Bauer Junior ii E1
My battle with getting my MrodAir Extreme doesn’t have a predictable, good outcome. Still waiting for a solution to its oil in air problem, but at least I now have another compressor to actually use. Thanks to my CFO (wife)!
Ordered a Bauer Jr II E (230 volt single phase) from Joe B. it arrived in a few days, on a pallet and well secured. Weight was somewhere around 150-160 pounds.
Top and sides of box and lift off in one piece. Made it easy for the two of us to lift it off the pallet. No lifting out of a tall box.
Fully uncrated.
Included accessories
Size comparison with the “bad” Airmax predecessor. Pretty comparable in size if you include the required water bucket. Build level isn’t even fair to compare. I couldn’t wait to fire the new Bauer up. I had already rewired the garage for a 4 prong 240 volt outlet. I anticipated swapping out the Bauer’s existing power cord with one that fits my outlet
What? No power cord. That is a surprise. Are no compressors plug and play? I guess I’m supposed to wire one into this junction box.
I found the motor’s wiring diagram and a bunch of wires inside the junction box. Called Joe B. and got some encouragement and general advice about going through one wire at time — process of elimination. After figuring out how the wires should go together, I realized there wasn’t any way to turn the compressor on or off. A call to Joe B. verified that’s the way they come. That meant also creating a motor control box. My anticipated three wire connecting project was now something bigger.
Motor wires connected
Put together a quick and dirty motor control box. I’ll change the internals to a contactor and add red & green push buttons later. Also, needs a thermal circuit breaker. This was enough to get things started.
Install filter cartridge and fill with oil. The compressor ships without oil in it. Took about half the supplied bottle to fill. You can’t see the level except via the dip stick. Fill in small amounts at a time because I didn’t know how much the compressor would actually need.
Finally, late at night, it was ready for initial run. 15 minutes without any load. Very little oil came out of bleed tube.
First pressurized run topped off Great White from 3800 to 4500 psi in six minutes. That’s with me slowing down the process by gradually adjusting the final stage valve incrementally up in pressure (counterclockwise).
Very pleased thus far with the compressor. Didn’t fumigate the garage like the Airmax. (All the spiders are dead post the Airmax fumigator). Delivered air from the Bauer is clean, cool and no longer a worry. The only downers were having to create a motor controller and figure out the motor wiring.
Wife is happy we did this and says this is a lesson on not being too cheap and ending up spending a lot more.
I have even had time to post in the Vulcan Bullpup section instead of working on a compressor.
[edited for grammar & show correct picture for wires]
All Replies
Nice job “pimping-out” the Bauer, Guy! Definitely some good refinements.
I’ve got the same model Bauer, but stock worked for me, after wiring in a switch and plug. I bleed down after filling, to storage pressure, while the tank’s connected/valve closed. Right before powering up again, I depressurize the unit so it doesn’t power spike as bad/throw a breaker. My “water trap” is a big, old towel, loosely bunched over the drain hose, nowhere near as elegant as yours.
Did Bauer ever correct the owner’s manual/operating manual? My .pdf had errors on page 62, 5.2.4, figure 5-10; the parts list is all wrong.
They’re great compressors and Joe was great to deal with, very good customer service.
Thanks. The waste water catcher gets rid of the mess factor.
Meter was ordered from Amazon. Would you believe WAY BACK in December last year as I was anxiously waiting for the Airmax to ship. So much excitement… so much disappointment.
Here is the link for the hour meter. This is a wired unit. It runs when AC power is applied. Ships from China and takes forever to arrive.
AC100-250V Electromechanical Hour Meter Counter $6.68 + free shipping. Don’t be confused by the + and – pole description. It runs on AC power.
Nice job on the catcher.
Where did you get you hour meter at?
With the help of my wife selecting which fittings would work best, a trip to Home Depot netted me everything to add three features
1. Waste water catcher
2. Foster fill whip holder
3. Power cord storage hook
Here are most of the parts obtained.
The 1″ end cap and 6″ riser tube will become the new fill whip holder.
The rest of the stuff becomes a waste water catcher so I no longer vent onto the floor. It all goes into a nice container for easy disposal. No more mess in the garage!
Here is the waster water catcher assembled. The two bleed hoses go to where the Bauer vents its separators and filter. Open cell foam at the top seals off misting. The hose barbs were melted into place. They don’t need to be water tight since I should be draining the catcher before it gets that high. The tallness of the assembly was to allow better air/water separation.
Velcro straps attach the waste water catcher to the compressor handle. Works great thus far. You see the bled out water spin around in the catcher and go down. Valve at bottom lets me drain the waste neatly.
