What's in the box?

Chris Gunn dispatched this to me yesterday evening from near Rugby and it arrived at 10:30am. Not bad! Thanks, Chris.

What's inside?

It's a Bambi BB15V "silent" compressor. Manual here. Unlike the generic Chinese compressors you can get from Machine Mart, Aldi etc, it's pretty damned quiet - around 40dB(A) which is quite enough to be able to talk over without raising your voice. In contrast, those generic beasts are around the 100dB(A) level, which is almost scary loud and requires you to shout to be heard.

He has sent a few out before and found they got damaged in transit, so was a bit apprehensive this time. But it was absolutely unblemished after its journey.

These cost about £300-350 new, which was never going to happen. This pre-enjoyed one came from a shoe factory apparently. They are often used for "indoor" applications such as dentists. As you can see, they are essentially an enclosed compressor, rather like the ones used on fridges and freezers.

This should allow me to use the argon cylinder and regulator for welding rather than for operating the power drawbar on the Shiz.

Also enclosed were a variety of couplings for the outlet, so I can connect the Shiz and/or some *small* air tools. With only 350W ("1/2 HP") motor, the flow rate is just over 1 CFM, so no real use for "proper" air tools like chisels, sanders, die grinders etc. The "15" in the model number denotes the 15 litre receiver volume.

And Chris also found me some push fit 4mm couplings. I haven't a clue how it happened but I discovered that the autolube pipe to the head had been sheared off somehow. I know it used to work, so clearly some fat clot must have damaged it during the recent work. And the break in the pipe is almost inaccessible, deep within the main head casting. Certainly I won't be able to wield a spanner in the confined space, so a push fit coupling was my only hope.