Canadian Airgun Forum

Steel SCUBA tanks can range from 2250psi to 3400psi.
Aluminum all 3000psi.

SCBA tanks can be 4500psi but good luck getting those fills from a dive shop. You have to make friends with the fire hall.

If you aren't shooting particularly powerful PCPs a hand pump is fine but with the price of compressors these days why bother?

Unfortunately, the local fire-halls will not fill tanks for civilians.

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Best Wishes
Daryl

He mentioned a pistol as an example, with it's own cylinder already, which is why I first recommended a hand-pump. It will take some manual pumping work, but will save the need for electricity, or getting any tanks filled, etc.

If he plans on getting more PCP's in the future, then maybe a compressor and tank setup would be worth it in that case.

My favourite channel on YouTube about air compressors is called Air Velocity Sport: https://www.youtube.com/@AirVelocitySport/videos
He goes into great detail explaining a lot of aspects of how to operate, maintain and understand everything surrounding filling your air tanks. His compressor of choice is the Yong Heng. I've had mine for 5 years and filled my carbon fibre tank with it many times without a problem.
Another big focus (explained on his channel), is you want to separate any water/moisture from the air before it enters the tank/your PCP gun.

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Air Arms HFT 500
FX Streamline laminate .22
Benjamin Discovery .22 (tuned)
Weihrauch HW30S .177
Weihrauch HW30 MK1 .177
Weihrauch HW40
Beeman P17
Crosman 22xx carbine (tuned)
Princess Auto Super Springer Deluxe ($34.99)

Let's see if anyone disagrees:

Some of us recommend cutting the extension tube from the SCBA tank's valve. The purpose of the tube which extends from the tank's valve assembly is to prevent any liquid water or other material from exiting the tank into the breathing apparatus. Keep in mind that these SCBA tanks (breathing air) are used inverted, valve down, when used for breathing air.

The problem with the extension tube is that it prevents any water from leaving the tank. We generally use the tank in valve up, or horizontal position, so that any water cannot leave the tank, however the tube prevents blowing that water from the tank by inverting.

If someone is interested in some conversation regarding water in high-pressure air, I would welcome that. I disagree with the popular views that water vapor is an issue since there is virtually zero water vapor present in high-pressure air, IMO. Under high-pressure, water does not exist in the vapor form, but only as liquid.

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Slavia 618 .177
Webley Senior .22
Jelly SUPER 4.5 mm
Webley Viscount .177
Crossman 1377 Classic Pump .177
Diana Stormrider2 .22
Kral Mega Marine Walnut .22
Artemis PP750 .22
FX Streamline .22 walnut
FX Streamline .22 composite

Well! That's good to know ~ as I mentioned above I am completely new to this kind of knowledge and still planning for my first small compressor which for direct fill on my PCP guns... And based on that can we say we don't need to worry about the wet air if using the high pressure tanks? Because the moisture will be turned into liquid form and stay on the bottom of the tank so what we fill into the gun from the tank will be dry air then?

And so, should we drain the water out from time to time? And how long should we do it?

If so, looks good to go further to use tanks is a good investment then...

_________________
~Plinkers~
FX M3 Compact
XS28M .25 @ 26fpe
HW45 Beast
6mm AW-Custom Z-Killer DE
~Competitors~
FWB300SU
Tau-7/IZH-46M/FWB-65/CP88
~Target~
HW 30s/35e/97k
CZ200s Laminated @ 10fpe
AA ProSport 177 @ 12fpe
HW 40+Extender/Scoped P3/70/75

Please pardon that I will repeat what you already know as I am always seeking confirmation/rejection of anything which I believe that I know.

IME, compressors all deliver liquid water in the output, however there are various ways to manage that. Some sort of water trap, such as the air tank, will trap liquid, unless there is a path down which the liquid can flow to the gun. Even then, depending on the arrangement, liquid may not enter the gun's gubbins.

My Yong Heng compressors, like every shop and other compressor I have encountered, deliver liquid to the outlet, but the YH have water traps on the low-pressure and high-pressure outlets. That system appears to be quite effective since, as I tried to describe, the humidity level in compressed air which is vented to atmospheric pressure, is less than 10%. SFAIK, humidity that low does not offer a corrosion problem.

I have not discovered any sign of water in any of my guns, in the Ninja bottle which I used to have, or in my 45 minute SCBA tank. I will wager that any water which does leave the compressor will remain inside the tank, but like the video test, no sign of any.

I recently purchased a GX CS3 compressor for direct filling, but haven't tested humidity. I will go do that now and report back.

That compressor has a water vent tube which drips small amounts of water while in operation. I don't recall anything like that in a friend's Tuxing of the same style.

_________________
Slavia 618 .177
Webley Senior .22
Jelly SUPER 4.5 mm
Webley Viscount .177
Crossman 1377 Classic Pump .177
Diana Stormrider2 .22
Kral Mega Marine Walnut .22
Artemis PP750 .22
FX Streamline .22 walnut
FX Streamline .22 composite

My little compressor, Xisico, has a water vent tube and when starting the pump, will expel a few bubbles of water around the air-bleed screw as well as from the vent tube down at the floor.

