Compressor

moefoemil

moefoemil

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Hi all,

I’ve recently bought a Katran C and am looking to buy a compressor to charge it and my 300 bar diving tank. I’m not wanting to spend a lot and was looking at the tuxing for around £160, can anyone recommend one around the £150-£200 mark? Ideally I need it to run from 240v and not just a 12v car battery. All help and advice appreciated.

Many thanks (y)
 
The cheaper/smaller compressors struggle on filling large cylinders to be honest, they are best suited to topping up rifles. The older design may also require cooling in the form of a water tank whereas the newer ones are air cooled but do need a break every 15 mins or so.
The better options out there are the Hills compressors (around £800) but even they will struggle to fill up a large 300 bar tank. it may need 2 or more runs of 15 minutes and a few hours in between to allow for cooling down, Overheat them and it could get expensive to repair?
The main issues on some of the cheaper compressors is keeping moisture out of the air, this can often lead to emulsified oil/water residue inside the rifle. Not good to find inside to be honest. many newer models have half decent, replaceable, moisture trap filters, just change them regularly and reduce the chances of crap getting through to your gun. There may be upgraded carbon filters available too?
I have used the Wulf version in my local RFD's and for the price (£400) its a good unit, I think the newer Tuxing one appears to be the same or very similar item but branded differently? could be wrong. Perfect for filling up the gun.
 
For that budget and bottle filling the water cooled Ying Tongs and plenty of filtration are your best option (the link is not a recommendation, just an example, you might be better off buying through amazon for their warranty). Lots of threads on here about filtration, here's my latest filter setup on my Hill.

An old rough guide to what compressors are out there.
 
I went the Yongy way.
I added a water trap with home made water cooling,plus b 20241012_080600.webp20241012_080542.webp

locks of ice in the water,then a long silica gel filter.Molecular sieve would probably be better.
All in a 'wind tunnel'.
I use it for filling a 7L bottle-too much faff for filling straight to rifle
Touch wood it's working well (y)

Note to self-get the !2£$6 hoover out:D
 
I like the wind tunnel! Good idea. I just use a big fan on hot days and always stop my Hill at 65C.
 
My GX Pumps CS2 has been faultless since I’ve had it, charges my day tripper 500cc bottle from 200bar to 300bar in well under 10 minutes and never gets above 50c, i also use it on my V3, but that only ever gets a 250bar fill. Its a basic compressor but very well regarded and spares are easily available if needed 👍

IMG_5427.jpeg
 
Pegasus said:
I went the Yongy way.
I added a water trap with home made water cooling,plus bView attachment 585038View attachment 585040

locks of ice in the water,then a long silica gel filter.Molecular sieve would probably be better.
All in a 'wind tunnel'.
I use it for filling a 7L bottle-too much faff for filling straight to rifle
Touch wood it's working well (y)

Note to self-get the !2£$6 hoover out:D
Click to expand...
I guess you have water cooled the pipe that joins the second stage to the water separator? I've recently been trying to cool that with a damp piece of wick material. It seems to make a difference. If I've guessed right, what material is the cooling tube- size, material where to buy it - any of that appreciated.
 
@colinb The 'hard pipe"between the second stage and the 'bleed block' has been wrapped with ally wire.I wanted to do it in copper(the top bit is) but it was work hardening too much while wrapping it.
I've wracked my brains to figure out how to make a water cooled 'wet' manifold/heat exchanger for the pipe,but have not come up with an idea I like yet.
I 've seen the'Hot Rod' vid on YT.
Water cooling the first stage is also in my head.Removing the carry handle has improved the airflow around it.
The 'whip' between the block and the water separater has the return pipe loosely cable tied to it.More to use as a good 'lead' than for any cooling.
I can't remember what temp it gets up to but I go from 200 to 300 bar in one go with no problem whatsoever.
@moefoemil sorry for the thread 'hijack"
 
Thanks for the reply’s guys, you’ve given me plenty to think about and research, I’d have to use it straight to my Katran as my bottle only charges it to 220 bar but will also use it to keep my bottle topped up for filling my other rifles.
Appreciate all your help (y) :)
 
A new type I believe has recently been marketed in the European Zone, AEA mobile compressor.
It boasts oil / water free operation and a maximum fill pressure of 450 bar! Any experience of these
out there?
 
