On Sat, 14 Sep 2013 21:06:49 -0400, Stormin Mormon wrote:

Today (Saturday Sept 14, 2013) a friend gave me an air compressor. Says
when he ran it six months or so ago, ran fine. Sears oilless, 12 gal
tank. Said to deliver 3.3 SCFM (think that's right) at 90 PSI.

I got home, the air all blew out the safety pressure device. Spent a
bunch of time on the Sears web site. The web site has a BIG pdf that
takes most of the computer screen, can only read the parts list on the
tiny edge of the screen. Sears wants $31 and change, for the safety
valve. Amazon $22 or so. Went to the auto parts, they said to go to the
farm and garden store 20 miles away. Just for grins, went to Lowe's,
about two miles away. They had one for eight bucks.

Got home, install the safety device. Compressor still hisses, and won't
come up to pressure. Some looking, find the drain valve under the tank
is open, and a lot of very black water on my floor. Mop the black, close
the valve.

Decided to run the compressor through a cycle. Ran for a while, and then
sounded like fire crackers popping about once a second. Look at the
gauge, find it's up to 120 PSI. So, the electric cut out needs
adjusting.

I turned off the power, and bled the air down to about
80. Turn it back on. The compressor growled, but didn't start.

Oh, bother, the unloader is bad too.

I tried to take the cover off, to get at the unloader. But one of the
screws is rotted and stripped, and after an hour I can't get it to come
loose. I guess I'll load the compressor in my van, and take it back
tomorrow. I can use a larger compressor, but this one is a loser. And
the guy who gave it to me cleaned out the unloader on his other
compressor. Maybe he can get this one working.

I guess this just hasn't been my good week. Wheel fell off the truck
(for real) and missed the church picnic. What next?

Well it could have been worse -- the wheel could have fallen off and
_hit_ the church picnic!

--
Tim Wescott
Control system and signal processing consulting
www.wescottdesign.com