Yong Heng compressor + breathing air filtering

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giovyledzep

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Location
Europe
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Hello everyone!

I'm new to the forum and I'll inaugurate my first post with a somewhat silly (or not?) question, so indulge me.

What if I bought a Yong Heng compressor (around $250) and connected to it to a filter like this one: https://www.amazon.com/Water-Oil-Se...AW69YZHSQ9V&psc=1&refRID=301EX4VWAAW69YZHSQ9V but replace the contents (which are low quality) with this stuff made for Bauer high quality breathing air cartridges?

What are your thoughts?

If you have any opinions as to why you should not do this then please let me know exactly the reason why, not just "my life would depend on a chinese toy" etc... if the air comes out pure it doesn't matter weather the compressor is chinese, portuguese, chilean or martian.

Thanks!
 
There was extensive discussions here about those small chinese compressors just a while ago. The consensus was that it can be done but it is highly unpractical for actually doing scuba air fills because the compressor has so small output that it cannot fill a single scuba tank without extensive cooling periods so it will take forever. And if it is allowed to run too hot it will start burning its lubricating oil and produce CO which will eventually overcome the hopcalite's capacity and may contaminate the air in tank. It was also questioned how long lasting those small cheap compressors are in that rough of an use
 
sure, if you add enough filtration you can clean up anything. the problem is those cheap chinese compressors have too few stages, so run high compression ratios compared to a modern 4 stage breathing air compressor. this causes dieseling and combined with their other design problems vis a vis overheating and condensation, you will run through your filtration media quicker and have cooling/duty cycle issues to deal with. penny wise, pound foolish.
 
They are originally made for filling pellet gun tanks and such and they work fine for that kind of small use. It is of course more practical than using those high pressure hand pumps for filling scuba tanks but still takes too long for proper scuba use even if you could filter the air properly
 
Makes sense, thanks!
I would only use it 2/3 times a week so I wouldn't mind it taking a long time to fill. However it does look like short term win - long term loss kind of situation.
 
Silly question here - I saw a video of some guy running one of those little Chinese compressors with a water cooling system. If you have enough cooling capacity, would that not keep the oil from burning?

Perhaps a better question, would be to ask where I can find the thread that already discussed all this stuff.
 
only to a certain extent and mainly it just stops it from overheating and shutting off. it still runs dirtier than a breathing air compressor with more stages, intercoolers, and lower compression ratios.
 
Silly question here - I saw a video of some guy running one of those little Chinese compressors with a water cooling system. If you have enough cooling capacity, would that not keep the oil from burning?

That's what I was thinking too, to have a really efficient cooling system and use high quality air breathing oil with frequent changes, but at that point it would probably lose cost efficiency and you'd be better off buying a more expensive on that does the job well from the start.
 
That's what I was thinking too, to have a really efficient cooling system and use high quality air breathing oil with frequent changes, but at that point it would probably lose cost efficiency and you'd be better off buying a more expensive on that does the job well from the start.
I would think that a cooling system could be set up on the cheap. I've done that for other equipment, like TIG welders & various laboratory instruments. The big question here would seem to be, how cool is cool enough?

As for oil changes, if you use the proper kind of oil, I would think that standard replacement intervals should be acceptable with a properly cooled compressor.

For someone who just uses 1 or 2 tanks a day, these cheap little compressors would seem like a viable possibility, especially if someone lived a long distance from the closest dive shop.

In my mind, the real payback differential would come from the cost of buying & maintaining the proper kind of filters. This is the part that is the biggest question mark in my mind. I don't have a feel for the cost of filtration.

At this time, I am paying $6 for an air fill & $10 for nitrox. If you dive, even a couple of times per week, that can really add up over the course of a year. A $500 investment would seem cheap by comparison.

Admittedly, I do not have much real world experience with scuba compressors, so these statements are being offered for rebuttal, rather than being offered as advice on what should be done. This is an area where I need to learn.
 
only to a certain extent and mainly it just stops it from overheating and shutting off. it still runs dirtier than a breathing air compressor with more stages, intercoolers, and lower compression ratios.
Those little Chinese compressors looked like they had 2-stage heads. How many more stages does a real scuba compressor have?

An intercooler is something that I can probably build & add, if the geometry of the 2-stage head allows access to the intermediate pressure transfer passage.
 

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