So what kind of water do I use to cool my yong heng compressor

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The big compressor we use to fill scuba tanks has an aluminum radiator and a fan. It circulates water and anti freeze just like an auto engine. It will fill about 10 cylinders at a time and can run for hours at a steady temp.

We set the tanks in a tub of water to keep them cool. Sometimes we fill 40-50 a day. Heat hasn't been a big issue.

Why not just use a heater core or auto transmission cooler with an electric fan behind it?
 
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That’s good to know, the temp did seem to shoot up too high too fast on the first 2000. It did seem better on the last 2000 which should have been harder on the pump to do now that I consider it. Thanks again, it must be a break in thing, I used it to pump up my gun tanks maybe 3 times, but it did that in just a little over 3 minutes, the thing never even reached 40 degrees on that, that was the first larger volume use it had. So far I’m liking the yong Heng a lot. I got a 2216 psi 60 minute miners scba tank I’m going to try to make into the worlds best small air tank for filling tires or the odd air mattress when I have guests at my house. A decent inline regulator to get the pressure down to 150 psi and a few feet of standard air hose should be all I need. Thanks again for the info.
 
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Bedrock Bob said:
The big compressor we use to fill scuba tanks has an aluminum radiator and a fan. It circulates water and anti freeze just like an auto engine. It will fill about 10 cylinders at a time and can run for hours at a steady temp.

We set the tanks in a tub of water to keep them cool. Sometimes we fill 40-50 a day. Heat hasn't been a big issue.

Why not just use a heater core or auto transmission cooler with an electric fan behind it?
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I don’t think you could really utilize a radiator type cooling system and get it to be very effective. It comes down to how much water you push through the system around the compressor. Even as unit gets hotter the temp swing in the water going in as it relates to coming out isn’t a lot. Just a 5 or 6 gallon supply of cold water was enough for 30 minutes. The unit has a 1 hour duty cycle if it doesn’t run hot at all. Suppose to shut down and cool completely off after 1 hour continuous running. If you could extend that duty cycle it might be worth while, otherwise might just be for little gain overall. This is based on me running the thing one time though. I had the same thought about using some kind of radiator when considering original set up for the air pump. Perhaps an upgraded pump for cooling water might make a radiator cooling set up more effective also, I’m not sure on that though. As you can see , I’ve contemplated a great deal on this stuff😂😂 while I was waiting on tanks and valves to show up so I could use the air pump. I ordered wrong valves so the wait ended up an extended one. I do like the idea of a completely closed cooling water set up of some kind. A radiator system seems a logical choice for that also.
 
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Panzerfaust said:
I don’t think you could really utilize a radiator type cooling system and get it to be very effective. It comes down to how much water you push through the system around the compressor. Even as unit gets hotter the temp swing in the water going in as it relates to coming out isn’t a lot. Just a 5 or 6 gallon supply of cold water was enough for 30 minutes. The unit has a 1 hour duty cycle if it doesn’t run hot at all. Suppose to shut down and cool completely off after 1 hour continuous running. If you could extend that duty cycle it might be worth while, otherwise might just be for little gain overall. This is based on me running the thing one time though. I had the same thought about using some kind of radiator when considering original set up for the air pump. Perhaps an upgraded pump for cooling water might make a radiator cooling set up more effective also, I’m not sure on that though. As you can see , I’ve contemplated a great deal on this stuff😂😂 while I was waiting on tanks and valves to show up so I could use the air pump. I ordered wrong valves so the wait ended up an extended one. I do like the idea of a completely closed cooling water set up of some kind. A radiator system seems a logical choice for that also.
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If you are working with a 1 hour duty cycle compressor then a cooling system won't extend that much. The entire mechanism is designed using a one hour cycle as the criteria. So are the water ports in the heads. If its not stripping off heat and getting the water hot then a radiator wont help much.

Big breathing air compressors usually have a radiator, a fan and a water pump. Any water cooled head will cool better with a radiator or heat exchanger.

