Big Barn’s Retirement Farm Shop

[TMGT]

We seldom used larger impacts at my family's shop, but when we needed more air we just ran 2 3/8 lines T'd into the tool.
For occasional use it worked better then fighting 1/2 lines all the time.

On those tools we also used Milton H couplers, much higher flow then most similar sized QC's.

 

[Big Barn]

She just turned 18, but when my daughter was younger she spent a lot of time “shopping” with me. HER words.

 

[Gale Hawkins]

The house and shop we are fixing up came with a 200 PSI Champion compressor (1958) and I am going to set it 125 on and 150 off because it is old and only used for tires and the in-ground vehicle lift. I was talking about running some air lines around the walls and the son said to not bother since his never plans to use air tools even though a few came with the shop. He like more and more young tool users are into lithium ion power tools and by pass the compressed air tool era.

 

[Big Barn]

How much PSI does the in-ground lift require, Gale?

 

[pmsmechanic]

Re: Big Barn痴 Retirement Farm Shop

How much PSI does the in-ground lift require, Gale?

Area of the lift piston x PSI = weight of what's being lifted + the weight of the hoist.

 

[Big Barn]

Re: Big Barnç—´ Retirement Farm Shop

Area of the lift piston x PSI = weight of what's being lifted + the weight of the hoist.

Thanks pms. “Area of the lift piston” in square inches I assume?

 

[Gale Hawkins]

Our inground cylinder diameter is 10 5/8 inch so I guess the area is about 88 inches. The rack itself maybe 500 pounds. First dry breakout really needs 60 PSI and after that about 30 PSI with a 100-200 of weight so it will return but that may not be required now that I have polished the ram several times. I have not tested it with a vehicle yet since I have not pulled the lift off the top of cylinder and check out those bolts. I know one is missing and one can be pulled out of the old. We have not put in together but the HF 2 ton hoist is in the shop now and I will use it to pull off the H pattern shape top that the 4 arms side on.

From my reading 125 PSI seems to be a good working PSI for this type of lift. I may go with a new seal while I have the top off because under full load I expect in may be a real seeper.

Saturday we had some good help on clean up so a couple came out to the shop so now we can get a vehicle in both bays and one between the bays if needed but that will be a while. There is a ton of boxes on on like 60' of cat walks yet to be gotten down. I expect it is mostly tossable and has collected over the past 40 years.

The house is hulled out and roof, wiring and plumbing concerns are the major areas of attention going forward. The son is camping out in the shop office since his work is near there and he works some on the house each day since he got an AC unit rigged up. I have to get power back to the house ASAP but we have power from the shop by extension cord thankfully.

 

[pmsmechanic]

Re: Big Barn痴 Retirement Farm Shop

Thanks pms. “Area of the lift piston” in square inches I assume?

No I was wrong. It would be the area of the oil in the tank that is exposed to air pressure. Then the area of the tank x the area of the piston would also figure in.

This is getting beyond my ability to reason it through. I'll take a stab at it though. Lets say that the area of the tank is ten times the piston area. So ten psi in the tank would equal 100 psi at the bottom of the piston. That is for easy figuring. I don't think it's close to the truth because you don't need that much multiplication of the force. So then the formula would be area of the tank x the area of the piston x air psi = the weight on the hoist + the weight of the hoist. If I'm wrong someone who knows more than I should correct me!

The systems that I have seen have a tank filled with oil that is piped to the lift cylinder. Most just used old engine oil for the "hydraulic" oil. Especially of it leaked any amount of oil.

 

[ovrszd]

In the mid 60s I worked at a gas station that used an infloor lift. It had two cylinders with racks on each. One lifted front of vehicle. One lifted rear. Two separate lever controls. A balancing act to lift level. It would somehow get air in it. The last couple inches of lift was violent. Enough that you'd think it was gonna throw the vehicle off. OSHA would have had a coronary. If they saw me as a 15yr old running it.

 

[TMGT]

Picked up the compressors today, awkward load due to how top heavy they are. Luckily they were just PM'd and the belt drive had the belts replaced right before being taken out of service.

They have high hrs but believe they were run in continuous mode so probably not a lot of loaded hrs. Build dates are 10/09 and 9/10 so not too old.

Think I got a good deal on the pair with refrigerated dryers. Oh and I also bought a nice office chair for the shop for $10 while I was picking them up