I bought mine directly from China. They called it a "Karette" so is it a knock off? Who knows. Looks identical to the ones Joe sells. And those come from China too. Mine was fine at first, now after a year or more, and not really that many hours, (no hour meter) it struggles to reach 4000psi, and no way will go to 4500. Stays cool while running. Was thinking about pulling the high pressure side to have a look see, but after going through this post, I see there are no rings on the high pressure piston. So I guess if/when it wears, you'd have to replace the piston and cylinder? Guess I'll have to drag out my Yung Heng, and use it, till I find a solution. It was nice to not have to use a 5 gallon bucket of water, ice, etc. etc. I'm really wanting a REAL scuba compressor, but the money......
Quote from: cootertwo on January 04, 2019, 11:09:19 AMSteve when the guy that owned the dive shop I use to go to gets back from Florida I'm going to ask him to keep an eye out for one. If I could finding one for a grand or less that needs a rebuild I'd go for it. I think that most of the guys that fill their own dive tanks have the Bauers or better. here's what Terry has He found it by word of mouth at a closed down fire station, he got a deal on it for 3K. I think the compressor cost over 20K new.
I've been looking at the Carette as one of three possible ways to go. However, the one thing I need to know is the fill times.Looking on JB.s site, he list two different times for the same size bottles. The times are wildly different. Same start pressure, same finish, same bottles, yet one fill time is double the other. GRRRRR!!! PS, just found a fill time here that was from JB, nad it was yet again, different than the other two. Much faster. Odd such a long thread, but no user statements on fill times that I caught, other than a little Guppy. Weird! Can this compressor stand up to a daily fill of an ** cf tank? According to Motor head, no!
...I also added a one way check valve after the PMV on mine, to protect the PMV, and allow me to just load up a bottle for top up without waiting for the compressor side to build up to almost equal pressure first. If you don't do one of those two, then you will damage the PMV.
Quote from: PCPhack on July 18, 2019, 09:32:26 AM...I also added a one way check valve after the PMV on mine, to protect the PMV, and allow me to just load up a bottle for top up without waiting for the compressor side to build up to almost equal pressure first. If you don't do one of those two, then you will damage the PMV.Is this a known risk for all PMV's, or are just certain ones susceptible? Their design appears to inherently act as a check valve.