Aircooled VW South Africa

Of all the cheap and nasty Chinese imports, is there any difference in quality....

i.e. is a Mac Afric any better or worse than an ABAC or Eurasia?

Good question Dave, keen to see the answer

A very good question indeed!! It depends on the item being purchased and how often it will used are very important here.
My reply is that they are all basically the same but with different 'brand names' for the different importers.(They may even come out of the same factory - the Chinese copy all - even their own). The stuff out of China is generally not too bad but it does depend - some of the tools I sell are made there but through a Japanese company.
The question of warranty, spares and back up service are the important factor here. I believe that the bigger chain stores stock these types and often there is a delay in getting a repair done as they send this away to their supplier etc -there is a delay in the item being collected, then repaired, returned and then finally returned to the customer. The "no care" attitude from these larger stores is unbeleivable and something that steers me away from them and the reason why I support a good "independant" store.
Here service and back up is important to them and they tend to have a more caring attitude and the customer is treated with care.
I will ask a few of my retailers tomorrow and come back if you would like and get you a more difinitive answer.....what are product are you comparing?

In this case, 150 (maybe 200l) air compressor with 3hp motor.

Makro has a special ending tomorrow for R4.5k (I think) for a Eurasia. Eurasia isn't pretty, but seems to work ok.
Adendorffs have Mac Africs for about that price most of the time.
Mica have one for about R5k - an ABAC. The ABAC's look a little better finished, but not much.

My suspicion, as you say, they all come from the same or similar factory.

Ingesol-Rand's cost about 7 - 8k - and they don't actually look a million times better.

I'm going to use it for DIY, so there's no real reason I should wear one out - unless they really are cr@p.

Eurasia for the price and saving - being used in a D.I.Y capacity should be fine. Called a friend of mine who sells power tools and this kind of thing and he is in agreement. Belt driven is better.......
Can find out more in the am if you would like -NO problem

Cool man. Was going to go belt drive anyway.

Mac Africs come with normal (parallel?) cylinder compressors, and 'V' compressors. About the same price, although the V compressors don't have a pressure regulator. Any idea if a V compressor makes any difference to a normal compressor?

Makro special ending tomorrow... R4999 for Eurasia
http://www.makro.co.za/p/2551/eurasia-2 ... ompressor/

Adendorff's
Mac Afric R4450
http://www.tooltime.co.za/ProductDetails.aspx?id=222

Vertical 110l 3hp
Quite like the idea of this one...
http://www.tooltime.co.za/ProductDetails.aspx?id=2592

Mica
Guy tells me that when they get them in, they will be R5 - R5.5k.
ABAC. He seems to think they're better. Me, I dunno.

no difference in V or straight.

Make sure that the tank has a water drain at its lowest point so you can drain out condensation and carry-over oil as this could lead to an explosion given the right circumstances.
Also check that there is a safety relief valve and possibly also a blow off disc. the tanks are tested to a certain pressure and if your pressure-stat stops working, being that its a piston design, you will keep compressing until the tank fails.

The nicest route would be to have a rotary or roots blower type compressor because they are quite.


I would say that you should try to get a compressor that you can buy valve kits for. The valves do fail occasionally and its an easy item to replace, but you need to take the safety precautions (drain all pressure) otherwise things can get ugly.

Also, in my opinion, you should get as big a tank as possible. This means that the pressure remains stable for longer so that a good 2 min spray session doesnt let you run out of air...

Good advice Tony. Also look at air consumption rates. Tools, spray guns etc consume air (L/min or Cubic foot/min) at some pressure. Check the tools you want to use for air consumption rates and buy the compressor accordingly. Your receiver tank needs to be sized for this as well, or the darn thing will run all the time during use.

Rgrds

sarel.wagner wrote:Good advice Tony. Also look at air consumption rates. Tools, spray guns etc consume air (L/min or Cubic foot/min) at some pressure. Check the tools you want to use for air consumption rates and buy the compressor accordingly. Your receiver tank needs to be sized for this as well, or the darn thing will run all the time during use.

Rgrds

You hit the nail on the head. CFM is more important than tank size. BUT, tank size will depend on what work you want to do. Operating an impact wrench/drill or nail gun dont need a big tank. But doing a respray, you HAVE tp have a large tank.....

I have the Mac-Afric one, it does OK - don't run it everyday.
The head/valve/gasket design was crap on mine though. Blew gasket a couple of times before I made my own reinforced ones. Broke a valve spring too.
That said I think they're all pretty much on par. For DIY they're OK.
Don't know if I'd trust claimed air output figures, although mine will almost keep up with a die grinder/ D/A sander. Both of these are cheap imports too, so likely to be pretty inefficient in terms of air consumption.
You could spray a car with one - I'm a crap enough painter to have enough else to worry about though than waiting for a compressor to play catch up.