Scott,
Owned one and operated it for a year before I decided to build my own
siphon setup. It was an Omni boiler with a side mounted Gast
compressor coupled to the end of the blower motor on a Wayne
Combustion Systems burner. You are right, it was noisy and it
carried moisture over to the air passage in the preheater block which
contributed to lots of nozzle maintenance. I have not written off
the Gast compressor completely though. With a quest to build the
lowest power consumption system possible, I am thinking of directy
coupling another used Gast rotary vane compressor to a DC motor and
dial in the exact output I need for the nozzle air to avoid the
bleedoff valve, tank, or regulator's typically used with these
compressors. I figure if one were to slow the RPMs down on the
compressor and take 100% of the output of the compressor and send it
to the nozzle, it might make a pretty decent highly efficient air
source. Setting it up this way should help make it quieter too. I
will let you know how the experiment goes. I guess the moral of the
story goes is that the direct burner mounted Gast compressors are not
as good as the separately mounted compressors such as the Thomas 2650
units found on ebay. You have to admit, the Gast burner mounted
compressor looks far better installed than any other remote setup but
it is not worth the money and problems associated with it.
Thanks,
Jason
