Backstory - I asked a few questions some years ago concerning cooling when spraying with a turbine system. Long story short, I found that if the temperatures are in the mid 70s or lower, I can get satisfactory results with a Fuji Q5 when spraying PPG Omni. The biggest problem I've had is maintaining a consistent application speed matching the testing to set the gun. I tend to speed up and slow down, something I know I need to work on.

Anyway, I'm enjoying this enough that I want to experiment a bit. I've seen 6 stage turbine systems offered, but they are pricey and I have most of the stuff I need except for the turbine. I ran across a 6 stage turbine and motor offered at a more reasonable price. It will need a housing, switch, filters etc to finish.

So the question is, do you have any insight on setting one of these things up? Also, are there other suppliers out there that might have 6 stage turbine/motor assemblies that I can check out?

Any help or advise is appreciated.

Thanks

James

This is the 6 stage motor/turbine you want....
https://www.ebay.com/itm/MOTOR-5-7-TANG ... 2564412710
If you don't feel comfortable with ebay you will also find that on Amazon for about a hundred bucks more.
So okay this is pretty simple... Buy a decent sized tool box. You can use wood, foam, paperboard, whatever to divide the sections of air movement coming out of the unit. You want the smaller output nozzle going through the side of the box. You should use bolts and stand the turbine a few inches off the bottom and section that area off so air can be taken i from a vent you will create on one side of the box. You can stuff some furnace filtering media or even use scotch brite pads for filtering. This needs to be filtered as this air is what is being fed (after being whipped up and pressurized) for your gun/air supply. Next notice there is a simple small fan blowing down from the top over the motor to cool it. I like this sticking out just slightly above the tool box lid or just use some large pvc to direct air down to this fan. This doesn't need much filtering as this air stays on the outside of the motor. Now this air is just coming out of the lower motor housing so some exit vents need to be cut for this outgoing air. Okay. next check that smaller outgoing air supply tube for a small vent hole. This is a backpressure hole that should be plugged if you are just going to run a bleeder gun. Now if you have a non bleeder then you will need to come up with some type of cap pop off valve here. Electric is just 120v however I like to have a rheostat control on these powerful turbines.
I personally picked one of these up off ebay 6 months ago for my Dodge Charger/ Truck build. I combined it with a Sprayfine gravity gun and just love, love, love it for auto work. Oh, and if you are going to be stepping up to a 6 stage I would get rid of that low solids Omni. You are in the big leagues now and can shoot any of the higher solids Tamco clears. You should at least be doing the 2100 and more like the 2104 or 2105. There new Matte is also awesome when shot with the 6 stage. We even shot their new high build epoxy using just a 1.8 tip on our gun.....

Awesome!!

Turbine is on order. I'll wait until I have it in hand to pick up a toolbox for it. I have non-bleeder guns and have a relief valve ordered as well. It's the Apollo relief valve they recommend for turbines set up for bleeder guns.

I have both the Apollo 7500 and Fuji T75 spray guns, both gravity feed with PPS pressure cups (love the liners!). The Apollo is ok, the Fuji is my favorite so far. How do these compare to the Sprayfine? While my preference is to use what I have, I'm not against another gun if there's a compelling reason to get it.

The clearcoat I used was PPG Omni Plus MC161 high solids urethane clear. It's also what I had the most trouble with. Very unforgiving of my varying application speed. I have the Tamco 2100 but haven't tried it yet.

Your recommendations are much appreciated.

James

I think the guns you have will be fine. The 6 stage is so powerful I think it pretty much makes any of these guns "better." I'll never understand why that 161 is referred to as high solids. It's like 45 to 48% tops. When you lay down 3 coats of it you get about 2 mils dry. That Tamco 2100 you have is actually referred to as a medium solids clear and you will see it easily outperforms the 161 in almost all aspects. Both the 2104 and 2105 take that even further with 9% more solids which is then 54% which to me is a true "high solids" urethane product. It's funny that many, many, years ago we used use the 161 clear as a lock down "medium to low solids" clear coat over top of art work and did so because it was so thin that we didn't have to worry about building our coating too thick.....

The 6 stage turbine arrives tomorrow. Plan is to go ahead and mount it and get it going this weekend.

