Booster pressure Regulator?

[TrimixToo]

I've picked up few of these used for very reasonable prices (like $35 a pop). Look for industrial salvage sellers. I have one rigged with a DIN valve fitting to run off scuba tanks when I'm away from home where the big shop compressor lives. It works great, but the booster is very air-hungry so there has to be significant motivation to use it. Really expensive mix fills and no way to transport lots of tanks. No mix available. Stuff like that. Shop compressors are a lot cheaper than breathing air compressors. I mean, a *lot* cheaper. If I had to buy fills to run the booster, I could pay for a suitable continuous duty shop compressor in a year or two at most. Did I mention that shop compressors are less expensive than breathing air compressors?

 

[Wookie]

My booster certainly needs more compressor than that. I use a large shop compressor and something to clean the oil and air from its output. It provides 11 cfm at 150 IIRC duty cycle is certainly an issue.

Sure, and my 15/45s used every bit of 30 cfm, but if the OP can drive his booster from a regulator from an hp bank, he can drive it from a small compressor. Besides, you have a big compressor for other reasons. Have you ever noticed divers will use the available capacity regardless of their needs?

 

[tbone1004]

Ah, ok, the picture is becoming more clear.

Based on the cost of a reducing regulator like those already listed, I’d buy a cheap pancake compressor instead and just be wary of the duty cycle. I’m not familiar with a cheap alternative.

High pressure bank would imply a static location, not necessarily dragging a K bottle into the jungle, so I would go with the easy answer instead and just buy a cheap shop compressor.

if you get the ones from Lowes that say "quiet" in their name, they are oilless and 100% duty cycle. The booster cycling is actually louder than the compressor itself which is nice and the air coming out is as clean as what's going in.
https://www.lowes.com/pd/Kobalt-QUI...e-Electric-Vertical-Air-Compressor/1000405189

 

[a878bob]

I’ve been researching, and have found some pretty reasonable pressure reducers on eBay.

Also I have had a intermediate pressure gauge on my 1st stage since my boosters have different drive pressures. My big one is an agd 32, and the small one is probably equivalent to a mini. I’ve set up the intermediate pressure on the 1st stage to 120 and 150 with marks on the turret. But have never found that the IM pressure goes above 100, to fill up to 3500.

I’m not sure what to think about this. There are a lot more pressure regulators in the 100 psi outlet range and they are cheaper as well. Do I really need a reducer in the 0 to 250 range as they are harder to come by?

 

[TrimixToo]

I’ve been researching, and have found some pretty reasonable pressure reducers on eBay.

Also I have had a intermediate pressure gauge on my 1st stage since my boosters have different drive pressures. My big one is an agd 32, and the small one is probably equivalent to a mini. I’ve set up the intermediate pressure on the 1st stage to 120 and 150 with marks on the turret. But have never found that the IM pressure goes above 100, to fill up to 3500.

I’m not sure what to think about this. There are a lot more pressure regulators in the 100 psi outlet range and they are cheaper as well. Do I really need a reducer in the 0 to 250 range as they are harder to come by?

Depends on two things. The ratio of your booster, and the extent of your patience. I need to run my AG30 at over 100 PSI to get a decent cycle rate--even for O2--when the pressure differential between input and output pressures for the gas being boosted is high. To boost over 3000 PSI at all, I need more than 100 PSI of drive gas. To boost up to 3000 PSI in a single day, I need more than 100 PSI of drive gas, too.

My suggestion is to get the right regulator to start with. You'll be happier. And, you'll only wind up needing to buy one.
I once tried to modify a 100 PSI max regulator to go up to 150. It did not go well.

[Edit: Fix typo. "more than 1000 PSI" of drive gas should, of course, have been "more than 100 PSI." Thanks, Ray. If anyone needs an extra zero for something else, I have one lying about now.]

 

[a878bob]

After seeing the earlier post and a picture of someone using a pancake compressor to use for drive gas, I thought I’d give it a whirl with my mini booster.

After assembling the connections and a water separator, my 6gal, 2cfm compressor cycled my mini about x5 a minute. I took an al80’s, from 2600 to 3300. Not bad I think, especially since I would probably only use this to fill my breather bottles. My compressor never shutoff, and as it’s at least 10 years old, I could see my compressor giving up the ghost in short order if I made this routine.

So I’m thinking about a bigger compressor. I have a 2stage 220v in the shed, but nowhere to plug it in, I’m sure it would be 200-300$ to run a circuit out to the garage. So maybe the 110v quiet tech mentioned above. But I’m not sure it would be big enough.

 

[tbone1004]

@a878bob those compressors are definitely NOT rated for continuous duty. The quiettech's are rated for continuous duty. Your compressors 2cfm is also likely quite optimistic. The california air tools unit that I use cycles my full size haskel about 8x/minute. It's 3cfm at 90psi and still makes rebreather bottles warm. I have a pair of them to run in tandem when I'm at home, but only have the one in my pelican. Nice thing with those is you can mount them in a case with your baby booster for super convenient portable boosting

 

[a878bob]

How do you think this one would do for me?