I would like to get a longer drain line for this thing. I bought a braided hose, but it's only around 10" long. Ridiculous. You have to bend over and reach way down under the tank. Nobody seems to make a longer braided hose.
I wonder if I can find a hydraulic hose that would fit. I couldn't find air hoses for my air dryer, so I used hydraulic hose.
Steel fittings rust in place in that application. Brass (air hose stuff) is better. Short of that, hydraulic hose is glorious overkill. Heavier too. It'll whip less if you drop it with the drain valve open.
I use a tether valve from a truck (air brake) air tank. Mine is set up so I can just step on it. But I can do that because my compressor is mounted on the shipping pallet yet. I don't have a final floor plan, so drilling doesn't seem prudent. If yours is bolted, you can also tether it up to something (anything) near the top of the tank, so you can just grab and tug when you walk by.
Buy MVP 1/4" NPT HD Air Tank Pull Drain Valve 60" Cable Truck Trailer Compressor: Brake System - Amazon.com ✓ FREE DELIVERY possible on eligible purchases
www.amazon.com
I don't know if it's my imagination, but I have the impression that it takes longer to pump up to 175 now. Does anyone here have a similar machine and some idea how long it takes to pump up from zero?
Don't use time unless it's WAY out of whack. Temperature, humidity, and barometric pressure (some with weather, but mostly with your elevation versus anyone offering advice) can and will change that number, and mess with your head.
We use a couple of this "not industrial but good for professional use" grade of compressor at work, about the same size. Various brands over the years. Three guys using one all day, every day, and another lower use one. They're on all night for the waste oil furnaces. Sometimes things happen. The one we're using now (the high use one in the shop) survived a half inch air hose blowing clean out the side for at least nine hours. It's "hurt", but not damaged enough to affect production. Has been for three years now. Five to six years is what we usually get out of these compressors.
The two best metrics you should concern yourself with is did the oil level drop overnight, and does it make too much water. The first and most immediate metric is if the oil level it dropped the distance of the ball in the sight glass (I think that's what you have), or about 3/16 of an inch overnight, it means it's working harder than it was meant to, but no worries on that amount, just don't make a habit of it. If it dropped 5/16 (the ball touched the bottom of the glass, but it's still "nearly" suspended in oil), you did a bad thing to the compressor, but it's probably still got most of it's life ahead of it.
The (somewhat) longer answer, although the better metric is paying attention to the amount of use and ESPECIALLY the amount of humidity in the air, so you will expect some daily and seasonal differences, see how much water you drain out the drain. If that is excessive, it's still subjective, but WAY better resolution than other subjective methods, that's when to worry. Small amounts of not sealing in the valves or the pistons will dramatically increace the water that you get at the bottom of the tank, regardless of the cause. Still doesn't mean it's garbage, just that it's worn to where then, you might consider looking into some rebuild parts. And that's what you're worried about. The bearings, crankshaft, all the oily parts, if you didn't run it out of oil, they won't be what suffered. It's the air side that suffers when that happens.
