Breathing air from a compressor

That just defies theory, observation, and experience.

You breathe more oil fog and vapor cooking dinner.

8C56someconundrum@216.196.97.131...

Great idea! Thanks

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Yes, I'm well aware of that, but there's a huge difference from a sealed (semi-sealed) respirator to a hood w/ a slight positive air pressure & fresh air circulating. My face comes out soaked w/ sweat, fatigued / hurting from the pressure of the straps of a respirator. My eye safety devices usually fogged. I've on occasion worn an air flow mask & I'll take it every time.

Thanks for you thoughts.

You're welcome. Have you considered a powered air purifying respirator (PAPR)? You can get them with Tyvek hoods, they are not uncomfortable.

Yeah, but that's vegetable oil, not mineral oil with additives and who knows what else.

I breath compressor air in a homemade hood. The hose to the hood has a homemade inline filter made from two spin-on oil filter cans (threaded endplates cut off, insides thrown away) duct-taped open ends together with a North 9000 series charcoal filter cartridge (from a respirator) inside it. Not much gets through that filter. It'll take pressure up to about 15 psi, much more than I need.

Dan

I wouldn't use an Oilless unless it is designed for breathing air purposes, since they have thought through all the failure modes and internal materials. If the Teflon piston seals go bad and overheat, it could send nasty stuff down the line to you...

My suggestion - HVLP. Get a bypass style vacuum cleaner blower, where the motor cooling air is kept seperate from the blower air circuit.

Or a Ring Compressor - 1/3 to 5-HP multi-stage blowers designed to only push 1 to 2 PSI but a whole lotta CFM. Put a good filter on the inlet and another on the outlet, then use a sandblasting style total-loss hood. (But do a full materials check on the internals.)

You still have to be really careful about where the inlet to the compressor or blower is. If the inlet is a foot away from an engine exhaust or a fuel burning appliance...

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So what? You're just being superstitious. Please explain the organic chemistry if you assert some hazard to mineral oil. Mineral oil is in the USP. People coat their skin with it and drink it medicinally. It is in all kinds of cosmetics applied near sensitive tissues.

Mineral oil is a legal food additive in the USA.

Maybe you're confused by the indiscriminate "harmful or fatal" warnings.

We breathe mineral oil fog and vapor all day long in a metalworking environment from hot chips.

You should use non-detergent types without the additives, not automotive motor oil, if there will be bodily exposure.

You can get chemical pneumonia from your own saliva.

The dose makes the poison.

Are you saying that even an oil lubricated compressor is safe to breathe @ 1 bar (sea level). If oil lubed compressors are safe a 1 bar, that's great news for me.

Being a former SCUBA diver we were always told not to use an oiled compressor. Just need the oil to get by the rings just once to cause a really bad case of pneumonia. Since there are oil less pumps, why tempt fate?

Breathing air fed off the compressed air main is done commercially - see it in foundry fettling shops. For a person working in a fixed position, it gives a light-weight uninterrupted feed.

Here's equipment I've seen - "3M" Co's website

3M Aircare Air Filter Units The 3M Aircare 500GR Air Filtration Units for preparation of compressed air for the 3M range of Supplied-Air Respirators

or PDF:

"Supplied Air Range Brochure - Data Sheet (PDF 1.4 MB)" Richard Smith

Well, I breathed a bit too much oil emulsion coolant mist one busy weekend, and was coughing for days. Maybe not a danger, but sure was annoying. So I got a face mask that filters oil mist out, which worked. So I can sympathize with the OP who wants to keep the oil mists out.

Joe Gwinn

You can break your neck falling out of bed too.

It is up to each individual to decide what risks they want to take in life.

And to pay the resulting price for errors in their judgment.

TMT

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Yeah perhaps, but just because some people like to run around screaming the sky is falling, is no reason for knowledgeable people to dive in to the basement.

Scuba divers have been breathing compressed, filtered air from piston compressors with petroleum oil for more than 50 years without incident. It's just not that hard to adequately filter the air.

You can break your neck falling out of bed too.

It is up to each individual to decide what risks they want to take in life.

And to pay the resulting price for errors in their judgment.

TMT

Oh my gosh. An extreme liberal saying self responsibility is good. The world may end, Hades may be freezing over.

No yankee-can-do spirit for you, eh?

I refuse to live a squeamish, abstemious life ruled by superstitious fears. If the theory and experience show something to be safe, one should have faith in the scientific knowledge instead of quailing over something invisible.

It does amaze me that someone will stand over a pan of frying bacon every morning, inhaling significant doses of organic chemical fog and vapor, including hydrocarbon oils and fatty acids, nitrates, nitrosamines, combustion products, and particulates, and then recoil in horror at a whiff of petroleum.

Turpentine and petroleum oil are US FDA GRAS food ingredients, or US CPSC "harmful or fatal if swallowed", depending on which bit of the government is looking over your shoulder.