Far from hopeless, many of us use the yong heng with great results. If you want to spend more of course theres better options but mine is well past the break even point and great value for money.
Glem, how long have you had your yong heng and any troubles with it? im thinking about getting one
I can answer for mine:
One year and one month. If the free speech police had not nuked my posts you would know that I am 2 pages into a notebook on fills. Oil has been changed every "page" yea I know that is not really a good way to do it....but eh still working....and if my lazy butt blows it up I am out....what $200 beans.
It shows no sign of slowing down. In filling a scba tank from zero (new tank) I ran it (this is from memory) 45min before I thought I should shut it down for a cool down. I keep saying I need to post up my run times, but again lazy and I have not done it. It is to be 50 here today so I might shoot some, and then I will be filling tanks again no doubt.
I don't have first hand experience with any other compressor, be it a booster or whatever....so I can not comment on those, unlike some people. (that will get this post nuked as well I bet) But I can speak to the HY. It is noisy, it will burn the ever livin _______ out of you if you touch one of those tubes near the bleed valves...and you will touch them, or at least get close enough to go....wow that grump old fart was right (wonder if I am going to get in trouble for name calling.....MYSELF) Draining the oil is pretty simple and not messy, and I really think you should do it often as there is no bearing or bushing on the crank. Look up the slingshot channels review on this thing, it is very good and what pushed me over the edge to buy one. There is no bias in his review, and he really tears the thing down to its base parts.
At this point if this one went kaboom what would I do for a compressor....would I buy another one. Well yes I would buy again, 1hr from the dive shop, and their goofy hours yes, I would buy another compressor.....would I buy a HY? Yea I think I would, so far in reading what the other products bring to the table, yes I would. Shoebox interested me but as I understand (and this could all be wrong as I don't own one) you must have an oil free prime compressor (no big deal) to feed into it, it is really a pressure booster, this is two machines, I also understand they are not that quick, but not sure if they are quicker then the HY.....I understand they are quiet, but if I have the other compressor running it is a wash.
As to the "big" guys, really I kind of doubt it....what to the bring for all that extra cash? I would bet I am closing in on 100hrs, on mine and it is still going strong, As I understand rebuilds are easy and inexpensive. So why....down to brass tacks why. I don't see $2000+ in features on the big ones.