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PostPosted: Wed Dec 22, 2021 2:29 am 
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Joined: Thu Dec 03, 2020 3:24 pm
Posts: 133
Location: BC
I thought I'd post a little adaptation I've made to my cheap Amazon pump, that lets me use it to fill up relatively large air tanks. I have an affordable air-cooled pcp pump from Amazon, the GS compressor.

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It's great for filling up my rifle, but I've migrated to using a tank, and this pump would overheat and die before it could fill up anything but the smallest tank. That said, provided I turn the pump off to let it cool down, it can fill up a big tank. The problem is, for large tanks this could entail hundreds of on/off cycles over many hours.

So I thought I'd build a little Arduino circuit to do the job. I've tried a few different options, re-learning some basic things about electric circuits along the way. I've settled on a basic design that seems pretty robust. The core of the circuit is an Adafruit Feather 32u4 "Basic Proto" although I imagine you can find other similar circuits from other dealers. This is a very basic board that uses Arduino coding conventions. All we need from it is we can program it to turn on and off a 3V terminal.

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The 3v terminal will be connected to a solid-state relay. The key thing is to find a solid state relay than can turn on and off wall power (120V, moderate amperage), yet triggered by a 3v current. This one by Inkbird does the job.

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I've been doing some home rennovations recently — tearing down some walls, and tearing out the electrical wiring so I have some electrical wiring sitting around that's perfect for the job. You can find this kind of wiring at shops like Home Depot. With these ingredients, I wired them all together, and put little male/female plugs on the wire ends. Getting a female plug with an LED to indicate power is a good idea, as it helps to test the circuit.

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Not certain if you can see it or not, but I soldered on "headers" to my Adafruit board, as it makes it easier to connect things to it.

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Not necessary, but it makes life easier.

So my little circuit plugs into the wall power supply, and then to my compressor. I leave the compressor's switch "on" so that the Adafruit can control it. I should add, if you aren't very comfortable doing electrical work, one of these socket testers will really help.

Image

If you plug it into your female socket with the adafruit turning it on and off, it should alternate between being off and "correct". If it gives you something else, you know you wired things up the wrong way. It's important to know the relay needs to have the hot wall line connected to it. It won't run properly if you've connected your wall neutral (or ground) to it.

Here it is, off.

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And on.

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My pump and air filter.

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The Arduino code. To change the code on your Arduino, you will need a computer with a USB port, i.e. you probably can't do this on most phones.

#define SECOND 1000UL
#define MINUTE (SECOND * 60UL)
#define HOUR (MINUTE * 60UL)

int TRIGGERPIN=10;
int LIGHTPIN=13;

unsigned long timeUp = 1UL * MINUTE + 40UL * SECOND;
unsigned long timeDown = 5UL * MINUTE + 0UL * SECOND;

int countVar = 0;
int numCycles = 40;

// the setup function runs once when you press reset or power the board
void setup() {
// initialize digital pin 13 as an output, this is the RED LED.
pinMode(TRIGGERPIN, OUTPUT);
pinMode(LIGHTPIN, OUTPUT);
}

// the loop function runs over and over again forever
void loop() {
if (countVar < numCycles) // run for this many cycles.
{
countVar++;

digitalWrite(LIGHTPIN, HIGH); // turn the LED on (HIGH is the voltage level)
digitalWrite(TRIGGERPIN, HIGH); // turn relay ON
delay(timeUp); // on delay

digitalWrite(LIGHTPIN, LOW); // turn the LED off by making the voltage LOW
digitalWrite(TRIGGERPIN, LOW); // turn relay OFF
delay(timeDown); // off delay
}
else
{ // have the light flash rapidly when pumping is done.
digitalWrite(LIGHTPIN, HIGH);
delay(1000);
digitalWrite(LIGHTPIN, LOW);
delay(500);
}
}



As you can see, it turn turns the circuit on and off, on for 1:40, off for 5:00. You'll have to manage the on-off cycle lengths yourself, depending on your pump and the ambient temperature — whatever it takes to keep the pump cool. I plan on updating the circuit soon, so that it keeps track of the pump's temperature via a thermistor. Will also update the circuit to provide a little display, to help you keep track of how much running time the pump has had, etc. These Adafruit circuits are fairly noob-friendly. As you can see in the code, I'm using pin "10" as the trigger pin. So my relay connects to the Adafruit via pin "10" (clearly labelled) and the ground pin (labelled GND).

The Feather is powered by a little Li-Ion battery. You'll need to purchase something like that to keep it running, or power it with a little wall adapter.

One other element of my code, I have it stop at 40 on/off cycles. This is a basic safety protocol, as it won't let the tank get to a dangerous pressure, unsupervised. For any tank you should compute how many cycles it will take to finish, and set your limit appropriately. Some companies have touchable displays that could allow this to be configurable without plugging it into a computer — i.e. maybe in the future I'll add something like this to the circuit.

Did I miss anything? Will update this thread as I update the circuit.


