Campbell-Hausfeld 2 gallon oilless air compressor

[mm]

I have a small Campbell-Hausfeld oilless compressor that I bought at a junk yard and repaired. No manual, of course.

But I dl'd the manual from their website and I'm still confused about how it works.

It says if I leave it running with the regulator closed, it will pump up to a certain point that it is set to. Is this factory set, or do I set it? I don't see how to set it, and afaict the manual doesn't say.

The gauge goes up to 150 psi, and I let it get to 77. Then I turned it off. I was afraid if I let it go forever, the thing would explode. Or break. When is it supposed to turn off?? At 150??

After I turned off the pump, within 15 minutes the pressure had dropped to 52. Maybe it's lower now. Is this normal?

I need to pump up two motorcycle tires that are a 10 minute drive from here. I might be able to use electricity at this house, if the new owner or the workers say it is all right, but I might not**.

Any chance I can get two or one of the tires filled up with 50 pounds of pressure in a 2 gallon tank?? I figure if I can get one filled up, just enough to roll the cycle to a truck, I can go somewhere (home?***) and fill up the tank again, and fill the other tire before I try to roll it.

***I'm also trying to figure out someplace closer where I can get some electricity.

**I"m taking a bicycle pump too, but when I got this compressor from the junk yard, I had no idea what I woudl do with it. It would be great if I coudl use it now! All I had to do to repair it was replace the soldered-in fuse iirc, and the bridge rectifier with 4 simple diodes. These were all parts I already had. I paid eitehr 10 dollars for this and a lawn mower, or 20 dollars. Probably 20 but I Can't remember.

[tom]

[J. Clarke]

Should be factory set.

If the gage goes to 150 then it's a fair bet that it's not rated to go above that pressure--120 would be a fair bet, or 125, or 130.

If the tank seems to be in good condition (i.e. no substantial visible rust on the outside and when you open the drain no mass of rusty water pours out and it doesn't look like somebody's been beating on it with a hammer or dragging it behind a car or anything) then let it go to 150 or until it cuts off (if you want to be super safe watch it from a distance and behind a barrier just in case but 150 shouldn't do more than pop a pinhole leak unless it's in _really_ bad shape). If it hasn't cut off by 150 then there's something wrong, if it cuts off before that then you know the set point. If the tank deforms before or at 150 then drill a big hole in it and toss it because it's not safe to use.

Something is leaking. You need to find out what. Depending on what it is you may want to fix it or may decide it's not worth the effort.

Motorcycle tires? Maybe, depending on how big they are--some of these wide superbike tires I wouldn't bet on.

[Lawrence]

mm wrote: Is this factory set, or do I

It is likely preset.

It will turn off by itself when some limit is reached. that is how they work.

You have a slow leak which is normal. A leak so slow will not prevent you from using it but may be worth locating and fixing.

Why not bring the compressor to the job rather than this tank idea? If there is no electric then the tank will work but I don't think it will be enough to air them up in one trip. The bike pump sounds like a good backup.

Lawrence

[Tony Hwang]

Hmmm, Don't spend too much time and effort on an oiless one. Noisy, doesn't last long.

[jmagerl]

I have a 2 gallon compressor and fill my car tires all the time. Its a slow process and usually takes 3 refillings of the tank. A warning: the manual explicitly warns not to fill car tires. The compressor is not made to run for such a long time. (so I guess mine is going to have a limited life)

I bought it mainly to fill the lawn tractor tires and for that it works fine

Can't answer your question about the shut off because my compressor has a big knob to set the shutoff point. I keep it at 120psi.

[Chris Lewis]

According to mm :

If it's the same unit as I've got, you can adjust it by diddling with innards of the pressure switch, but there should be no need. Its cutout pressure is around 95-100PSI.

My unit is quite noisy (starts from cold with a screech), and I can see why you'd think it was about to blow up. Most oilless compressors are _loud_.

[I have two of these units. One I bought used without tank, and I converted it to a tank type with a 10gal airpig, the other (given to me by someone upgrading) the 2gal type. The latter is the screechy one.]

Air leak. More likely in a hose/hose connection, or perhaps the one-way valve. Mine holds pressure for a long time.

Probably not one trip. Take some rope and a short bar or sturdy piece of 2x2 or something.

I had to do the same thing with a trailer (mobile sign unit). The first tire filled fine. The second I had to replace in the field, and I had a devil of a time getting it to seal, until my son suggested binding the rubber around the circumference to get the bead to seat - rope and a bar as a spanish windlass.

Took two trips with the 10 gal tank given all the air I wasted trying to get it to seal.

Bridge rectifier? H'm, I don't think my unit has one.

The bicycle pump will work.

[Ross Richardson]

[lp13-30]

Why don't you just get a 12 volt compressor that plugs into your car lighter. You can get a fairly decent one for about $15. They come in pretty handy, so keep one in your car trunk at all times. Larry

[mm]

I've got one of those, and you're right: It's good, I've used it for my car quite a few times, when I had a slow leak. And it came with a basketball needle, too. And I took that with me when I went on Wednesday, but because they put the dumpster in the driveway, I'd have to make up some sort of extension cord about 30 or 40 feet long.

[mm]

It's a combination compressor/tank. Little tank.

That was my plan

That turned out to be it. I had tried one pump the previous day that didn't work, and tried another pump today that a friend gave me**, but like with Goldilocks, the third bike pump worked fine. I got 12 pounds in the front tire, and it seemed to measure 2 pounds in the rear tire, but it was round enough to roll on. And I was there doing something else for almost 2 hours and it didn't seem to go flat at all.

**I had thought the pump he gave me was good. but I couldn't get it to attach to the valve stem. I guess that is why he gave it to me, because it's not good. I'll look at it this weekend.

[Stormin Mormon]

Or run the portable compressor off a battery jumper pack with a lighter socket. I've done that many times.

[mm]

P&Mailed because this group moves so fast and it's been two days!

Thanks to all of you for your help. Today worked out pretty well. More below.

You're right on. It stoopped at 95 or 90. I got confused because it was still making noise, but that was just the fan.

Maybe we should oil them. :)

Strangely, when I let it go to 90, it seemed to lose pressure more slowly than when I stopped at 77.

I had felt around trying to find the leak. I listened too. But couldn't find.

Maybe the relief valve settled down. Maybe I'll find it later, and maybe it won't matter in the future because most places I go I'll have electricity/

As you'll see below, I ended up using a bicycle pump, but I needed to get this straight anyhow, because I will be using this compressor some day. When you have a tool, you find a need for it.

I guess mine have tubes in them. Motorcycle made in 1969.

It was just a black rectangular thing with 4 wires coming out of it. I have some I cut out of tv's but they weren't big enough, so I used 4 diodes. That's harder to solder (because there was only room in the printed circuit for one wire, so I had to solder the second wire to the first one, in each hole, and harder even to find room for, since they were so big, but I squushed them down.

And that's what happened. The pump I used the previous day was the same, and worked fine for bicycles, but leaked too fast to do the motorcycle tires. But the identical pump with no leak worked fine.