When I turn on the air compressor, I get a very loud rattling/vibration sound. We put the air compressor in a closet only to discover that the noise seems to be emanating all along the air hose. If I briefly pinch the air hose, it immediately goes away. It’s really annoying my coworkers in the office here. One told me it’s because it’s a reciprocating compressor. He suggested either buying a non-reciprocating compressor or running an air line from our shop floor air system into the office. I’m concerned about the effect moisture in the line would have on my machine if I did that. Any other suggestions?
You can get filters to pull moisture from the line. You could also get a dryer that does it on a large scale. You could also tell your coworkers to suck it up, because lasers are sweeeet.
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If one is using a “compressor” to provide air to the nozzle of the laser, it’s not compressing the air enough to generate moisture from the compression-decompression cycle. If moisture in the line is a problem with this type of installation, you’ll have other concerns in your environment, like breathing or mold forming on surfaces.
The generic air pump provided with lasers from China is a simple fish tank air mover, using a diaphragm that does reciprocate and is much noisier than a piston pump. The advantage with a diaphragm pump is no oil contacts the air side and won’t be pushed along through the line to the nozzle.
Piston pumps are reciprocating and are less noisy, but you then have to deal with oil filters and possibly moisture traps if the pump/compressor includes a storage tank and a high-pressure cut-off limit.
Rotary vane air pumps are likely to be quieter, but much more expensive. A quick search shows capacities far beyond that required for laser nozzle airflow and prices starting at US$400 and running into the thousands of dollars.
Even the diaphragm pumps currently in use have prices from US$40 to a couple hundred dollars for what appears to be the same pump.
Sound transmits through air quite well and your hose is carrying the pulses from the pump along its length, making it audible and annoying.
The suggestion of using shop air is a sound one, as you’d need only to have a water separator device (relatively inexpensive) and a regulator at the laser end. Keep an eye on the desiccant sight glass for the beads to change color and refresh/regenerate them as soon as you notice a color change. I recommend blue desiccant as it’s easier to see the change compared to the orange ones.
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Perfect answer! Thank you so much, Fred. We’ll go with the shop air with a blue desiccant water separator device.
Had the same problem and the issue was a screw that came loose inside the unit.
I added loctite so it wouldn’t happen again.
While disassembling it I found the insides had lots of metal filings from manufacturing. You can see in the picture some of them pressed into the gasket. I cleaned the entire thing out and lubbed everything and the end result was that it was much, much quieter and had way more air output. I don’t even hang it from bungees as before but it just sits of the floor. It’s a bit too quiet now and sometimes I forget to turn it on because it’s hard to hear over the extraction air noise.
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