Tuxing double cylinder pcp air compressor - taking the plunge.

[tutuan]

Hello Mike,

May I have some questions about your setup. I bought a Tuxing compressor from the bay with auto shut off feature but mine came with no drain bolt. I noticed yours has one right below the oil level screen. So to do the oil change i have to remove the cover plate? I emailed the seller (txfactory) but i think i may have better response here.

Here is mine:

Compares to yours:

And where did you get that intake air filter? (circled in red). Is an adapter needed to screw it in?

One last question: How and when to purge? Purge with the bleed valve or using the bolt beside it?



Thank you for sharing your experience and Have a good labor day.

 

[Centercut]

1. Purge with bleed valve on the outlet valve block. Once every ten minutes is fine...

2. Inlet filter was bought off eBay. It wouldn't fit with the cap on so as you can see I use it with the cap off and a strong rubber band holding the filter in the can. No adaptor needed.

https://ebay.us/YFqDl1

3. Weird about the drain plug. I think you can also just unscrew the sight glass and drain through that. Tilt the compressor forward to get all the oil out...

Mike

 

[mr.grimm]

I remove the cover plate om mine to drain the oil. Mine has a drain plug but I like to inspect the inside when I do a oil change. Just got to make sure to have the gasket lined up when reinstalling. 

 

[Eaglebeak]

It's probably not a bad idea to remove the cover whilst changing the oil as that gasket/baffle behind it acts like a strainer, keeping filings and gunk from draining out with the oil.

 

[Humdinger]

Hello Mike,

May I have some questions about your setup. I bought a Tuxing compressor from the bay with auto shut off feature but mine came with no drain bolt. I noticed yours has one right below the oil level screen. So to do the oil change i have to remove the cover plate? I emailed the seller (txfactory) but i think i may have better response here.

Here is mine:

Compares to yours:

And where did you get that intake air filter? (circled in red). Is an adapter needed to screw it in?

One last question: How and when to purge? Purge with the bleed valve or using the bolt beside it?



Thank you for sharing your experience and Have a good labor day.

If you look closely at the oil window frame you will see it is hex shaped and is there to allow a socket wrench to fit over it to remove it and drain the oil. After the oil drains, tilt the compressor over toward the open plug to get all of the oil out of the crankcase. I wouldn’t take the entire front plate off when it is so easy to take off the window/plug which is for that purpose.

 

[tutuan]

Thank you all for advises. As i expected, the reply from seller (txfactory) is totally worthless:



Quote

Hello , my dear friend ,

you should turn the air compressor over and pour the oil out .then you can add oil from the breathe rods to the red line until .

Unquote

Seriously? Turn the compressor up side down to get the oil out? LMAO

Apparently google translate did the interpretation but i don't think i missed the ideas, LOL. I know, what did i expect when buying from the bay right.



Anyway, i inspected the glass screen screw and found that it requires a thin 1 inch socket plus looks like it's been glued in so removing the cover plate is my only option for now.



Thank you all

 

[Centercut]

When you have the cover plate off, drill and tap the area where the drain plug is supposed to go and install one, so that the next time you don't need to remove the cover plate. Should be an easy job...

 

[steve-l]

I wonder how old your compressor is. I just received mine direct from China and I have the drain bolt. I see no reason why you could not order a new end plate from the factory.

I will be selling mine. It is brand new, just as delivered by the factory. Never even plugged in. If there is anyone in Europe that wants a very friendly deal, let me know.

 

[tutuan]

Mine is also brand new, just put some oil in but not powered on yet. I want all potential issues sorted out before test run.



So i pushed the seller to send me a cover plate with drain bolt but they will send me a cover plate together with a crankcase!



Quote.

Hello , my dear friend ,
we will send you a set crankcase and front cover .
you can change the front cover first , if the hole doesn't fit , you can change the crankcase .

Unquote.



What should i do now? Return the compressor? As i have to wait another month for the parts and most likely i will have to replace the crankcase as well and that's a lot of work. 

 

[Centercut]

Like I said above: when you have the cover plate off, drill and tap the area where the drain plug is supposed to go and install one, so that the next time you don't need to remove the cover plate. Should be an easy job… This job can be done easily with a hand drill. Just drill out the hole, use a machine screw of the correct size with a firm rubber washer as the gasket. Problem solved.

Mike

 

[tutuan]

I am not sure if the cover wall is thick enough to tap some threads on. But definitely i will see if that's an option when opening the cover plate.



Thanks

 

[Eaglebeak]

You won't need to change the whole crank-case, just the cover. Surely you can wait until you receive the new cover before your first oil change. You won't do any harm if you run it for a couple of hours before the first oil change. I'll stick my neck out here and say, It probably won't make any difference to the life of the unit if you just put oil in it, synthetic or mineral and never change it again. The mineral oil will be rated for 2000 hours and the synthetic, probably about 3500 hours. Those are the recommended change intervals that the oil companies stipulate. How long do you think the electric motor will last?

