New compressor questions

Very nice!!!

I am waiting for the same product, I ordered it a week or so ago. I will report on it.

I would suppose that it need an unobstructed flow of cooling air.

Alden, if I ever get a brand new real compressor, I'm going to remove the pipe that goes out of the air pump and into the tank, and in its place plumb in a refrigerated air dryer and filter. Most of the water will never hit the tank. It would also largely obviate your need for an automated drain.

Anyway, I have my Quincy right against the wall and I see 'em that way in shops all the time.

GWE

What would you think will be the duty-cycle? Your requirements will depend on how much air you're using. Use a non-detergent oil, I prefer Dayton's synthetic if only because it's a phone call away. I'm not a fan of auto drains...learn some discipline. A dryer is pretty costly. Just change the oil once in a while, clean the filters, drain the tank often and if it gets too hot give it more room and/or aim a fan at it. If it starts making a lot of noise or dancing across the floor...fix it. Happy air!

I went through two of those drains in short order. My neighbor has the first on he put on his compressor, still works fine! I bought one from Grainger, it worked much better for me, it is more money, but much easier to install. It has been working flawlessly for 2 years. Here is a link, plus the item # is 4KT04 in case the link does not work.

I have the HF auto drain valve, and a compressor very similar to the one on the web page referenced above (mine's red, not black). The drain was on my compressor for 3 days, and is now sitting in a drawer.

The auto drain valve itself seems to work perfectly, but the associated plumbing has given me nothing but grief. I needed my compressor back, and it was easier to go back to the manual drain than to get the auto drain working.

The polyurethane hose that comes with the HF auto drain valve cannot withstand any heat at all. Unfortunately, the unloader line gets pretty hot during heavy use, and causes the hose to burst.

The second time the hose burst, I went out and bought some 1/4" copper tube. However, the fitting on the drain valve body is made specifically for soft plastic hoses. It cannot be replaced with a standard compression to male thread fitting, because the threads in the valve body are not the usual 1/8 NPT that one would expect (probably metric). I need to find or fabricate a fitting.

Also, like the web page author, I found that the included drain c*ck was a piece of trash. I replaced it with a better one, but it is a fraction of an inch longer and it hits the floor. It would probably break off while rolling the compressor around. I need to find or fabricate a shorter tee or something to gain some ground clearance.

I've spent twice the purchase price and a bunch of time on this kit, and it sits in a drawer doing nothing.

Most of us with Quincys have forgotten where they are!

Thanks Ron, that was helpful, although upsetting.

I have one on my 20 gallon compressor and it works great but I also had the problem with the cheap plastic tubing overheating and blowing out. I replumbed it with 1/4" copper tubing but I had to couple that to the plastic tubing near the valve with a compression coupling because the valve can only connect to plastic tubing as someone else mentioned.

I complained to Harbor Freight about the tubing and they refunded the full purchase price to me and let me keep the kit so I ended up getting mine for free! :-)

Otherwise I've been very happy with it and never had to touch it since it was installed about 4 years or so ago.

Just a guess but it may be possible that the autodrain won't drain enough from your tank because it's so large.

Best Regards, Keith Marshall snipped-for-privacy@progressivelogic.com

"I'm not grown up enough to be so old!"

don't use that drain valve - I have one from harbor frieght - installed it on my Quincy compressor, and used it once - it destroyed itself, now I'm back to a manual drain. My compressor shuts off at 160 PSI - the drain valve is a pain to install - I had to solder the copper unloader tubing to the T fitting provided, and get a leak free connection - about the second time the valve actuated it started to leak, and by the third or fourth time it had blown the O-ring seal half way through the drain port and was sucking up about half the compressor capacity full time. This is a really suboptimal design - there must be something reasonable that works, but this isn't it. If you want the stupid thing, I'll send it to you rather than return it to HF for a refund, but trust me, you don't want it.

Now, for the group - is there any auto drain that actually works?

Oh, and RE spacing - you need to be able to get to the compressor to open the drain and as someone else pointed out, there must be adequate air flow.

Oil - my quincy uses 30 wt, my sears uses ATF

i also have the same one still in a box i'd mail to someone for the price of postage.

Did you miss this post?

I went through two of those drains in short order. My neighbor has the first on he put on his compressor, still works fine! I bought one from Grainger, it worked much better for me, it is more money, but much easier to install. It has been working flawlessly for 2 years. Here is a link, plus the item # is 4KT04 in case the link does not work.

Snip..

My compressor has an electric dump valve. It has 2 dials, one for setting the interval between dumps (45 mins. max) and one for the duration on the dump. It works very well and I can get the name off it if you want? It can also be manually activated either by the "test" button or by unplugging it, and plugging in the 110 Volt socket.

One idea I like is to connect/plumb say a 6 foot air line and blow gun to the drain. One would be more inclined to dump air you don't have to crawl on your hans & knees every time.