23 months into ownership the unit had a catastrophic failure. The desiccant tube broke along with the end plate, high pressure safety on the low side and one blown o-ring in the switching module that we can determine so far. The folks at Altros have been helpful in trying to diagnose the problem but were only willing to replace the burst desiccant tube stating that although the unit is warranted for 2 years they only advertise that way because the EU requires it and since most compressors sold in the USA are only warranted for 1 year that is all they felt obligated to. So I had to purchase the end plate and safety switch for 30.00. When I get it I will see if I can determine why I am getting high pressure leaking to the low side. But everything has a silver lining. I decided to buy a compressor from someone with a USA presence and found Optics Planet has a sale this week on the Hatsan Lighting Compressor with free delivery for $1169.00. At that price it was impossible for me to pass up, mine is on the way. They fill much faster than a booster and when you consider you need a separate compressor to run a booster they are much cheaper. And unlike the Altros booster which is made of 98% plastic I think the Hatsan compressor should last much longer.
Altros Booster/Failure !!!
- Thread starter xindaris
- Start date
Field supply is under $1100 also optics planet was willing to pricematch. I went with Altaros booster lol.
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Whoa...wait a minute! You said:
”although the unit is warranted for 2 years they only advertise that way because the EU requires it and since most compressors sold in the USA are only warranted for 1 year that is all they felt obligated to. So I had to purchase the end plate and safety switch for 30.00.”
Am I the only one who is shocked by this? I mean, no matter what the reason, if they said it’s warrantied for 2 years, then it should be warrantied for 2 years, and it doesn’t matter what the warranty is on any other compressors, or all other compressors!
Good to know how they handled, or mishandled this problem, especially since many members are awaiting the Altaros long range rifle.
Not good.
”although the unit is warranted for 2 years they only advertise that way because the EU requires it and since most compressors sold in the USA are only warranted for 1 year that is all they felt obligated to. So I had to purchase the end plate and safety switch for 30.00.”
Am I the only one who is shocked by this? I mean, no matter what the reason, if they said it’s warrantied for 2 years, then it should be warrantied for 2 years, and it doesn’t matter what the warranty is on any other compressors, or all other compressors!
Good to know how they handled, or mishandled this problem, especially since many members are awaiting the Altaros long range rifle.
Not good.
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I saved the email they sent me stating that. They also were not interested in allowing me to send the unit back for repair. That is why I decided to purchase a Hatsan since they have a repair facility in the USA and pick up the freight costs during the Warranty period.
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I'm sorry to hear about you having problems with your Altaros. Maybe since yours is 98% plastic is why it failed. Mine is all metal and has given me excellent service for over two years.
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For years we ignored how our Altaros booster user Xindaris slanders and tells untruths. But as he tells more and more untruths, we have already to act.
I will write what the reality is, against his false claims. Everyone can judge the reality and who speaks the truth. (I apologize for the long post, but this cannot be written shortly, as his slander was spread in more threads)
First, some data:
Xindaris bought the Altaros booster in November 2017. He used a shop compressor for the drive, which can supply 175 PSI (maximum inlet pressure is 145 PSI). He wrote that he would only use a pressure of 145 PSI. Which he could but did not have to do either intentionally or unintentionally. But the truth is that it had a compressor that supplies more inlet pressure than what we set as the maximum input.
He bought more spare sets of seals for the booster at the beginning and also 3 extra burst discs. It is therefore assumed that he wanted to use the booster really intensively and possibly for higher outlet pressures.
This is how he described the first use of our booster:
“Received the booster today and it arrived in good condition. Your packing was excellent. Tried it on filling rifles to 200 bar and it was extremely fast and easy to use. „
Altaros Booster was then used by Xindaris for 20 months without any problems and fill 2 bottles of 98 cu ft every 2 weeks and several times this bottle from zero pressure. (these are his words, but it could have been much more)
After 20 months of this trouble-free use operation, he wrote that a transparent silica gel filter broke (broke at the end of the thread).
Our answer was that we wanted more information, as this did not happen to any of our several hundred users and during our pressure tests the container held 500 PSI without damage.