 

[Don-B]

I just ordered one of these. Bought it off the tuxing eBay store shipped form California for $429. It should be here next week.

 

[Centercut]

@don-b, great deal. Does it have the auto shut off feature? Don't forget the "gold" filter for your filter-dryer... Please post the link so others can get in on this if they want one... Thanks!

 

[Don-B]

@don-b, great deal. Does it have the auto shut off feature? Don't forget the "gold" filter for your filter-dryer... Please post the link so others can get in on this if they want one... Thanks!

The one I bought doesn't have the auto shutoff that's why it's olny $429. 

I would post a link but it was the last one available in the state's. I did also by a gold filter too. 

 

[Centercut]

@don-b, no worries. The auto shutoff feature is only important if you fall asleep while filling...

 

[Josoo]

@tutuan I think the front cover the factory sent to you 99% can fit your present compressor. (In order to make sure it can match, we can say that the crankcase almost as bonus for your future maintenance), you need not wait one more month. you can use the present front cover firstly. And the newly front cover will delivery to you about 2 weeks from China to US.

 

[airgunfans]

@tutuan This is no issue at all from my perspective and I am not surprised by the answer they gave you because I got exactly the same answer from Yong Heng when I asked them why the drain bolt is glued to the crankcase cover with silicone sealant. There should be an O-ring as there is obviously a groove for it.

Anyway, my hobby milling machine ( an Austrian EMCO FB2 ) does not have any oil drain hole on the gear box so I just suck the oil out with a big plastic syringe. This one is from China. It came with a tube and the whole set costs less than 2 bucks shipped. Just see if you can get similar stuff in US. The tube can be inserted into the crankcase through the threaded hole where the breather tube goes on. 

 

[tutuan]

Thank you all for the support and advises. Last weekend i played with the compressor a bit: let it run unloaded for 20 minutes, opened the cover plate for the first oil change, disassembled the outlet valve block and the high pressure cylinder, then run it to fill up a 90 cubic inch tank to 4500 psi. And here is what i found:



The canister that holds silica gel inside the outlet valve block was rusted even not turned on yet. Filled it with the cotton filter per Mike's suggestion.

There was some metal debris collected on the bottom when opening the cover plate:

More rust inside the high pressure cylinder:

I couldn't get the gasket aligned with the cover plate. The gasket is a bit smaller than the grove on the plate and i tried all tricks i can think of but no luck. It was still leaking oil quite a bit. I will make a custom gasket for this.

After all, it was able to fill up a 90ci tank from empty to 4500 psi in 16 minutes, max temp was 54 celsius and i used 50/50 coolant. I made a temporary intake filter with silica gel and this is how it looked after 20 minutes run time:

I also did the ground wire modification. It's a must for your safety.



@Don-B, congratulation on a good deal. Mine was also shipped from CA and it took only 4 days to deliver to TX. Can't wait to see how yours works out.

The seller assured me that they are the manufacturer and my compressor is covered with 2 years warranty for "main parts". Not quite sure what that means, lol.

 

[Centercut]

@tutuan - Wow, piss poor quality control. Its good you opened it up and checked all of it. It appears that the "flingers" at the bottom of the piston rods are contaminated with something, maybe burnt oil? That's what happens when you use the #46 hydraulic oil vice synthetic air compressor oil. Not saying you did, but someone ran it with oil that burnt easily, maybe it belonged to someone before you and it was a return? 

I've got bad news about mine. Was filling a new tank last evening. What I did was take my 88 cu ft. tank at 4500 psi, and equalize pressure with a new 66 cu ft. tank. This way when I fil both of them I'm over 2000 psi in each and it doesn't drain my filter media, or require the use of a PMV. So, about 30 minutes into topping off the 88 cu ft. tank, and at about 3500 psi, the compressor just stopped. 

It seems like an electrical problem. I checked the motor by feeling the outer casing, and it was pretty hot. I'm thinking this might be normal, but I also think the thermal overload either tripped, or failed, or both (tripped at a lower setting than it should have). Its been giving me signs that something was not right for the past couple of months, all electrical, tripping the power strip breaker, etc. I think it can be fixed, but at this point, busy at work and with new house, and trying to get ready for EBR, I don't have time to troubleshoot further (and repair) until after EBR, so I'll be taking my 3 tanks to the dive shop for the next month until I head to AZ.

I'm at the point where I'm not having fun with this anymore, and even though it can be fixed, and mechanically it still runs great (the actual compressor still runs like new), I'm going to throw in the towel and buy a Daystate (Coltri) 4-stage 110 vac model. I'll be in AZ anyway, and can order it in CA, and pick it up in AZ so no shipping charge or sales tax. I'm going to give the Tuxing to my buddy Nick (@socaloldman), so maybe he'll continue the never ending saga of the highly modified Tuxing two cylinder HPAC. Just FYI, all of my modifications are still working great, and the compressor doesn't get over 60C even when run for greater than a half hour. Up until yesterday, it still only took about 15 minutes to top off an 88 cu ft. tank from 3200 to 4500 psi.