First off, Happy Holidays to everyone! I hope the gift bearer of your choice
(in my case, it was me) brought you what you were hoping for..... (in my case,
yes, I did; how did I know I wanted that? =8^).
Uh-oh..... it's the compressor thread again.... =;^)
As far as mounting goes, I just bolted mine into the garage this weekend. I
used some of those "RedHead" concrete anchors, hockey pucks (idea from this
list),
and some big rubber bushings from Home Depot (to fill up the void in the
compressor feet). It does really help quiet down the compressor. I also
noticed
most of the noise from the compressor is due to the intake; maybe some sort
of muffler on the front of it could really silence it?
Tank draining: The instructions that came with my compressor say that the tank
must be drained on a daily basis. Now, the petcock on mine isn't too bad to
reach,
but it is a pain to drain it, and then run up the pressure again the next day; I
can maybe spend an hour or so in the garage each evening, and waiting (and
listening)
to the compressor for 15 minutes is tiring..... When they say to drain the
tank,
do they mean, "open the petcock and let out all the pressure", or do they mean,
"crack open the petcock for a few seconds to let out water on the bottom, and
then
seal it back up"? What I'm saying is, that I want to keep residual pressure in
my tank to cut down on the cycle time, but am not sure if cracking open the
petcock
to drain for a few seconds at the end of the day is sufficient for draining.
Air lines: The next compressor related project is to run some air lines around
the
garage. My compressor is located in a corner, and I'd like to tee the main
output
so I have lines running along 2 walls. I plan on putting a big check valve on
the
output of the compressor (it's located at about the middle of the tank) and use
a
short rubber line with swivel connector to go to the wall. I'm currently
wondering
what I should use for hard lines along the wall. I believe the recommended
stuff
is "black pipe"? What exactly is that? Is that just the standard steel pipe
used
for water plumbing? I thought it was, but the Home Depot Man (tm) said that it
wasn't
safe for air lines since it wasn't pressure rated. What exactly should I be
looking
for? Barring that, the other thing I thought of using was just some standard
rubber
air line. Just cut it to length, and use those hose repair couplers and hose
clamps
to splice in my fittings. This would probably be the easiest solution, but I'm
wondering how safe it is to keep those air lines under constant pressure, with
only
some hose clamps holding things together..... Any thoughts on what to use?
(Please
note, I have no intention on using PVC or copper, so let's exclude those).
Thanks,
Mike
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