Target Popper said:
A new type I believe has recently been marketed in the European Zone, AEA mobile compressor.
It boasts oil / water free operation and a maximum fill pressure of 450 bar! Any experience of these
out there?
Click to expand...
A quick Google has it at £1k.
So that's well out of my price range for the small amount of use it would get ☹️
 
I was thinking of getting something like this but would it be ok to fit direct to my rifle to top it up to around 280-300 bar? It’s the auto stop model and looks similar to @Pegasus version. Or would I be better paying extra and getting something like the Wulf model? Sorry for the inexperienced questions but I’m new to the compressor world:unsure:
 

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IMHO,the version of the Yong Heng in the pic,is better than the one I have.
I believe that there are two water drains on the one you show.Mine only has one.
More pipework so you can add more cooling wire/fins if you wanted to.
The disadvantage of the Yongy is that it's a faff to set up,requiring a tub of water,preferably with some ice in it.
I bought a 7L bottle very soon after getting the Yongy.
I could pump up my rifles fine with my stirrup pump,but there's no way back after a comp/bottle combination.
If you go for the Yongy,again IMHO,more filtration than the supplied 'after filter' is desirable.

The consensus of opinion is that you don't restart the comp while it's under pressure.My opinion is that it's not a good thing to stop them under pressure as well.
Warm up-warm down.
I have no experience with the Wulf so cannot comment.
Good luck with your research,and your new purchase when you decide(y)
 
I got a Yong heng and after having a small tuxing this is unreal for filling rifles it tops up a 480cc bottle from 100 bar to 200 bar in under 1 minute.

I got it off eBay as a creworks but I thought it looked exactly the same as a genuine Yong heng so took a gamble and it turned up with a sticker on the side saying manufactured by Yong heng.

It also turned up in 3 days and the price was okay it was £200 for the auto shut off I got but I think £160 for manual and to be fair I don’t use the auto shut off.
 
moefoemil said:
paying extra and getting something like the Wulf model
Click to expand...
The Wulf is a Tuxing silicon jobbie in Wulf's clothing I believe.

Either will do gun only. The Ying Tong produces a lot of air very quickly so you will need to be double dog dare careful if filling direct to gun without an auto cut off.

The Ying Tong will fill dive cylinders, I would not use a Tuing silicon type for dive cylinders.

Using a Ying Tong for gun only fills would not need a large cooling water supply, because it would not be running for very long.
 
Last edited:
sagalout said:
The Wulf is a Tuxing silicon jobbie in Wulf's clothing I believe.

Either will do gun only. The Ying Tong produces a lot of air very quickly so you will need to be double dog dare careful if filling direct to gun without an auto cut off.

The Ying Tong will fill dive cylinders, I would not use a Tuing silicon type for dive cylinders.

Using a Ying Tong for gun only fills would not need a large cooling water supply, because it would not be running for very long.
Click to expand...
I am suspicious that my Ying tong maybe, possibly, has a tiny leak. It works well enough, but seems quite slow above 240 bar. I need a comparison figure. If you fill any given cylinder (volume) from 100 bar to 200 bar, how long does it take? The volume in your filtering has to be added to the volume in the cylinder. From the volume + time figure I can do a comparison.
The spec is that the compressor can pull 50 L/minute. So that is 50 AtmosphereLtres / minute, and a total of 500cc should fill through 100 Bar in one minute. I reckon that mine does about half to 2/3 of that speed. So a gun a little under 2 minutes to top up through 100 bar. Am I asking too much? (That figure of 500cc is not far away from a gun fill with extra filtering).
Clearly marketing men slant their figures and the compressor is working harder at 200 bar than at 100 bar as extra energy into the air needs at least4 times the power as pressure doubles.
 
Pegasus said:
IMHO,the version of the Yong Heng in the pic,is better than the one I have.
I believe that there are two water drains on the one you show.Mine only has one.
More pipework so you can add more cooling wire/fins if you wanted to.
The disadvantage of the Yongy is that it's a faff to set up,requiring a tub of water,preferably with some ice in it.
I bought a 7L bottle very soon after getting the Yongy.
I could pump up my rifles fine with my stirrup pump,but there's no way back after a comp/bottle combination.
If you go for the Yongy,again IMHO,more filtration than the supplied 'after filter' is desirable.

The consensus of opinion is that you don't restart the comp while it's under pressure.My opinion is that it's not a good thing to stop them under pressure as well.
Warm up-warm down.
I have no experience with the Wulf so cannot comment.
Good luck with your research,and your new purchase when you decide(y)
Click to expand...
Interesting point on not stopping under pressure. So would be good to bleed the valve while still chugging? This makes sense to me a could explain failures where users thought they’d done everything right and still had the thing break.
 
sagalout said:
I no longer have one so can't test it sorry. Cant you calculate from the 50/L per minute?
Click to expand...
I tried. My filter is about 80-100 cc and an HW100 cylinder is about 250cc. Say a max of 350CC or 1/3 of a litre.
So from 100-200, which is my normal fill, takes 35ALitres, which should be 60 x 35 / 50 = 42 seconds. In ALL engineering calculations it's very simple. The answer is 42. No need for sums!
But my compressor is taking just over a minute for this.
 
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