We sent to Xindaris a new silicagel filter free of charge (based on a 2-year warranty), at his request the basic variant, which is made of aluminum .
After receiving the replacement filter, he wrote that the booster was not working properly. We were helped to find where the problem was. It was found to have a damaged O-ring in the 5/2 solenoid valve, air leakage at the end stop, and a crack on the side plate of the booster. All these 3 defects together, which occurred at exactly the same time as the silica gel filter was damaged. I can only add that except for the once damaged o-ring on the 5/2 valve, all 3 defects were unique and never happened to any of our several hundred users or to us during the 7 years of operation of the booster. Even more astonishing is that the defects occurred all at once. What is the probability of 3 unique errors that appear at one time?
The only thing that connected all these parts was the common pressure that acted on them. So our only logical explanation was that the whole system was pressurized with a higher inlet pressure than the booster is designed for.
Based on this fact and 3 unique defects at one time, we did not agree that these defects are covered by the warranty and we offered a spare part for only the price of production and transport (without any profit) and that we will give advice on repairs.
It's the same as a customer claiming an airgun airtube where there is a damaged gauge, a crack in the airtube casing and a deformed valve, and you claimed that all this happened at one time, but quite naturally, and that you did not fill more pressure to the airtube than as specified by the manufacturer.
The last email we received from Xindaris was a repair question, which we fully answered. Then we didn't receive any email, but he started slandering us on the forum.
The answer in points to what Xindaris claims:
1)Xindaris claims that we do not accept the warranty and that it is only 1 year for the USA.
This is nonsense and Xindaris is a proof that we hold a 2-year warranty for customers in the USA, as we sent him a replacement filter free of charge under warranty 20 months after purchase. We refused to send further parts when it turned out that the defects were not caused naturally.
The only thing we wrote to him in the email is literally this:
“but after almost 2 years of operation, expect a free service for 2 unique defects simply can not. In the US, the standard warranty is 1 year. We in Europe must give 2 years by law, although this is a problem with such products.
I'm not trying to get out of our responsibilities, but I'm based on our long-term data, and these things are extremely unique, which corresponds to using a booster differently than any other user. “
Maybe he misunderstood due to our worse English, but we don't say that we give a 1-year warranty for customers outside Europe. We point out that if he bought oure booster or other brand booster from a local or online store based in the US, he would get only 1 year of warranty and not 2 years as he received from us during the purchase on our e-shop.
We have not restricted his warranty rights in any way, we only decided for other parts damages that they do not go under the warranty because they did not occur naturally.
2) Xindaris says : “The Altros is a poorly designed and cheaply made and is made of 98% plastic „
I will leave the answer here to local forum users:
Chickenthief write: “ This is the finest piece of equipment i have bought in the past 30+ years „
Xindaris probably can't count % since only the inner derlin piston and derlin side plates are "plastic" on the booster, but the side plates have been tested for 2 years with half the wall thickness without any problems and no one else has reported a problem with the side plate damage. Of course, the silica gel filter is made of plastic, as I have not yet seen a transparent metal that would allow a quick check of the saturation of silica gel.
Everything else is made of high quality duralumin. So a clear lie from Xindaris, its purpose is only to damage our reputation.
3) Xindaris says: “The Altros is very slow to fill, hard on compressors . The best it could do was about an hour for every 10cu ft of fill. „
Chickenthief write : „My current compressor has run several hundred hours with the Altaros tuned to 6 min on and 2 min off (it has cooling you know).“ - so much to say: hard on compressors
As for the speed, it depends on the drive compressor. But Xindaris is not writing the truth here about 10 cuft at hour. It has a more powerful compressor than indicated in the board on our website: http://altaros-compressor.com/main-page/performance/
and in our multi-year tests and from our users, we know that this table is true and shows a filling amount of 0.40 cfm, that is 24 cu ft per hour for a workshop compressor with a price of around 500 USD. So 2.4 times more than Xindaris writes. When using an even more powerful compressor that would supply more air it can be up to 4x more than he writes is the maximum.
If you have read this far, thank you for your patience and I believe that after this information you can make your own opinion what the truth is.