Fill whip was simple enough. All I had to do was grind the end flat & drill a hole in the end cap. Add a washer and existing bolt where the normal SCUBA yoke holder goes holds the cap in place. Cut the riser tubing to proper length and bored out its inner diameter to fit the whip. Finally, a piece of closed cell foam at the bottom of the tube prevent possible damage to the FQD by the mounting bolt.
Finally, attached a storage hook to hold my 25 feet of 10 gauge power cord. The miracle of rubber tape and zip ties allowed a modification free install.
All in all, I’m pretty pleased with today’s progress.
All I have left is to find where a very slow air leak is happening. Used soapy water, but not found it yet. Might just be me not closing the bleed valves tight enough.
Power meter was from Amazon. Get the open/close current transformer version. Makes life much easier than the non-opening versions.
bayite AC 80-260V 100A BYT-VAEM-034 Digital Current Voltage Power Energy Meter Ammeter Voltmeter with Open-close Current Transformer
Where did you get the voltage gauge from? I’m going to reconfigure my Sheldon and might want to add that next to my hour meter.
I have wondered why they don’t mount the fill assembly with the gauge on the compressor. I had to do it to mine.
OK I missed.
Already did that the first night. It’s on the side of my motor control box. It’s the black thing at the bottom of the controller box — hard to see because it is in the shadow just above the red label of the fan housing. Also, visible as the black component under the wires inside the control box.
Here is a better view…
You ever think about adding a hour meter?
Yeah. I know. It really has eaten into shooting time. Plus, there are some projects I want to do on my Vulcan that I have had to put off.
At least, after getting the Bauer I have gotten to do some shooting. :biggrinn:
Working on the Airmax…… no shooting at all for weeks. :3:
With all this compressor work you’re doing…are you getting to shoot any of your airguns? LOL
Joe, thanks again for helping with the okay to use more torque and reassurance that the FQD valve was safe to hold back the full 5000 psi.
More accurately, though, my goal was to match the Bauer diagram because that configuration has a few advantages for me over the gauge after the valves.
1. The configuration now matches the Bauer air flow diagram and mimics their fill whips.
2. The gauge now reads hose/compressor pressure no matter the fill valve’s state.
3. I can monitor how the compressor pressure is rising before opening the fill valve. That lets me time valve opening to happen at a specific pressure – something simply not possible with the gauge positioned after the fill valve.
4. I can’t be fooled by residual pressure in the whip between the fill valve and FQD. That happened once with both the fill valve and bleed closed. The gauge continued to read pressure, despite my further dropping the pressure bleeding while double checking all moisture was out. Because the gauge was reading pressure of the air between the fill valve and FQD, not the hose, it stayed high despite the compressor itself being too low. That can no longer happen.
5. I can’t accidentally have a “gauge blind” final pressure safety valve failure, if I inattentively keep the fill valve closed while doing the startup safety check procedure. It’s not likely, but one plans for laziness & stupidity to happen.
6. Finally, like Joe said, I was concerned about the FQD valve holding back all the pressure by itself. I now know that is OK. I probably still would not point it at my head and open the fill valve.
Not everyone would have these needs and concerns, but I did. For me, re-configuration gave more capability without adding any real cost. It’s the same components in a different order to yield extra functionality. With Joe’s reassurance that I could use more torque, it was easy to reconfigure. I tend to be too gentle because I don’t want to break things.
I have to add — I really appreciate Joe B’s active and rapid participation helping out here. It’s very much better than from another compressor experience I am having.
Looking forward, the next projects for the compressor are to finish the motor control box with a proper contactor, make a holder for the fill whip, add a power cord holder, fashion a waste water/air catcher.
set up with all gauges and mods . It would make it easier to run and understand for those of us like myself who are not mechanically
inclined to make changes that would help to make this compressor a perfect out of the box a complete running product . :2cents:
FROM : THE BIRDMAN
I spoke with Guy, and it was not necessary to swap the gauge and valve for it to work as he wanted, just his preference. His goal was to read the final pressure in the hose only (after disconnecting from the Great White) which is what it would do as originally made and shipped from the factory. His issue was that he didn’t know the stainless steel Female Quick Disconnect with internal check valve was rated +5000 PSI, so he elected to swap the valve and gauge around so that the valve was holding back the pressure, not the female QD. It wasn’t necessary to swap, but it was how he wanted it, so I assisted. Leaving it as original would have worked just as well and just as safely.
Thanks for your excellent pictures Gary.
Sounds like it would benefit all future customers if the Bauer Junior II compressor could come from Joe now as Guy now has his Bauer
set up with all gauges and mods . It would make it easier to run and understand for those of us like myself who are not mechanically
inclined to make changes that would help to make this compressor a perfect out of the box a complete running product . :2cents:
FROM : THE BIRDMAN
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Thanks for the information and all your good work.