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The Quiet Twin Compressor

Donna Banfield

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Thanks Donna again. Much cheaper option, I'll order it.

Another question, do I need to get a regulator for the NSK Presto, or just the handpieace and hose?
 

Bill Boehme

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... Another question, do I need to get a regulator for the NSK Presto, or just the handpieace and hose?

If it were me I would get a separate regulator to use close to the tool. The reason is that the regulator on the tank will be too far from the tool and there will be too much pressure drop in the line to know what the pressure is at the tool. Besides that, you will need a one-micron air filter and a large face pressure gauge with a 0 to 60 PSI scale. Your pressure regulator needs I to be downstream of the filter and as close to the tool as practical... Three feet or less would be ideal. It would also be very useful to have a pneumatic toggle switch mounted at the regulator.
 

Donna Banfield

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Yes, to everything that Bill recommended. The switch right next to the separate regulator is very important. You need to have the ability to turn the tool on and off without walking over to the regulator. That little drill can do a lot of damage in a few seconds to your skin, or get caught in clothing.
 

Donna Banfield

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Yes, and that's preferable to the clear plastic acrylic ones that are in the form of a square-shaped U. I have broken two of those so far. And it doesn't take much :-(
 

Bill Boehme

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That seems to be very overpriced and there isn't any information about what you would be getting. If you don't mind building it yourself I think that you could have a better filter/regulator/switch assembly for a lot less money. I suspect that the tiny pressure gauge has a 0 to 160 PSI range which isn't very satisfactory if you're wanting to precisely set a pressure of 45 PSI.

Ideally, you would want a coalescing filter, but low cost ones aren't easy to find. It bothers me that they don't give any details about the filter.
 
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The Cal Air compressor comes in either steel tanks or aluminum tanks. Living in an arid climate I bought the slightly cheaper steel tank model and regret it. Even here, there's moisture and despite my plan to drain the tank after each use, I've got rust. Bottom line, get the aluminum.
 
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That seems to be very overpriced and there isn't any information about what you would be getting. If you don't mind building it yourself I think that you could have a better filter/regulator/switch assembly for a lot less money. I suspect that the tiny pressure gauge has a 0 to 160 PSI range which isn't very satisfactory if you're wanting to precisely set a pressure of 45 PSI.

Ideally, you would want a coalescing filter, but low cost ones aren't easy to find. It bothers me that they don't give any details about the filter.

Thanks Bill, I will do more research this is all new to me, definitely would love to save money,
 
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The Cal Air compressor comes in either steel tanks or aluminum tanks. Living in an arid climate I bought the slightly cheaper steel tank model and regret it. Even here, there's moisture and despite my plan to drain the tank after each use, I've got rust. Bottom line, get the aluminum.

Thanks dean, I double checked and the one Donna recommended is aluminum
 

Bill Boehme

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This is the coalescing filter that I have for use with my dental handpiece: Arrow F500-02. It is strongly recommended that a five micron filter be used upstream of the filter. Without an upstream filter the coalescing filter will have a limited life, but with a five micron filter upstream it will last almost forever. I was in luck because I just happened to have an unused five micron filter.

With a clean air supply where the tank gets drained daily, you probably would be OK with just a five micron non-coalescing filter. Regulators are fairly cheap for low flow low pressure applications such as this. I would guess $15 or less. I would toss the pressure gauge that comes with the regulator and splurge on a nicer large face model with a 0 - 60 PSI range which is ideal for the required 45 PSI required by the NSK Presto 2. Stay away from the really low cost ones which have poor accuracy. There are lots of pneumatic switches on eBay, here is an example of the kind that you will need. You will also need an assortment of pneumatic fittings and tubing to connect everything together.
 
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Thanks Bill,

Bear in mind I'm not the handy type so I seem to be slow at times..

I need an air regulator, coalescing 5micron air filter, gauge, and a switch. I would connect them in that order. Anything else I'm missing?
 

Bill Boehme

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That is correct, but to be clear the five micron filter isn't a coalescing filter. I don't know if the NSK Presto needs one, but my dental handpiece does. The coalescing filter that I bought is rated at 0.03 microns. I've seen the five micron filters for as low as fifteen dollars on eBay, but more commonly at about thirty dollars. The typical shop air compressor filters that you see at Sears or Home Depot are 40 micron filters and don't filter out much besides liquid water and blobs of oil.