Dive boat compressors pump seawater through a heat exchanger. The compressor is a closed loop. Boat engines are cooled with a nifty heat exchanger that would be ideal for a small compressor. It would be an ideal hack for a closed loop system. They are not much bigger than a coffee can. It requires a lot of water.

A radiator is easiest. It dosent take gallons of water and strips heat efficiently out of coolant solution.

Lots of scientific processes that produce hot coolant water use a small refrigerator with 100 feet of tubing in it to return cold water. It's a super simple radiator that you can make for the price of the tubing.

A steady flow of cold intake water is all you can do with a head that has inefficient cooling design. A roll of black tubing in a little refrigerator may be the most efficient way to handle it.

It takes time for heat to transfer to or from water. Your coolant needs contact time with hot metal to draw away heat just as your radiator needs time to loose it. A slower flow of water in a system is often better than a fast one. There is a sweet spot with any heat transfer system. Sometimes less is more.
 
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I'm new in this pcp world 3 months now bought a Yong heng
Updated the water pump also added copper tubing to the high pressure air lines which helps
I have a 5 gal res but I also made a cool can for summer temps distilled water with water wetter I also restrict the water flow to allow heat transfer otherwise it flows to fast
Over all I can keep the temp between 125_137 cyl temp
I dont run it any longer than 45 min at a time and change the oil every 10 hrs use
So far so good

20240807_164353.jpg
 
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I keep it simple, and so far, it works great.
Why even recirculate the old, spent, hot water, back into the compressor?
Then things like copper tubing, radiator, additional fans, anti-freeze, and additives to keep it cool are not necessary.

I have fresh water from faucet, going into a 5 gallon bucket that is fed by a constant, slow supply of fresh, cold water.
Hot water exiting the compressor goes into a seperate bucket and I do not recirculate the hot water (only a small amount).
By not recirculating all of the spent hot water, the incoming water supply is always nice and warm.
I prefer that the incoming water is WARM...(NOT TOO COLD and NOT TOO HOT) ......Just warm!
So I only recirculate a small amount of hot water, ... just enough to maintain WARM incoming water.

On a busy day, if I top off several guns, spare bottles, and my large, 90CF tank, I probably consume 7 gallons of "waste" water.
The hot "waste" water, can then be reused for washing the deck/basement floor, wash pet bedding, or once cooled off, for outdoor plants, ,etc.
 
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MarksmanPete said:
I seen folks use tap water distilled water, water wetter, Whats the deal is tap water fine followed with vinegar after a few months to clean up the mineral deposits, Is distilled water by its self bad, Do you need water weter if you use distilled water or should I just use tap water with ice.
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Some coolant for an auto safe for an aluminum radiator added to water should prevent most scaling , distilled water is best option probably.
 
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I don't understand ? exactly what did you think when buying a striped down no accessories compressor ? You did not pay for the engineering and parts to meet the demands of keeping the machine at the proper Temperature . so it is up to you the buyer to do so .
Some great ideas on this thread IF my small self contained compressor ever dies maybe i will play this game of find the right cooling ?
 
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stovepipe said:
I use tap water, just like I do in my coffee maker. Mineral deposits will form in the compressor head just like they do in the coffee maker. Occasionally I'll run a mix of 50% water and 50% white distilled vinegar through the compressor for about an hour (cold compressor -- not running the compressor, obviously). Mineral deposits that get flushed out will appear in the bottom of my 5-gallon bucket as small white flakes and powder. I rinse the bucket out in the bathtub and then do a 2nd run of water and vinegar for another hour. I just repeat this until I no longer find mineral deposits in the bottom of the bucket. Then I run clean tap water (no vinegar) for 15 minutes or so just to rinse out any traces of vinegar. Then I rinse out the bucket of rinse water with clean tap water.