I will write what the reality is, against his false claims. Everyone can judge the reality and who speaks the truth. (I apologize for the long post, but this cannot be written shortly, as his slander was spread in more threads)
First, some data:
Xindaris bought the Altaros booster in November 2017. He used a shop compressor for the drive, which can supply 175 PSI (maximum inlet pressure is 145 PSI). He wrote that he would only use a pressure of 145 PSI. Which he could but did not have to do either intentionally or unintentionally. But the truth is that it had a compressor that supplies more inlet pressure than what we set as the maximum input.
He bought more spare sets of seals for the booster at the beginning and also 3 extra burst discs. It is therefore assumed that he wanted to use the booster really intensively and possibly for higher outlet pressures.
This is how he described the first use of our booster:
“Received the booster today and it arrived in good condition. Your packing was excellent. Tried it on filling rifles to 200 bar and it was extremely fast and easy to use. „
Altaros Booster was then used by Xindaris for 20 months without any problems and fill 2 bottles of 98 cu ft every 2 weeks and several times this bottle from zero pressure. (these are his words, but it could have been much more)
After 20 months of this trouble-free use operation, he wrote that a transparent silica gel filter broke (broke at the end of the thread).
Our answer was that we wanted more information, as this did not happen to any of our several hundred users and during our pressure tests the container held 500 PSI without damage.
We sent to Xindaris a new silicagel filter free of charge (based on a 2-year warranty), at his request the basic variant, which is made of aluminum .
After receiving the replacement filter, he wrote that the booster was not working properly. We were helped to find where the problem was. It was found to have a damaged O-ring in the 5/2 solenoid valve, air leakage at the end stop, and a crack on the side plate of the booster. All these 3 defects together, which occurred at exactly the same time as the silica gel filter was damaged. I can only add that except for the once damaged o-ring on the 5/2 valve, all 3 defects were unique and never happened to any of our several hundred users or to us during the 7 years of operation of the booster. Even more astonishing is that the defects occurred all at once. What is the probability of 3 unique errors that appear at one time?
The only thing that connected all these parts was the common pressure that acted on them. So our only logical explanation was that the whole system was pressurized with a higher inlet pressure than the booster is designed for.
Based on this fact and 3 unique defects at one time, we did not agree that these defects are covered by the warranty and we offered a spare part for only the price of production and transport (without any profit) and that we will give advice on repairs.
It's the same as a customer claiming an airgun airtube where there is a damaged gauge, a crack in the airtube casing and a deformed valve, and you claimed that all this happened at one time, but quite naturally, and that you did not fill more pressure to the airtube than as specified by the manufacturer.
The last email we received from Xindaris was a repair question, which we fully answered. Then we didn't receive any email, but he started slandering us on the forum.
The answer in points to what Xindaris claims:
1)Xindaris claims that we do not accept the warranty and that it is only 1 year for the USA.
This is nonsense and Xindaris is a proof that we hold a 2-year warranty for customers in the USA, as we sent him a replacement filter free of charge under warranty 20 months after purchase. We refused to send further parts when it turned out that the defects were not caused naturally.
The only thing we wrote to him in the email is literally this:
“but after almost 2 years of operation, expect a free service for 2 unique defects simply can not. In the US, the standard warranty is 1 year. We in Europe must give 2 years by law, although this is a problem with such products.
I'm not trying to get out of our responsibilities, but I'm based on our long-term data, and these things are extremely unique, which corresponds to using a booster differently than any other user. “
Maybe he misunderstood due to our worse English, but we don't say that we give a 1-year warranty for customers outside Europe. We point out that if he bought oure booster or other brand booster from a local or online store based in the US, he would get only 1 year of warranty and not 2 years as he received from us during the purchase on our e-shop.
We have not restricted his warranty rights in any way, we only decided for other parts damages that they do not go under the warranty because they did not occur naturally.
2) Xindaris says : “The Altros is a poorly designed and cheaply made and is made of 98% plastic „
I will leave the answer here to local forum users:
Chickenthief write: “ This is the finest piece of equipment i have bought in the past 30+ years „
Xindaris probably can't count % since only the inner derlin piston and derlin side plates are "plastic" on the booster, but the side plates have been tested for 2 years with half the wall thickness without any problems and no one else has reported a problem with the side plate damage. Of course, the silica gel filter is made of plastic, as I have not yet seen a transparent metal that would allow a quick check of the saturation of silica gel.
