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Part 2: The Shoebox: I’m an idiot but you don’t have to be: READ the instructions!
As usual, first, a little about me so you know where I’m coming from: I’ve always been a DYI guy (Do it yourself). I had to be. Armed with only a GED, I couldn’t pay others to do what I needed nor did I have anyone that I could go running to for advice most of the time. So, by way of the school of hard knocks, I learned a thing or two along the way with what lemons and sour cars I’d bought nobody else wanted that I could afford, leaks in my plumbing in whatever house I’d rented or replacing what starter had gone bad with the help of a Chilton’s Book in whatever old Ford Pick Up Truck I’d owned at the time. Then, too, there was the work I could get that meant putting food on the table that was an education within itself. It all added up to and may have been a hard life but at least it was educational and, as each year went by I got to be more and more self reliant. I was becoming a jack of all and master of none in trades. Still am, as far as I know. They say pressure makes diamonds but I’m no gem, I’ll grant you that and the way I figure it, if *I* can work with the Shoebox, even being an idiot, you can too---work with the Shoebox that is
.Lack of education notwithstanding, I think I’ve just described a lot of “real” people out there that make up our great nation. So now that you know where I’m coming from, and understand that it’s not from higher education or any special skill, I’ll get on with the show. . .
So, with more reading and at http://shoeboxcompressor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9&Itemid=2 and then on to the technical blow up at http://www.shoeboxcompressor.com/images/stories/shoeboxexplodedview2.jpg I studied the informaton of the Shoebox Compressor. Not bad, not overly complicated, not something I shouldn’t be able to handle. Okay, for price and reasons already discussed, as well as good reports on the device, I was sold. I’d have to get one if I were going to stay the course in making Air Guns my therapy tool and it seemed as this would be something I could maintain myself as oposed to something larger, commercial and overly complicated that would cost me MUCH more.
My first mistake: READ INSTRUCTIONS! Read the manual!
On the shoebox site and in the instructions it clearly states what kind of compressor you should use and what sustained pressure that compressor should be for a first stage before the Shoebox. The shoebox *will* pump up without a primary stage compressor but it is highly NOT recommended to do so.
I’m an idiot. I’ll admit it. I get something like this in the mail; throw to one side the paperwork and start putting things together from, to me, what common sense would dictate. I’ll not wager that there are as many of those out there like I am in this respect, but, by the same token, I’d also wager that there are a lot of you out there that do the same thing. Then, when I run into a hitch, I summarily *glance* at the instructions only reading what I *think* I need to find. And in my 51 years (as of yesterday, May the 11th, 2011) you’d think I’d learn not to do that. But, like I said, I’m an idiot at times.
So I go typing in to the forum, not a stupid question but a question I could have answered myself just the same about what kind of compressor I should get. Mistake number one: Not reading what is clearly available asking for help without first trying to help myself.
So with the kindness and help of the Shoebox people I figure out that the little compressor I have won’t do the job and I have to get another buy it and much later I get the Shoebox in the mail, put it together as most of it is straightforward, and then try to make sure it is all “right” and then hit the switch. That wasn’t so bad but, please do read before you do this.
But then I’ve got the problem of the fittings.
Second mistake: Know your fittings!
When I ordered my Shoebox way back in January of this year (2011), I had also talked to pyramid about the fittings I’d need to make all this work with my air guns as in strait to the air gun and straight to my Air Hog Tank. Because it takes, at the time of my purchase, 8 to 10 weeks to get the order for a Shoebox processed, I’d already bought my Air Hog Tank, several fittings and had priced several air filter dryers for my set up.
Problem was that most at Pyramid Air hadn’t had much experience with the Shoebox, the fittings needed, etc. I had to talk to the Technical Department at Pyramid to get my fittings lined out. They were VERY helpful but I still had problems when I tried to set everything up because even with help, I just didn't know what I should have asked for.