_________________
Best Wishes
Daryl

A quick test, with compressor slowly venting @ 2,000 PSI:
Room 14.1 C & 67.0% RH
Venting from vent tube (vent valve barely cracked open) 13.8% RH & 20 C.

I will rig up a means to control venting from the whip hose in order to produce a more accurate RH, as the plastic vent tube is also the source of liquid water expelled by the compressor. While liquid water being present shouldn't raise the RH very much, the fact that air is being vented might atomize liquid water. I'm not aware of how the venting is arranged. I expect that an alternative test rig will reveal a lower RH.

That said, unless three is a problem with my results, I'm not concerned with that RH level.

Filling my SCBA tank with the little GX compressor isn't practical so I will rig up a different apparatus, unless someone has already conducted humidity testing.

_________________
Slavia 618 .177
Webley Senior .22
Jelly SUPER 4.5 mm
Webley Viscount .177
Crossman 1377 Classic Pump .177
Diana Stormrider2 .22
Kral Mega Marine Walnut .22
Artemis PP750 .22
FX Streamline .22 walnut
FX Streamline .22 composite

Thanks so much for the effort to get the numbers and facts~

On my hand pump, there's dryer tube for the air inlet then another moisture filter (catcher) tube on the outlet whip.. I remember in the wet days about 60/70% RH in my basement, there's one time I felt the air was wet when I finished top up and open the releasing screw... And when I opened the outlet filter tube to check and there are 5 pieces of the foam inserts in it and the first 2 pieces were pretty wet... But the good thing was they feel drier and drier and the last one feels good...

Anyway after that finding I stopped filling up my guns in the basement but bring the pump and gun upstairs and do the job besides my wall mounted thermometer and the electrical board heater when at the time I found the RH is about 20%...

_________________
~Plinkers~
FX M3 Compact
XS28M .25 @ 26fpe
HW45 Beast
6mm AW-Custom Z-Killer DE
~Competitors~
FWB300SU
Tau-7/IZH-46M/FWB-65/CP88
~Target~
HW 30s/35e/97k
CZ200s Laminated @ 10fpe
AA ProSport 177 @ 12fpe
HW 40+Extender/Scoped P3/70/75

I have had similar experience with connecting rod failure, but always because the splash rod has broken off of the connecting rod. One exception was a compressor which began smoking from the vent, on initial use. I tried changing the oil, etc. but ended up sending it back. A local industrial supply has some portable air compressors which use the same bottom end, up to the top of the low pressure cylinder, so it sounds like these are more common than one might have thought.

The connecting rod is an aluminum alloy of some sort. I have considered purchasing one of those boost pumps to compress 165 PSI air up to 4500 PSI and not have to deal with the fragile high-pressure stage.

_________________
Slavia 618 .177
Webley Senior .22
Jelly SUPER 4.5 mm
Webley Viscount .177
Crossman 1377 Classic Pump .177
Diana Stormrider2 .22
Kral Mega Marine Walnut .22
Artemis PP750 .22
FX Streamline .22 walnut
FX Streamline .22 composite

Your results are consistent with my thinking, since your filters appear to trap the liquid water.

I calculated the amount of liquid water which would have been present in the volume which I compressed into my tank. When I weighed the before and after cotton filters, the increase in weight (wet) seemed to be consistent with the difference in water content of the room air, versus the water content of the compressed air from my tank.

Maybe I will eventually spring for a commercial quality compressor, but for once per week shooting, it's hard to justify.

_________________
Slavia 618 .177
Webley Senior .22
Jelly SUPER 4.5 mm
Webley Viscount .177
Crossman 1377 Classic Pump .177
Diana Stormrider2 .22
Kral Mega Marine Walnut .22
Artemis PP750 .22
FX Streamline .22 walnut
FX Streamline .22 composite

best air setup is a large bottle u can fill and a compressor to fill the bottle so u dont have to run the compressor each time

Does anyone use molecular sieve in their water/oil separator 2nd stage filter? I use my golden tuxing water separator on my Yong Heng, but it uses those cotton tampons which don't seem very effective.
I don't have any experience with molecular sieve and I wouldn't know when it's time to re-activate the sieve and how to do it. The only info I found was to put it in a very hot oven 550 degrees celcius for 2 hours.
If anyone can shed some light on this, I'd appreciate it!

_________________

Air Arms HFT 500
FX Streamline laminate .22
Benjamin Discovery .22 (tuned)
Weihrauch HW30S .177
Weihrauch HW30 MK1 .177
Weihrauch HW40
Beeman P17
Crosman 22xx carbine (tuned)
Princess Auto Super Springer Deluxe ($34.99)

I have a few Firefighter friends and asked if they had any used tanks they were replacing. The best tanks have a life of 15yrs and once that time is up, they drill holes in the tanks and scrap them.

They have no issues filling a certified bottle for me but, I'm not willing to pony up 1,500 hundred dollars for one. I purchased a duel voltage portable compressor for 650 and it works amazing well. As a bonus, I still have/maintain a thick wallet with the money I saved.

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