Advice on an Alpha-Carette Compressor

[ChRiSiS]

Hey folks,

I’m expecting my new FX Impact to arrive this afternoon and now am on the lookout for a good 4500 PSI compressor. Right now I have a Hassan Spark, which I bought from Utah Airguns in April when I to my Crown. It is working fine to fill the Crown (and my Marauder and AF Condor SS) but I am probably going to get a SCBA tank and so need an more robust compressor. I don’t want to spend the money for an Alvin, or a Bauer, plus I want something that will easily sit in my basement and not wake up the entire house when it is working.



I cam across the Alpha-Carette at Airtanksforsale.com It looks interesting but I wondered if anyone here with direct experience could let me know what that experience was, and any other advice would also be appreciated.



Chris

 

[Uglyjohn]

I’ve had good luck with mine. Bought it from Joe B with the Alpha filter. I’m approaching 50 hours without any problems. I did add a small auxiliary coolant tank to help keep air bubbles out and temp down. Runs cool and tops off my 74 cu ft tanks from 3k to 4.2k in around 30-40 min. Chinese but seems well made. Uj

 

[ChRiSiS]

Thanks UJ

 

[nomojo65]

Just be careful, there has been many failures because of faulty internal parts from corrosion ( on brand new compressors ) directly from China! Plus new Replacement parts coming into U.S. corroded and non usable, I know this personally, if it were me I would by the omega from AoA, better service, better compressor! I have experience with both!

 

[mij]

Chris, I have an alpha carette compressor that i bought from Joe Brancato at experthpa/airtanks for sale.I didnt use it a whole lot for the first year. It takes about 1hr 45 min to fill a 90 cu ft from empty. I love it for the most part but there was a problem. About 15 hrs into its life it quit squeezing air into my tanks. I will say that when I called Joe about the problem he was a tremendous help and got me a direct line to the factory. I jumped through a few hoops for them and they sent me a new low side valve and gaskets. when i tore it down to replace the valve i was surprised that the metal had failed by some kind of growth that was a result of moisture. it was an easy process to complete the repair but i quickly found out that if i didnt run it every day it might or might not compress air and it would maybe get to 1000 or 3000 and just keep running. I contacted the factory guy again and i told him that it was bypassing internally because i could here the air moving inside the compressor. he sent me another gasket kit and low side valve, but also sent a coolant hose bypass to install. I rebuilt it a second time about 5 hrs running time after the first repair. I installed the bypass and followed the new instructions:1 allow it to warm up before closing the valve on the oil,water separator, adjust the bypass set screw to run the low side at about 185 f, and run after filling tp burn off excess moisture. This did not solve my problem of intermittent function so i contacted my guy again. i told him of my internal air bypass theory. He took notes and called me back with a solution that involved removing a check valve in the high pressure outlet pipe to the oil/water separator. my carette is now working better than ever. I did a lot of research before i bought this and never heard anything about this issue. Joe is a good guy to do business with and he will stand behind his product. I am very happy with mu compressor now

 

[ChRiSiS]

Thanks mij. Still “thinking”. I just ordered a 74 cu ft SCBA tank, so I’ll see what it’s like getting that filled before I pull the trigger on a higher end compressor.