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PostPosted: Wed Dec 22, 2021 3:55 am 
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Joined: Sat Mar 16, 2013 5:15 am
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Location: Edmonton
Impressive.


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PostPosted: Wed Dec 22, 2021 6:58 am 
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Joined: Wed Sep 07, 2016 11:04 am
Posts: 1879
Fun Arduino project. That looks like a serious air filter. Have you thought about using a temp sensor on the ardino to trigger the ssr? Personally I would mount the board away from the ssr. I've had a few blow up.

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PostPosted: Wed Dec 22, 2021 10:08 am 
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Joined: Fri Oct 08, 2021 1:49 pm
Posts: 45
Any issues restarting the pump under pressure ?

Sent from my Pixel 6 Pro using Tapatalk


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PostPosted: Wed Dec 22, 2021 2:13 pm 
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Joined: Wed Jan 05, 2011 12:35 pm
Posts: 11301
Location: P.G. B.C.
That's pretty much like reading Japanese - for me. :shock:

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PostPosted: Wed Dec 22, 2021 2:37 pm 
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Joined: Thu Dec 03, 2020 3:24 pm
Posts: 133
Location: BC
Kennykustom wrote:
Any issues restarting the pump under pressure ?

Sent from my Pixel 6 Pro using Tapatalk


None so far. I've heard people have had trouble doing exactly that, but it was with other pumps. Not certain if this pump will have the same problem, but apparently most pumps are designed to be started with little to no pressure in the system.

At present I've only had about 3 hrs of "pump running" time since setting up this Arduino on/off cycling system. My impression is, if problems are going to happen I should expect them by about the 10hr mark.

Looking into sourcing a 4500psi check valve so that I could avoid that problem, if it were to come up. But the check valve would have to be cheap, like the rest of the items in this project. I think I've spent about $40 on parts, so far.

jckstrthmghty wrote:
Fun Arduino project. That looks like a serious air filter. Have you thought about using a temp sensor on the ardino to trigger the ssr? Personally I would mount the board away from the ssr. I've had a few blow up.


A temp sensor and a little display are coming up.

There is a small gap between the relay and the Adafruit board. I 3d printed a little plastic mount -- it's clear so it's a little hard to see.

The air filter is by Joe Brancato: topic79224.html

I think it cost more than my pump.


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PostPosted: Sun Jan 02, 2022 10:23 am 
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Joined: Thu May 21, 2020 10:20 am
Posts: 104
On the subject of cheap compressors. I don' know how to make a link but, check out the" Youg Heng Hot Rod shop"on u tube. Interesting to say the least.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcI1wD_rXOg


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PostPosted: Sun Jan 02, 2022 11:03 am 
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Joined: Thu Oct 13, 2005 6:52 pm
Posts: 8845
Location: Vancouver Island BC
csitas wrote:
On the subject of cheap compressors. I don' know how to make a link but, check out the" Youg Heng Hot Rod shop"on u tube. Interesting to say the least.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcI1wD_rXOg

hope that the right one

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PostPosted: Thu Jan 06, 2022 9:43 pm 
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Joined: Thu Dec 03, 2020 3:24 pm
Posts: 133
Location: BC
I've expanded the circuit. Now it has a thermistor, and keeps track of the pump temperature.

Have a one-way check valve on order. Will try having the circuit trigger a stepper motor inbetween cycles, to relieve pressure on the pump, i.e. the check valve will be between the pump and the moisture separator, so that only a teensy volume will be bled off.

If I have a fan on the pump, it only gets up to about 30c. But without a fan on the pump it can get up to 44c using 1:40on, 5:00off cycles. This is in my near 0c garage with high relative humidity.

Also put a little display on the pump, so that it can give me updates.

Once I'm finished tinkering with it, I'll bundle it up into a tight package that mounts onto the pump easily.

The only mild hiccup I've come-across so far, is that the longer the wires are to my thermistor, the more unreliable the measurements become. In the final unit I'll either use bigger wires or make them as short as possible.


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PostPosted: Wed Jan 12, 2022 8:35 pm 
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Joined: Thu May 21, 2020 10:20 am
Posts: 104
Thank you Lauchlin for covering my butt. It's perfect. Along this same guy , he has a few different posts . All enlightening to one extent or another.


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PostPosted: Thu Jan 13, 2022 12:04 pm 
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Joined: Fri Oct 20, 2017 8:29 pm
Posts: 516
Location: Southern Gulf Islands, Beautiful British Columbia, Canada
Very interesting post delooper,

Thanks for sharing! You certainly have it right with the Joe B filter -an absolute must with all compressors, and in particular, for lower end units which may inject all sorts of dust, dirt and oil and moisture into the mix.

Cheers!

Avianmanor

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PostPosted: Thu Jan 13, 2022 12:31 pm 
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Joined: Wed Sep 07, 2016 11:04 am
Posts: 1879
What kind of temp ranges are you registering with the thermistor? I know my compressor gets very hot but I've never measured the actual temp. Would be fun to retro fit some ramps boards to do something similar.

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