Praise for the Shoebox booster.

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BrazosbyNemo --=--

Please review this thread with a Shoebox spreadsheet that took me a long time to locate all of the parts, except the custom ones that only Mr. Kaye can provide.

*****UPDATE!***** Shoebox Parts List with Links *****UPDATE!*****

Hello AGN'ers! UPDATED***** Did some more work on the Shoebox parts with links spreadsheet. There are only a few now that are not found, I'll keep searching for those few and update again when found I have been working on an Excel spreadsheet for a long time, trying to duplicate all of the...
www.airgunnation.com www.airgunnation.com

Mike
 
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Revoman said:
BrazosbyNemo --=--

Please review this thread with a Shoebox spreadsheet that took me a long time to locate all of the parts, except the custom ones that only Mr. Kaye can provide.

*****UPDATE!***** Shoebox Parts List with Links *****UPDATE!*****

Hello AGN'ers! UPDATED***** Did some more work on the Shoebox parts with links spreadsheet. There are only a few now that are not found, I'll keep searching for those few and update again when found I have been working on an Excel spreadsheet for a long time, trying to duplicate all of the...
www.airgunnation.com www.airgunnation.com

Mike
Click to expand...
Wow! You did a lot of work! This needs to be a sticky at the top of the page. Thanks!
 
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AlanMcD said:
As Scott said, no, there is nothing like it. I sometimes wish that somebody would replicate it out of China - then at least the costs would be low enough that it could compete against all the junk out there, and it would still be more robust as it was well designed from a load standpoint (along with everything else).

The dive compressors like the Alkin are great, but they are so over designed for what most of us need. They are made to run almost continuously from a duty standpoint for the dive industry, so ~200 hours in a month does occur with no issues - most of us would use them well under an hour a month for our typical air needs.

The Shoebox was (and fortunately for many us still is) an awesome machine for our needs. It offloaded the first stage to a common unit that many of us have anyways, allowed us to dry the air before it even entered the Box, and robustly provides plenty of air. I've had my Shoebox Max for a little over 10 years now, and I use it about 30-60 minutes per week, and just keeps going. I did upgrade it with the auto-lube kit, and now lube it with Krytox and the o-rings seem like they will last forever - I'm approaching 200 hours on the current o-rings with no signs of needing replacement.

A little over a year ago I was beginning to worry about what I would do if mine became irreparable, so when the opportunity presented itself I bought a very lightly used (less than 10 hours of run time) F10 to keep as a backup (plus I keep a healthy stash of parts, but we can't get everything anymore). Hopefully the Max won't die for a long time, but when it does I have one waiting in the wings - and I've already swapped the drive pulley in the F10 down to an F8 pulley to slow it down and reduce the load on the bearings and bushings. The increase in speed simply is not warranted in my book - the F8 speed really was the sweet spot for that compressor. I have the same pulley on my Max and it runs real well that way - a good bit faster than the original (about 30%) but still fairly calm. When I first tried the F10 it was almost scary fast, and I am more interested in long term reliability than absolute filling speed.

I too am a huge fan of the Shoebox compressor. Tom Kaye made a great unit, until it was chased from the market by the pursuit of faster fills at lower cost (and MUCH lower reliability). In the game of HPA, ideally we want reliable operation (long life / low maintenance), fast fills (big tank fills in well under an hour), and affordability (much lower cost than full dive compressors) in our air supply device - at best we can only get two of those three in any choice out there - and the Shoebox was really the only compressor to give us the first and third item in the list. Almost all of the current stuff from China seems to offer the second and third on the list - although I have to say the initial reports on the GX-CS4 look promising. IfI had to go with any of the new stuff, that just might be what I would choose.
Click to expand...
What air dryer to use?
 
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bf1956 said:
What air dryer to use?
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I currently use two on the input to my Shoebox, although I used just the first one for many years. The main one I use is a big Wilkerson silica bead desiccant dryer, the X03-02, and it is probably overkill but at the time I got it for a great price. I paid under $100 for it on sale, but now it goes for over $200 - it holds over 1.5 pounds for beads and last for years between recharging on my Shoebox. If buying today at normal prices I'd probably go with the X06 series as it costs about $100 these days. It only holds about a a quarter pound of desiccant, but that should still be plenty in this application.

I also run a small drier after the Wilkerson filled with Molecular Sieve as an extra step to drive the dew point even lower. I only added that one in the past year as an extra precaution, mostly because I just decided I would do so. I trusted the brute size of the Silica drier on it's own for a long time, but if I had gone with the smaller unit I probably would have put the second unit on it from the beginning. The second filteronly holds about 50 grams of media in it, but given how dry the air is coming out of the big Wilkerson it will last a long time as well - so far no signs of changing on it yet (I used indicating media on this one too).

Here is what the complete set up looks like - from left to right, a ball valve to shut off the whole air path when not in use, the big Wilkerson, the small Molecular Sieve filter, a 0.1 micron dust filter (media can throw off abrasive dust), and regulator to keep the input constant.

P1430561.JPG
 
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AlanMcD said:
I currently use two on the input to my Shoebox, although I used just the first one for many years. The main one I use is a big Wilkerson silica bead desiccant dryer, the X03-02, and it is probably overkill but at the time I got it for a great price. I paid under $100 for it on sale, but now it goes for over $200 - it holds over 1.5 pounds for beads and last for years between recharging on my Shoebox. If buying today at normal prices I'd probably go with the X06 series as it costs about $100 these days. It only holds about a a quarter pound of desiccant, but that should still be plenty in this application.

I also run a small drier after the Wilkerson filled with Molecular Sieve as an extra step to drive the dew point even lower. I only added that one in the past year as an extra precaution, mostly because I just decided I would do so. I trusted the brute size of the Silica drier on it's own for a long time, but if I had gone with the smaller unit I probably would have put the second unit on it from the beginning. The second filteronly holds about 50 grams of media in it, but given how dry the air is coming out of the big Wilkerson it will last a long time as well - so far no signs of changing on it yet (I used indicating media on this one too).

Here is what the complete set up looks like - from left to right, a ball valve to shut off the whole air path when not in use, the big Wilkerson, the small Molecular Sieve filter, a 0.1 micron dust filter (media can throw off abrasive dust), and regulator to keep the input constant.

View attachment 476110
Click to expand...
Nicely done, very professional. Thanks for sharing.
 
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