It might sound like a pain, but it's not something I do on a schedule and I don't have to do it very often. I just do it whenever I "feel" like it's been a while -- same thing with my coffee maker.

stovepipe
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I'm replying to myself -- on purpose. After I typed the above post, I started wondering if vinegar would dissolve aluminum. After lots of research, the technical answer is "yes -- vinegar will dissolve aluminum". BUT, vinegar dissolves calcium and other typical mineral deposits very quickly compared to how long it would take vinegar to dissolve aluminum, especially when we are talking about cold tap (hard) water and vinegar running through a stone cold aluminum block. There is no heat being applied or physical scrubbing of the aluminum surface. So my semi-educated guess is that using hard water to cool my Yong Heng and occasionally de-scaling the cold aluminum block by running equal parts distilled white vinegar and cold hard water through it is OK.

Hey, Chief Ten-Beers, if you do it the way I do, and it screws up your Yong Heng, you are guaranteed to get your revenge because I'll have the same problem sooner or later. Time will tell. Cheers.

stovepipe
 
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My El Cheapo arrived with everything I needed in the box for right around 150 bucks and it will fill tanks just fine. It's a Yong Heng knock off, total no name, not a label on it. These pumps make a lot of heat we must all take steps to make sure they run as cool as possible. Gallons of water are better than quarts of water, the larger quantity of water will absorb more heat. Less water means we need to pull the heat from the water, a couple blocks of ice help immensely. Don't overlook cooling air flow, the pump is both air and water cooled. I have maybe one or two hours run time thus far, I will change the oil today or prior to charging my SCBA bottle again. I will drain the oil through a coffee filter just to see how much schmutz is in the oil. I am quite pleased with El Cheapo for now. It was the fact I could get an HPA pump cheaply that finally got me in to PCP. My Blitz is fun fun and more fun. I have a bunch of rusty canned veggies, a mag dump is major giggles.
 
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Ricklin said:
Yup, that is the wet water, I recommend it, in fact can't live without it! Seems like we are worried about mineral deposits that occur over years, for pumps that go for months.
Use the wet water that is relatively soft, bottled drinking water is ideal should you have really hard water. KISS.
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I was sort of thinking the same thing , except I hope I get 2 or 3 years out of the yong heng😂😂😂, I believe KISS is fitting as well though, I kept wondering what everyone meant by wetter water, to me that is surfactant. Thank you for mentioning Jet Dry. That makes perfect sense to me now.
 
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Guys can spend money on automotive water wetter if they desire, it is their money. A squirt of Jet Dry will accomplish the same thing for a penny or two vs. dollars. When water "beads" it does not transfer the heat as effectively. Jet dry in the dishwasher "works" because the water will "sheet" rather than "bead" those beads or drops of water makes getting the dishes dry impossible. Cheap and effective. Another helpful tip, a larger reservoir for the water is very helpful in holding down the temperature. In my considerable professional experience of darn near 50 years of air compressor service sales and installation excessive heat kills compressor pumps. It is number one. Lack of maintenance is a distant second.
 
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Ricklin said:
My El Cheapo arrived with everything I needed in the box for right around 150 bucks and it will fill tanks just fine. It's a Yong Heng knock off, total no name, not a label on it. These pumps make a lot of heat we must all take steps to make sure they run as cool as possible. Gallons of water are better than quarts of water, the larger quantity of water will absorb more heat. Less water means we need to pull the heat from the water, a couple blocks of ice help immensely. Don't overlook cooling air flow, the pump is both air and water cooled. I have maybe one or two hours run time thus far, I will change the oil today or prior to charging my SCBA bottle again. I will drain the oil through a coffee filter just to see how much schmutz is in the oil. I am quite pleased with El Cheapo for now. It was the fact I could get an HPA pump cheaply that finally got me in to PCP. My Blitz is fun fun and more fun. I have a bunch of rusty canned veggies, a mag dump is major giggles.
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maybe a build a "swamp cooler " (ice in a cooler with a fan , google a DIY ) to blow on the YH ? in addition to H2o bucket .
 
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Yuppers beerthief pulling the heat from the water is helpful. If only a gallon or two that water will very quickly become bath water. A big water reservoir seems to be "enough" I'm thinkin around 10 gallons of water will be enough W/O resorting to ice. Rather than an old cooler a thin plastic or metal container to dissipate the heat a cooler retains the heat in the water.
 
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