Why El Cheapo compressors are no bargain
- Thread starter Humdinger
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On sale and big coupon.
Never buy anything big on AliExpress without coupons. They show up usually beginning of the month
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You are not smarter, just more lucky. Cheap compressors are a poor investment and will cost more than a commercial professional compressor over time for most folks. Just read the archives and learn.
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Will cost more than a professional commercial compressor? Not a chance. Got 2 units one a Gx cs4i $580 second
Tuxing txedm042 $360 ( bought cause as a Harley guy had to have the v twin )
Each is better at one thing and didnt need two. Both are easily repairable and have good parts availability.
These “professional “ ones you mention need the same maintenance and much more expensive repairs.
So no I will never come close to that expense by 5 times
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Reading the archives gives me lots of opinions. My EXPERIENCE is that I've been air independent for 4 years + at a cost of around $300 (after 3.5 years on my 1st YongHeng with a full refund when it died). It's what I can afford & has worked unbelievably well! To each his own
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nothing wrong with spending top dollar for anything. If you have the money and the desire for better than the peasants can afford more power to you. I think one of the best examples of this is cars. Today we can expect to buy and drive 150000miles for the most part trouble free. Doesnt matter if a economy car or Cadillac.
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Awful lot of "lucky" owners then. I have to be the "luckiest" person on this forum. All the rifles that the "experts" tell us are supposedly problematic and compressor that isn't a GX i should be buried in failure. Yet my rifles just keep putting pellets down range and my Tuxing compressor keeps filling tanks and bottles with nary a hiccup.
When should I expect to have to start paying more because I paid much less?
-- Matt
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It also depends on mental horsepower in both instances. The gx was my favorite of the failed hobby capacity compressors fwiw. I ran the 250 cubic foot bottle yesterday with my buddy and the 4 banger compressor handled that partial fill really well. Everybody's needs are different so i won't pretend that most occasional shooters here need the large capacity compressor I got.
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"nary a hiccup"
Well, I did pop the circuit breaker on the motor filling a 6.8L from empty on a hot day last summer. The cheapo water pump died some months ago. Replaced it with a higher volume pump and temp consistently slower to rise and lower peak temp
So yeah, that Tuxing compressor has cost me money, about $20 IIRC.
-- Matt
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When i was used water cooled I had a hose setup to pump fresh water thru it from the hose and had an exhaust hose id drag to flower beds or grass. No pumps, no heated water. 2 chores at once
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I may be the guy that coined the term ElCheapo for these bargain compressor pumps, mine is not even a Yong Heng it's a very similar knock off. 160 bucks.
The keys are LOTS of coolant water, mine is next to a big SS sink, I put in the plug and fill the sink 1/3 full with cold water. I can add more cold for a long run, they key is quantity. I run top shelf Ingersoll Rand full synthetic air compressor oil. Costs more, IR doubles their warranty when run with their synthetic oil. I know IR as a company best compressors made IMO. IR makes compressors that people's lives depend on. Shop the oil, Amazon pricing is sky high.
The keys are LOTS of coolant water, mine is next to a big SS sink, I put in the plug and fill the sink 1/3 full with cold water. I can add more cold for a long run, they key is quantity. I run top shelf Ingersoll Rand full synthetic air compressor oil. Costs more, IR doubles their warranty when run with their synthetic oil. I know IR as a company best compressors made IMO. IR makes compressors that people's lives depend on. Shop the oil, Amazon pricing is sky high.
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I hate waiting, I'd never own one of those GX compressor. Quantify the cost of waiting around as that slow compressor takes its sweet time to reach 4500psi. I think I saw recently a 9L took over 5 hours to fill with a GX. My Tuxing was about 75 minutes empty to 4500psi when I filled the 9L I picked up a while back.
Costs can be relative, I think my time is worth something. Maybe I have to replace my Tuxing, but look how much time (money) I saved using a more efficient compressor.
-- Matt
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Yeah that was me Matt, Had I known about the 042 Tuxing first that would be it . I’m f ing with the Gx now . Amazon hose and compression fittings , 2 fan computer radiator , 2 temp gauges. The thing is it doesn’t need it just a project. Retired , bored , it’s gonna be -3 degrees tonight.
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Ah, yes, weather. 5 years in the Michigan UP. Promised myself I would never live anywhere that cold again. 44 years later and I'm keeping to that promise.
-- Matt
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Our weather just turned today, longest we have gone W/O precipitation since the 1940's it came down in buckets yesterday and more rain today. This time of year we like to escape the NW, Mar 9th we shall! Long cruise and a week in London, the ship stays South crossing so should get some warm for a while. London in March will feel just like home. I can visit our 12 foot pound friends.
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I agree completely that our time is worth something. Given that ANY compressor will take some time to fill a tank, I think it makes sense to get one that is robust enough to do it on it's own without and baby sitting of it.
I don't have a GX4, but everything I read about it sounds like it is such a compressor. I have an 11 year old Shoebox, and it clearly is a "set it and forget it" unit, and that is what I do - I've watched movies, football games, mowed the lawn/shoveled the driveway and various other things as it did it's thing. The one safety thing I added to enable this use safely is that I run it through an outlet with a timer control on it - I calculate the time needed to get to a full fill and set it up so that the power shuts off at the right time - that way it absoluelty can't overfill the tank if there were any problem with the auto shut off.
I would say that I spend less time waiting around filling tanks this way than I would if I had a commercial dive compressor . . .
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Shoebox is no longer an option.
Even so, I lack the patience for hours long fills. I'd be checking all the time to see where it had made it. I've got tanks ranging from 330cc to 9L. Shoebox just wouldn't work for me.
-- Matt
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I know the Shoebox is no longer available, but I hope to keep mine running as long as I need it. The point was that with the right compressor, we don't have to be slaves to the fill time.
I'll admit that the Shoebox is noticably slow on the initial fill of a big tank. I too have a 9L, and the initial fill took 13 hours. That was broken up into 3 fill sessions, two on one day and the third on the next day. But I was not around it while it ran as I did other things. But that was only for the initial fill.
Top offs are a function of how much I shoot, and I tend to refill it in ~45 minute runs each week or so. The size of the tank really does not matter much - the compressor replaced the air I have shot down from the tank. I consider the slow speed a virtuous feature.
To each their own - if you can't just let it do its job, I get it. But that does not mean that such a compressor is bad for other folks.
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Thing is I’m not sitting there watching it. If I’m there I’ll look but I don’t worry about s it like that.
I’ll trust the 042 tux also. I read a lot on here of those that are scared of their toys. Afraid an accumulated drop of water will get in their gun. Afraid they might overpressurize by 50 psi so they underpressurize 500 psi. Afraid to run a machine designed to safely run 5 hours so they go 30 min and cool 20.
This isn’t regarding you Alan sorry I hit reply under your post.
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All you nay sayers will eventually agree with me that these cheap compressors are a bad investment once you have been in this hobby long enough. Most of you nay sayers are newbies to this PCP sport. With my 4 cyl. Bauer I recharge my 12 liter CF bottle to 300 bar in 10 minutes. It was made in 1968.
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