For starters, I should mention I left the compressors, like I usually do, off. And yesterday was a full rich day at work, followed up by some quality time at the gym, in turn followed up with some even higher quality time in the Gym hot tub... But I digress...
I didn't get back home and into the shop until about 8:30 last night, which doesn't slot me very much working time. Even with the insulation, I am still cautious about my noise levels at night, although the one neighbor it would impact I really would LOVE to get NOISY and keep his worthless tail awake at 2:00 A.M. when he has an important meeting the following day... oops I digress again...
Anyway, so I get out to the shop, and prep 3 more of those shop made hose retaining clamps to finish the job up, when I notice something...
There is no pressure in the line...
There is no pressure in the tanks either...
Go through the checklist...
Breakers on or off? On. Okay.
Compressors on or off? Off.
Did I drain the tanks? Check valves, nope, water runs out. Oh great...
Run the compressors both up to pressure, listen for leaks, Nothing... WTH?!
Power both compressors off, drain tanks.
I suspect that, since there may be some sort of action / intentional leakage caused by the check valves, OR the other possibility...
I had left the blow gun on the bench, laying on the handle. I may have had just enough of an opening in the blow gun valve to bleed both tanks dry in the 20 hours since I last looked at it...
What I know...
#1. Pretty much every component of the system from the compressor to the blow gun has tested good recently, and all pipe thread fittings have been given at least 3 wraps of Teflon tape to insure a leak free fitting...
#2. Since adding the check valves, there is a weird noise that comes from the check valves themselves. Sort of like regular pipes moaning... Maybe I should probably pressurize the system and take an audio clip of it for you to hear... I need to think on this a bit...
#3. The main suspect here is the regulator / filter drain valve. It was open when I got to it. I am pretty sure this is where the actual issue was. What I don't get about it is everything was regulated to 125 PSI or lower, the filter / regulator assembly is fitted with a 160PSI regulator / gauge.and I have been feeding it 125 PSI which should have been fine, I was well away from the "Red danger zone" on the gauge. HOWEVER I am reading the specs on it, and I think I see my problem. max rated pressure it would appear is 100 PSI.
I need to dial back the regulators on the compressors to just at / shave under 100 PSI. Good thing all of my tools are rated to 90PSI or less!
So once I came to the conclusion that I had figured out what I did wrong (dummy read the gauge, not the manual!), and got THAT sorted, and of course moved on to my maintenance items, I was back at the bench, with snips, vise grips, and a drill handy, fabbing up the last 3 of the hose retaining strap clamps to finish up the hose installation.
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