Bill's Supercharging his 5HP Air Compressor
Bill Jones' Photo Gallery Page 23
I use a Quincy 5hp air compressor in my shop with 120 gallons of air tank--but when porting heads I like to stop using my air grinders when the compressor turns on at 80#----let the compressor build up air to 130# and shut off--then resume with the air grinders.
-Reason for this is I have found it allows the compressor to run the least amount of time which generates less heat to the motor and the compressor head.
-Typical run time is a little over 4 minutes--like 4 minutes and 8 seconds (248 seconds total).
I decide to try a vacuum cleaner motor as an air pump or supercharger----happened to have a tangential discharge vacuum motor to play with so I tested it and it would pump about 4psi when completely plugged off.
-These photos show some about how I rigged it up to feed into the side of the metal filter cover on the Quincy.
-Took about 2 hours at the most for bracketry and wiring---and I ran the wiring to a toggle switch at my porting bench.
I found out that when the compressor is running and the vacuum motor is flipped on--the boost pressure is just a littl over 3psi.
-But the neat thing is with the supercharger installed the compressor run time from 80 up to 130 psi is now only about 2 minutes and 38 seconds (158 seconds total now).
-So this cut the run time 36%.
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The air compressor normally uses about 30amps
on a 220 power
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The vacuum motor uses about 9amps on a 110 volt power when it pumping the 3psi of boost--and the amperage of the compressor motor jumps up another 3 amps on the 220 volt power--so the reduction in compressor run time isn't free.
-I think the 220 volt power 30 amps is times two when comparing to 110 volt power----so 60 amps was what I started with just running the 5hp Quincy-----and now I have 66 plus 9 = 75 amps which is an increase in total power consumption of 20%.
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Besides this supercharger I also have a small squirrel cage fan blowing air across the vacuum motor and somewhat onto the compressor head--and I have a 3/4hp 110v larger squirrel cage that I use to cool the 5HP motor and some of that air is also blown onto the compressor head.
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This may all sound excessive---but I ruined one perfectly good 5HP motor about 17 years because of excess heat----and it cost me right at $600 to have it rewound.
-At that time I added the larger squirrel cage fan and started paying attention to how hot the motor really gets----and it takes about 4 hours to where the compressor motor is getting almost too hot to hold my hand on it---so I feel that cooling air is a very big deal.