Everything else is made of high quality duralumin. So a clear lie from Xindaris, its purpose is only to damage our reputation.
3) Xindaris says: “The Altros is very slow to fill, hard on compressors . The best it could do was about an hour for every 10cu ft of fill. „
Chickenthief write : „My current compressor has run several hundred hours with the Altaros tuned to 6 min on and 2 min off (it has cooling you know).“ - so much to say: hard on compressors
As for the speed, it depends on the drive compressor. But Xindaris is not writing the truth here about 10 cuft at hour. It has a more powerful compressor than indicated in the board on our website: http://altaros-compressor.com/main-page/performance/
and in our multi-year tests and from our users, we know that this table is true and shows a filling amount of 0.40 cfm, that is 24 cu ft per hour for a workshop compressor with a price of around 500 USD. So 2.4 times more than Xindaris writes. When using an even more powerful compressor that would supply more air it can be up to 4x more than he writes is the maximum.
If you have read this far, thank you for your patience and I believe that after this information you can make your own opinion what the truth is.
Upvote 0
My Altros is most certainly NOT 98% plastic, but rather very nicely machined billet Alu. Beautiful machine work!
Perhaps he was confused with it being more like 2% plastic, if you count the hoses and o rings, (which are not plastic at all). LOL!
KnifeMaker
Perhaps he was confused with it being more like 2% plastic, if you count the hoses and o rings, (which are not plastic at all). LOL!
KnifeMaker
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Guys, I haven't been on the forum in a long time, I've been busy doing things I won't bore you with, but I felt I needed to make an update on my booster. As some of you know, I have had this thing a long time and have been very happy with it, I've had some minor issues with it that we're all my fault. There are fittings on it that you DON'T want to over tighten, like don't even put a wrench one them.
I had an issue where it would build to 3500 and no higher. I got the windex out and discovered that it was leaking from the high pressure side where the adjustment screw is. The oring on the shaft that the belvel washers are on was buggered up. Well, there was not one in the extras that came with my unit and not wanting to wait to get the proper metric replacement, I put the closest standard on it and put it back together. I had, at the time, no idea what caused the next problem, but the mid pressure side quit working. I emailed Altaros and ordered a complete oring and seal kit. Shipped to my house, it was $35, in case you are wondering.
Next I did something apparently is a BIG no-no. I took the mid pressure side apart. Guys, don't do this. After three weeks or so of emails back and forth, I was finally able to get it going again. Remember when I said not to over tighten things? Evidently, I had tightend the mid pressure suction valve tight enough to cause the sealing material to protrude into the space where the magnet could not move up and down and allow the air to come in. I put a new one in it and carefully tighten it down and all is well again.
Thanks a bunch to Ondrej for all the help and being patient with me as he tried to figure out what I had screwed up.
I still believe the Altaros booster is the best option for HPA. Other than me being heavy handed, one oring failure in 5 years is not too bad.
I had an issue where it would build to 3500 and no higher. I got the windex out and discovered that it was leaking from the high pressure side where the adjustment screw is. The oring on the shaft that the belvel washers are on was buggered up. Well, there was not one in the extras that came with my unit and not wanting to wait to get the proper metric replacement, I put the closest standard on it and put it back together. I had, at the time, no idea what caused the next problem, but the mid pressure side quit working. I emailed Altaros and ordered a complete oring and seal kit. Shipped to my house, it was $35, in case you are wondering.
Next I did something apparently is a BIG no-no. I took the mid pressure side apart. Guys, don't do this. After three weeks or so of emails back and forth, I was finally able to get it going again. Remember when I said not to over tighten things? Evidently, I had tightend the mid pressure suction valve tight enough to cause the sealing material to protrude into the space where the magnet could not move up and down and allow the air to come in. I put a new one in it and carefully tighten it down and all is well again.
Thanks a bunch to Ondrej for all the help and being patient with me as he tried to figure out what I had screwed up.
I still believe the Altaros booster is the best option for HPA. Other than me being heavy handed, one oring failure in 5 years is not too bad.