This is an example of how the Fuji T75 and Q5, and the Omni paint worked out for me on my daughter's rear bumper cover. The clear was orange peeled, but wet sanded and buffed out nice. There are a few uh-ohs (like where the lone mosquito committed suicide in the very fresh color coat) so I may do it over. I don't have a before photo but the horizontal surfaces below the tail lights and trunk looked like white sandpaper on an orange backing. If the 6 stage makes it easier, I'll be a happy camper.

Even with the 6 stage you can still mess things up a bit. To take advantage of the increased pressure keep your hose length at 25 foot or less. Make sure that where your turbine is located is at least at 70 degree room temp. If conditions are a little cooler make sure and let the unit warm up for about 10 minutes. And of course, test, test, test. Still make sure you are using the slowest of reducers/hardeners for that 161. Back when I was using it I always felt that it did not "flow" enough after shooting, hence, orange peel/roughness.

So the 6 stage arrived today, damaged. It was shipped in a box with no padding or other packaging to protect it, exactly as in the attached photo. And UPS being UPS..........

On a more positive note, the seller has already replied back with an apology and promise to ship a properly packaged replacement on Monday.

I took my Citation with the 4 stage and the fresh air turbines apart to see how they put everything together. At first glance, it looks like the 4 stage is similar in diameter but the 6 stage is longer. There may be enough room for the extra length. Since buying the Fuji Q5, I've only used the Citation for the fresh air turbine. I think I'll go ahead and see if I can swap the 6 stage in and see how it works. I'll go ahead and add another power cord for the 6 stage and probably use a speed controller for a single speed router. At worst, I may have to build a new housing for it.

Ahhh, man, that's a shame right there. Mine was packed pretty well from those guys. Must have been in a hurry to get it out the door. Those turbines, even when you just put them in their cases have to be well secured. Well, at least there is no denying what happened here.

DarrelK -

Well, we're having fun now!

The replacement 6 stage arrived with a dented volute. The dent is bad enough to lock the turbine up and I'm guessing since the impeller looks pretty fragile, the impeller is probably bent.

But, since I now have one damaged on the motor end, and the other damaged on the turbine end, I figured I could do some mix and match and end up with a good turbine.

So I swapped the 4 stage out of the Citation housing, and installed the repaired 6 stage. Now I have a supplied air turbine and a spray 6 stage turbine in one housing. I went ahead and installed a pipe plug in the turbine outlet branch connection and installed the Apollo relief valve, which turned out to be an extension with a hole in it. Apparently, the turbine manufactures simply put a hole in the output somewhere to allow some air flow in the event of deadheading. It still allows air flow so the turbine doesn't over heat. And, the turbines put out so much additional CFM than what's needed, the lost CFM is never missed. The reason I used the relief valve is that it puts the hole outside of the housing so I don't have to pipe the air from the branch connection through the housing to prevent heating stuff up.

I'm also converting both my guns from non-bleeder to bleeder so it becomes a non-issue anyway.

I haven't installed the speed control yet but can see why you recommended it. That thing puts out some air!

My only disappointment at this point is that I haven't heard from the seller. They may believe I'm trying to pull a fast one, but I really did get 2 different damaged turbines. If I don't hear back from them, I'm good. And if I do, I'll let them know that I was able to make one good turbine out of 2 damaged ones and no other action is needed.

Now, to go find something to try this thing out on!

Thanks again for all the help!!

Man, what kind of luck gets two of these things damaged in shipment in a row! If you combined the good parts from the two you should be fine as I've swapped parts many times on 2, 3, and 4 stage units. They definitely owe you some money though.....it's just unacceptable that these things were damaged at all in shipment. Takes like 2 minutes to pack them out well enough to prevent movement/damage.
I personally have always preferred bleeder style guns with turbines. It lets the turbine wheels stabilize which means constant even pressure/cfm. Also prevents temp. spikes. Take some time doing spray outs and getting a feel for it. I'd start pretty much wide open and then consider backing down the turbine somewhat. One thing I found handy was....I could operate the turbine at full speed and use like a 50 foot hose with it. I still got about an 11 to 12 inch very wet pattern which worked great with higher solids clears. Had my turbine so far away outside the building I couldn't even hear it.....