What I ended up doing was taking some of my fittings to a Hydraulic place. These guys do the hydraulics on commercial levels like for heavy equipment---bull dozers, track hoes, etc. One of the guys there was a fellow Vet and didn’t mind extending his knowledge and help. He created a “bonded seal” on some of my fittings for me to get them past the leaks I was having. But for a while there I thought it was me when it was the fittings that were wrong. But I'm sure that most others will not make this mistake and obtain the correct fittings in the beginning.
Now I’m ready, I think, to get the show on the road and start pumping up my Air Hog Tank from a dead empty start.
So, I turn it on, let it start pumping and cross my fingers. I let it run, and run.
But the pressure wasn’t building.
Hmm.
Time for the idiot (yours truly) to summarily glance back at the instructions again: Oh, wow! Part number 34! I’m losing air there! You can’t pump air if you are going to relieve the line at the same time! Ugh! I can’t feel the air escaping via the side port on the air block! Ugh!
Okay. Let’s read a little more now even though I think I’ve gotten it figured out. Three quarters through the manual I think I’ve read all that is pertinent . . . Mistake number three close at my heels.
Air pressure! At last!
Well, about 6 hours later, give or take, I’ve got 3,000 PSI HPA (High Pressure Air) built up in my Air Hog tank that holds 88 cubic feet of air. That is a LOT of air gun fills!
But hold on! I’m supposed to be able to do *4,500” PSI of HPA before my shoebox cuts off! At least that is what I thought I read!
As it is I’ve already gave the manual two summary glances, my common sense, what little I have (disclaimer here is that I’ve already admitted to being an idiot) tells me that I’ve done all that I should and I’m now worried I got the 3,000 PSI version (there is two: the 4,500 and the 3,000 PSI version). . . Mistake number three closing in fast now.
Now, like so many out there, I didn’t read the instructions fully and like so many as well, I go running to the computer to type out an email to the establishment wanting to know what to do. In the mean time, I’m pouring over my new baby trying to see if there is some adjustment, something I missed.
Time for a fourth glance at the instructions and manual: Mistake number three about to slap me up side my head with a vengeance. . .
Whoa! THERE it is! Mistake number three proudly wagging his finger at me for not reading all the way through, there it was, in black and white, called the “collar adjustment” that clearly states that for the shut off to hit the pressure for the Shoebox to auto turn off at you may have to adjust this fitting. Man, I’m an idiot sometimes and felt like real tiny when knowing I’d sent off that email asking, again, what to do about something that was clearly written down so that people like me would be able to figure out the Shoebox with the least path of resistance. But, again, as admitted, I’m an idiot.
So I go to start to adjust the collar they way it suggests in the manual and, of course, it works just like the instructions said it would. Feeling really small again, I run back to the computer wishing I could summon back emails I’d already sent asking for help on the matter. But, of course, eating crow is about as close as I could get to retrieving an email already sent. I had to apologize and admit my “not reading the manual” mistake and move on.
Since then I’ve been using my Shoebox without complaint, without a hitch, and very happy with the way it works. I fill my guns via the Air Hog Tank and once a week or less I fill up the Air Hog Tank via the Shoebox. Its quiet enough I have it in my “Man Cave” (the one room in the house I actually have say-so over) that doubles as our den, I shut the door and watch TV three feet the other side of the closed door. You can still hear it [and] the 6 gallon pancake oil-less compressor that does 150 PSI when it decides to kick on and replenish the air supply but it’s not that loud, even with the first stage air compressor kicking on. We don’t even turn up the TV. Besides: That’s where my guns are and I don’t like having to go out to the garage to fiddle with my therapy stuff.
So there you have it. Just your average guy, very little education, a few skills and not to awful with my hands at mechanical things, a guy that is awful at following or READING instructions and the first to go for help when help is not needed and I made it all work. All my mistakes were from not reading the instructions.
Using the Shoebox is a breeze. But, as with anything worth having like this, you have to be willing to read the manual!
Part 3 to come: Some maintenance and then tips for even the handiest of us with a wrench when and if you have to affect a repair and my first repair . . .
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