you brought sucks, as did the first ones I brought...
Brinyte makes the dris 1000, do a web search.
I pay $26.00 for a dris 1000. It is very highly regarded. With a 30 light sample size, I think I can be pretty confident in recommending these lights.

 

[Pearlman]

Brinyte seems to have the right certifications. I'll take a chance with them. I'm in the market for video lights. But I dont see the beam spread listed anywhere for their products. Any ideas what are the models with a 140° beam spread?

Thanks

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[Shasta_man]

Thanks for the info. I bought them to use as video lights as well. They were HiD lights with a very wide beam so no hotspots which would be great if they worked. I just remembered the remaining one would flicker for some reason, changing the color of the light when it did. When it worked, it was like daylight but that didn't help much. The last trip I rented a pair of Sola 2000s. They were great with plenty of light output, easy controls, easy to charge, and fantastic light weight. However, they are serious money to buy.

I have a $1K credit at LeisurePro so I'm looking at what I can buy to use the credit. I was looking at one of the I-Torch video lights but am looking for real world review of it.

 

[Pearlman]

I think we are hijacking the OP's thread. Plenty of other threads about video lights [emoji4]



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