The Framers Forum

My Bambi Compressor died yesterday, luckily I found one local on ebay to get me by for now. It's old, seems to work fine, the only problem is I have no idea how to attach my underpinner. My existing one just has the standard quick connector on it. Am I right in thinking I need some kind of adapter to fit a quick connector on the right. Not sure if it is supposed to be attached on the connector on the right or if I am looking in the wrong place. I have attached a few pictures.

Any help will be much appreciated.

The one on the right is a safety valve. It’s the one in the left you need a connector to, the one with the bowl under it.

It looks like 1/4” BSP so you need a 1/4” male PCL fitting (could be 3/8 or 1/2 though)

I’m referring to your second picture by the way.

In your first picture the valve on the left gives you the pressure in the tank. The valve on the right can be adjusted to the output pressure you need. That’s where you need your connection.

What Abacus just said.

If you are lucky you should be able to remove the connectors from your dead compressor and fit them to the replacement. I tend to wrap PTFE tape on the threads to help with sealing the joints.

You WILL need to use the PTFE tape. It's there to prevent air escaping! Maybe you won't realise a little bit of air is escaping, but any air that you are loosing will make your compressor need to work hard and that means that your compressor can tend to get much hotter when you are really busy and working your compressor really hard.

Hotter compressors means less performance, increased wear and oxidised compressor oil. Oxidised oil does not lubricate as well, so more friction, more heat and less performance. It's fairly well known that Bambi compressors don't like to get too hot. I don't have a Bambi any more, but mine was a bit nackered and used to get so hot that the oil started to smell a lot. Evenually it died and I needed to buy a new compressor, or stop using compessed air tools.

Look after your compressor and it will look after you.

Is the tank any good? I have exact same compressor but it has a whole in tank still works I put a screw in hole but it worries me

If the tank is more than 25 llitres capacity is it a legal requirement to get it inspected and certified every year after a certain age. This is done with some sort of optical device and some means of measuring the depth of any rust pitting inside the tank. As far as I can tell your compressor, being a double pot Bambi, is likely to have a 50 litre tank. You probably can find out at what age it needs to be annually inspected by connacting Bambi. Compressors with tanking less than 25 litres do not need to be annually inspected at all. The are various safety features already built in to compressor already, such as a lead plug which will fail and also a steady escape of compessed air in a safe and controlled manner if the pressure sensing swith fails permitting excess prussure build up. You don't hear of compressors exploding anyway, that's what the safety features are there for.

Many compressor motors will stall out, or the motor will be overloaded try to pump at dangerously high pressure and the increase current drawn by the motor will blow the fuse before it can reach enough pressure to cause the tank to explode. Some compressor motors are impedance limited and will never be able to draw enough current to create damgerous pressure levels. Smaller compressors are often fitted with impedance limited motors and if you don't drain off the water build up often enough the capacity insiide the tank is reduced be the water sitting in the bottom of the tank and as a result the motor will need to engauge more often. This will sometimes lead to excess heat and can increase the impedance of the motor windings, which in turn can reduce the ablility of the motor to acheive normal tank pressure levels. Draining the tank usually restores the compressor to normal performace.

Thank you all for your help, I managed to get the other connector off my old machine and swap them over so I can get working again. All seems to be working fine, it looks ancient (1991) but hopefully I can repair the leak on my old bambi and this will just get me by in the meantime and then I can keep as a spare.