What the hell did I just buy?

[davecampbell]

So I stumbled upon this old scuba compressor.... Knowing nothing else except it was old, and seemed to run ok when plugged in for a couple seconds, I bit and took a gamble. All in, I've got about $70 usd into it, and it was 15 minutes from home.... Made by Cornelius, and has a newer 115v motor. Did I just buy a paperweight? or maybe it could be ok?

 

[rjack321]

Pretty sure its basically a home made compressor using two low volume/high pressure aircraft pumps. I can't ready the filter tower, what size/make/model filter is in it?

 

[davecampbell]

filter can opened quite easily. seems to be done type of homemade filter cartridge....looks to be made of pvc plumbing fittings. it's marked charcoal, hopcalite, 13x ...

 

[davecampbell]

and the filter cannister is dated from 1956... max working pressure of 3000psi. Not sure if these things age out, but I'm sort of leery...lol

 

[happy-diver]

You've struck gold do some research, if the filter housing concerns you get a surplus one for a few bucks

Accumulators

Hydraulic accumulators are devices that collect fluid from a hydraulic system, and provide that fluid back to the system during peak demand.

st.aero

Your manuals

FilesAnywhere

personal.filesanywhere.com

 

[davecampbell]

so......it lives. I spent a bit of time cleaning up the unit, tightening up some nuts and bolts, changed the broken gauge and checked the oil levels. Everything seemed in working order, so I plugged it in and closed the valves. Pressure builds slowly, but it kept rising. The electric 1/3 hp motor seems to be the weakest link, eventually shutting down at around 2500 due to thermal cutout. I added some forced cooling by way of a stout fan (basically a leaf blower) and the temps stayed reasonable (ish). The compressor heads themselves were warm, but not hot. Ultimately I shut it down @ 3400psi, as the max working pressure on the old accumulator is only 3K. Not bad for $100 cdn.

 

[grantmac]

I believe the Cornelius used at least 1/2hp motor on each pump? So yeah, you could probably look for something like a 3hp single phase of the same rpm and be laughing.
Along with a new filter tower.