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I read Altros"s reply. They left out a few things. 1. I offered to send the unit back on my own dime for them to inspect and repair. They refused saying they would have to pay duty on it and the shipping back. 2. They say that the inlet pressure was too much. My setup had 2 regulators on the feed air line. The one at the tank was set at 145 psi and the second at 140 psi. I doubt that either was that far off. 3. It took my unit about 8 to 9 hours to fill an 88 cu. ft. tank from empty from the day it was new. That is how I came up with the 10 cu.ft an hour. 4. The plastic comment was in reference to the end plates on each end of the barrel. To me that should not be the material to use on a high pressure pump. You can agree with what I said about my experience or not but I have no reason to go after Altros other than how they handled my warranty claim. If people want to buy their product that is their choice. They can read everybody's experiences and decide for themselves if that is what they want to spend their money on.
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We did not reject the possibility of sending the unit back for repair, we just wrote that it is complicated and expensive. This is a simple fact. But we never wrote: We refuse to send the unit back. The exact wording of part of my email is :
Sending a booster outside the EU is a probelamtic, because we have already stopped our goods at customs and wanted to clear it. The cost of processing the paper is $ 45, provided they do not charge duty.
The price of one-way transportation is $ 120. Goods must use the same package and package design (original foam on both sides), otherwise there is a good chance of destroying it on the way.
Nowhere is it written that it is not possible send booster back to repair, but obviously it is very costly and the total price (transport there and back) does not have much logic compared to the total price of the booster and the possibility of self-repair which have so far been managed by all users themselves. For these reasons, we give our customer very above-standard technical support. You also received this support without writing anything good about us, only slander. When solving your problem, which was 3 super unique defects that appeared at same time, we give you almost 30 emails with advice and instructions for repair.
Your slander, we can't call it otherwise, because it wasn't information for users, but an attempt to damage our brand, which you wrote here only because we refused to fix something for free that obviously could not have arisen naturally, or the probability was like that a meteorite hits me right now.
This was our only "transgression" against you. The booster served you for almost two years and the frequency of filling the bottles was not small compared to a normal airgun user. We provided you with full customer service, which took several hours of my time to write the answers. We sent you the first part for free and in return, we got slander on the forum that Xindaris was writing at the same time as we were still writing him advice on how to fix the booster.
We are no longer going to comment on this matter, nor would we have addressed it at all if Xindaris had not tried to write slander in every thread about our booster. If he made this one thread where everyone could read his (one-sided) opinion, it would be solved. But he had to escalate to this level.
So much for the overall picture of how it all happened.
Sending a booster outside the EU is a probelamtic, because we have already stopped our goods at customs and wanted to clear it. The cost of processing the paper is $ 45, provided they do not charge duty.
The price of one-way transportation is $ 120. Goods must use the same package and package design (original foam on both sides), otherwise there is a good chance of destroying it on the way.
Nowhere is it written that it is not possible send booster back to repair, but obviously it is very costly and the total price (transport there and back) does not have much logic compared to the total price of the booster and the possibility of self-repair which have so far been managed by all users themselves. For these reasons, we give our customer very above-standard technical support. You also received this support without writing anything good about us, only slander. When solving your problem, which was 3 super unique defects that appeared at same time, we give you almost 30 emails with advice and instructions for repair.
Your slander, we can't call it otherwise, because it wasn't information for users, but an attempt to damage our brand, which you wrote here only because we refused to fix something for free that obviously could not have arisen naturally, or the probability was like that a meteorite hits me right now.
This was our only "transgression" against you. The booster served you for almost two years and the frequency of filling the bottles was not small compared to a normal airgun user. We provided you with full customer service, which took several hours of my time to write the answers. We sent you the first part for free and in return, we got slander on the forum that Xindaris was writing at the same time as we were still writing him advice on how to fix the booster.
We are no longer going to comment on this matter, nor would we have addressed it at all if Xindaris had not tried to write slander in every thread about our booster. If he made this one thread where everyone could read his (one-sided) opinion, it would be solved. But he had to escalate to this level.
So much for the overall picture of how it all happened.
Upvote 0