Adding extra tank to Cal Air Compressor

[davidshe]

In a previous thread someone mentioned adding another tank to my California Air Compressor which has a 4.6 gallon tank. I was concerned with burning up the motor so I checked with California Air and they advised me that the duty cycle of the 1HP motor on my compressor should hold up with no problem if I added another 10gallon tank. I purchased one at Home Depot (Harbor Freight also carries them) for about 40 bucks and picked up a couple tees and some quick connect fittings for another 30 bucks or so. I removed the gauge and hose that came with the tank and replaced it with a bushing and a tee. Then I removed the drain valve from the lower tank on my Cal Air Compressor and replaced that with another tee so I could also put another drain valve on. I used quick connect fittings and a short piece of hose to connect them together.

Just finished doing all the deep relief work on a current stainless knife bolster project with my NSK rotary and it definitely makes things nicer! It does take longer to initially fill of course but once it does it certainly lasts a lot longer and the subsequent refill cycles are not that much longer than they were before the new tank was added.

You can see in the pic that I also added an extra quick connect on the 10 gallon tank so that I could pop in a hose to fill tires or whatever without needing to unhook my air graver or my NSK.

The motor does not seem to heat up any more than it did before.

Note: the only reason I added this extra tank was because I use my rotary tool quite a bit. If not for that I don't think it was necessary.

Hope this helps someone out. Cheers!

 

[Ron Spokovich]

As I'm always suspicious of some things, I'd be cautious on doing this sort of thing. So far, you sounded as if you've been in luck. But, inthe past, I've known of larger compressors that suffered burn out when going to larger tanks. That was due to excess running of the original motor, and length of time that the compressor, itself, was running. Generally, a compressor, the motor, and the tank are matched up to avoid over heating. Maybe your unit will hold up. Time will tell.