A friend has a Campbell Hausfeld FP2003 portable direct-drive 2 gal.
compressor with a burned out printed circuit control board. Is there a way a
conventional control can be substituted by installing one in place of the
pressure switch which signals the board? Anyone ever try this? C-H doesn't
carry the board as a replacement part.
TIA

On Fri, 4 Nov 2005 16:00:13 -0600, "PanHandler"
wrote:

A friend has a Campbell Hausfeld FP2003 portable direct-drive 2 gal.
compressor with a burned out printed circuit control board. Is there a way a
conventional control can be substituted by installing one in place of the
pressure switch which signals the board?

I don't understand. How would that solve the burned out pcboard?

Is the board burned out or is there only a problem with the pressure
switch?

Do you plan to turn off the pump by hand when the pressure swtich
tells you there is enough pressure? Why wouldn't you just continue to
use the switch you have there now, which will do it automatcially?

One of the webpages for this says it has a " Built-in pressure switch
that automatically switches off the air pump when the air tank is
filled, and automatically switches the pump back on when the tank air
pressure drops"

What could be better than that?

I have one just like yours, that I got along with a lawn mower at a
junk yard for 20 dollars. It's a CH portable direct-drive 2? gallon
compresser, and it had a burned out control board. It's maybe one
model earlier than the ones they sell now, but apparently whatever
weakness there is in the board hasn't been changed.. My airpressure
switch probably works the same way yours does, but since I haven't had
a manual I didn't know that. (I don't think there was a manual
on-line) I had thought the pressure switch was only for malfunctions
when the pressure was dangerously high. Now I realize it is a great
feature, and I think I'll have to try again to get the manual, or look
inside a box and read that manual.

.. The PCB is not very complicated. It only has a fuse, a bridge
rectifier, maybe one condensor or resistor, and the rest is basically
a bunch of connections to things that are not on the board, like the
switch and the pressure switch and the pump motor.. Mine needed all
of the following, a new fuse, a new bridge rectifier, and some wire
traces repaired. It's a little surprising that it managed to blow the
fuse, and traces, and at least 2 parts of the 4-part rectifier, but
it did. (generally any one of these, esecially the fuse, would
blow first, and that would protect the others.) Since I couldn't find
a bridge rectifier of suitable size in my parts drawers, I used four 1
(or 2?) amp rectifiers, arranged as a bridge. That's what
manufacturers used until someone put it all in one case, maybe 30 or
40 years ago. (You have to arrange the rectifiers the right way, and
it is one step beyond what people have a tendency to expect. Post
again if the rectifier(s) need replacing. It helps a lot to use a
meter for the diagnosis.)

Everything works fine now.

Anyone ever try this? C-H doesn't
carry the board as a replacement part.
TIA

You really don't need the board. Like I say, there are only about 3
parts on the board and the rest are parts off the board connected via
the board.

I think a good step would be to remove the two screws holding the
board in place, and then draw a wiring diagram. Then redraw the
diagram keeping the connections the same, but arranging parts to be
more logical and less based on the way the wires and the traces
actually run, so that the schematic makes obvious sense. It will
turn out to be like a lot of things: A cord, a rectifier from AC to
DC, and a DC compressor motor, with 2 or more switches between the
cord and the rectifier. The fuse counts as a switch, plus the
pressure switch, and the on-off switch.

You can fix the board by running wires of sufficient size along the
damaged wire traces, and soldering at each end. (that's what I did.)
Or you can rearrange the wires, moving a wire from one end of a trace
to the other end, so that some of the traces on the circuit board are
not needed. This method might make things crowded and confusing and
doesn't appeal to me.

This took almost as long to type as it took to do it, after I looked
at if for a while and drew the schematic.

Remove NOPSAM to email me. Please let
me know if you have posted also.