Rio Diving
New
I am having problems with a Nuvair mch-16 and would like to get some input from other owners of same compressor. I bought this compressor new in 2010 and have had to figure it out ever since. I've been all through it at times and it has continued to work. We have a pretty busy shop so it runs a lot in the season. It has now developed a kinda "hiccup" if you will. Purely random. I have done all maintenance on it as called for. Valves changed, oil fresh, drive belt, replaced high pressure cooling tubes were replaced after developing pinhole leak. I thought the current problem was the result of purge issues. I have cleaned the condensate separator and the purge manifold before and thought that might be the problem. Overall, everything was good though. Found O-ring in manifold block where h.p. Hose from bottom of filter tower connects to be bad. Replaced it. I have cleaned all the air lines/tubes, new valves on all three stages, checked amperage on both legs and that is stable, run capacitor is good, (I've had to replace both start and run capacitors before), the "hiccup" is very fast and random as I said, but when it occurs the 1st stage meter will have a slight pressure increase and at the same time the 2nd stage valve will have a slight decrease. It may only happen once, or it may be several times in succession. The I have also opened the manual purge valves to allow more condensate out in between purge cycles, but that does not make a difference. Other than this, the machine works fine and will pump up to pressure (I only go to 4000 psi for my banks). I'm just really concerned about some type of catastrophic failure. It has 1650 hrs, so I would not expect crank/rod bearings but I don't know. Checked piston rings in 2nd stage also, seem fine and 3rd stage seems to have no issues. Any info will be greatly appreciated. Capt. Matt Landrum