I think that it would be best to have the pressure gauge downstream of the switch because there will be some pressure drop through it and we want to measure the pressure to the handpiece as accurately as possible. There will probably be one or two PSI lose in the tubing to the handpiece.
 
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So I got everything setup, but I'm having problems with the 2010a air compressor. This thing will not run for more than couple of minutes before overheating and shutting down. I'm turning it on and waiting for it to fill the tank before I start carving. I notice there is no more power, pressure dropping, motor is running hot and not refilling the tank.

What am I doing wrong or what did I miss setting up this compressor?
 

Bill Boehme

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So I got everything setup, but I'm having problems with the 2010a air compressor. This thing will not run for more than couple of minutes before overheating and shutting down. I'm turning it on and waiting for it to fill the tank before I start carving. I notice there is no more power, pressure dropping, motor is running hot and not refilling the tank.

What am I doing wrong or what did I miss setting up this compressor?

Is this problem happening while your NSK is running? Maybe the NSK needs more flow than the compressor can supply or maybe the compressor is defective. What is the pressure setting at the tank? It ought to be set to about 90 PSI. The second regulator that is at your filters and pneumatic toggle switch should be set to about 45 PSI if you are using the NSK. For a dental handpiece, the pressure needs to be about 32 to 34 PSI if I remember correctly.

Those little oil-less compressors do run very hot, but if the motor is shutting down you probably should contact the dealer or manufacturer to see if it has a problem.
 
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I tried that right now, I set it to 90 at the compressor and 34 at the regulator for the handpiece. After about 30 seconds, it dropped down to 30 at the compressor, I raised it again to 90. It kicked in and refilled the tank and slowly dropped in pressure again and shotdown. It could be the leaking at the quick connect points, but wouldn't that just make it kick in more often to refill the tank.
 
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I wanted to see if it was the connections so I disconnected the quick connect hose from the unit. Turned on the air compressor and filled the tank, pressure said 90psi. Drained the tank, it kicked on to refill the tank as expected, but this time it would not get past 60psi on second refill then shuts down. It doesn't restart until it cools down.

I'll call California Air on Monday.
 

Bill Boehme

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Sounds to me like it is the air pressure limit switch. It might be defective or maybe it is not set correctly for the cut-in and cut-out pressures. Here is the thing that I am talking about.

switch.jpg

If the switch on your compressor is adjustable, here is an article about setting the cut-in and cut-out pressures:
Setting Your Air Compressor Pressure Switch
Six bar is approximately 85 PSI and seven bar is approximately 100 PSI.

You could try to fix the problem, but I would be inclined to contact the seller and ask for an exchange.
 
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I'm going to contact service department first, but I made the mistake of throwing away the box before I tried the compressor so cannot return it.
 
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Quick update, called California Air, they suspect it is a motor failure. They will look at it as part of the warranty but I have to ship it to them (they pay for shipping).

For those interested, I was going to go with NSK Presto but bill showed me how to hookup a cheaper dental handpiece (under $50). This is giving me a chance to try and see if I will like it before I spend too much money on something and not use.

The switch was the most problematic thing for me. I ordered 3 till I got everything with the right connection (got it from profitable hobbies).
 

odie

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Can anyone here give me the practical application differences between the 1/16" shaft carbide, diamond, and green stone wood shaping bits?

Are the metal piercing tips the only useful bit for this purpose?
 

Bill Boehme

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The tips used in piercing are dental drills and run at about 400,000 RPM. While the shank is 1.6 mm (1/16"), the bur itself is much smaller. Here is an example of a carbide bur. The shank is 1.6 mm and the bur is about half that size or smaller. The tip on the FG170L bur is 0.6 mm.

$_35.JPG


There are other types of larger burs that are used in dental labs and for things like polishing crowns before they fitted onto the tooth, but they are used on low speed handpieces in most cases I believe. I don't think that a stone would last very long at 400,000 RPM. Also, the piece that is being pierced needs to be very thin ... in the vicinity of 1/16" to 3/32". If you tried piercing something much thicker you would either break a lot of burs or set the wood on fire. :eek: I suppose that with practice you could also sign your name with a dental handpiece. For wood piercing I think that you would want to use carbide burs. If you want to try some DIY dentistry then you might want to get some diamond burs. :D
 
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Just quick update, I got my replacement compressor from California Air. They sent me return slip free of charge and shipped me a replacement the next day.
 
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