Glad it was an easy fix. The mv50 and MF-1050 are the same product with different price tags<br><br>They are built cheaply, but luckily it is such a simple device they cannot screw up too much. Here is one of their internal wire nuts. Not a screw type, but one which crushes a lug inside the "nut"<br>Mine pulled apart with little torque on it.<br>
<br><br>It was these wire nuts holding the wire inside the end cap. There was no real cord grip or strain relief, just a hole in the plastic with the wire going through it, which is just horrible.<br>
<br>Here is the inside of the endcap, showing the relay(blue) so the full current does not have to run through the little toggle switch.<br>
<br><br>I drilled the hole bigger and added some standard strain relief so I could swing the unit around like a weapon from the cord.<br>
<br><br><br>My main complaint with the function of the unit is the tire valve(schrader valve) adapter, which must be threaded on, and has this weird deflating function as well, which operated when not asked to if in a certain position.<br><br>The head is tapped for some metric fitting, and probably the easiest thing to do is get an adapter. <br>Here is a standard 1/4 NPT fitting on left, and the provided one on the right.<br>
<br><br><br>Here is why you should use the provided air filter:<br>
<br>Here is the leather cup on the piston, and the cylinder sleeve.<br>
<br>I cleaned the crud off it and lubed it with some Syl-Glide.<br>
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<br><br>Make sure to remove all the plastic flashing left over from the molding on the filter housing process so as to not restrict airflow into the unit. This can easily restrict performance and overheat the thing. Mine was very restrictive. The filter in place quietens the unit considerably. Sorry no Pic.<br><br>1/4 npt taps are cheap. I ordered one on Amazon for 4$, and received 4 of them. The head comes off easily with 4 allen head bolts which were likely not tightened enough anyway. There is no need to run a drill through the head beforehand, but I did. There was almost no resistance to the drill bit. i could have done it with my fingers rather than on my drill. I forget which drill size I used. Just go slow backing off frequently, use some oil, and do not go too far with the tap as it will bottom out within the head and could crack it.<br>
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<br>Don't forget to wear OSHA approved footwear.<br>
<br><br>Make sure to clean the metal shavings<br>
<br><br>I ultimately chose not to use any of the quick release standard fittings as I never disassemble mine to return it to the provided bag.. I had acquired a new coiled airline and attached this directly to the head.<br>
<br><br>One reason I did not want to use the standard air fittings is they are not passive, like the fittings which came with the unit. If one were to turn on the unit with standard fittings, pressure would quickly build(within 2 seconds) past 150 PSI and blow out something, possibly dangerously. This was not how it ended up:<br>
<br><br>I used a locking tire chuck, but I disassembled it so that I could drill a small hole through the part which depresses the shrader valve needle. Now the pressure cannot build up, and it is mostly idiot proof.<br><br>
<br><br>Backtracking slightly, these units get hot. Most of that heat is generated by the piston moving in the cylinder. The cylinder head is designed as a heatsink, but the head does not fit tightly over the cylinder sleeve. There are 4 contact points which hold the sleeve in place within the head, and these are the main heat transfer points. Not very much surface area to transfer the heat. Here you can see the contact points, and the 1mm air gap. I filled this gap with a high temp grease to better transfer the cylinder sleeve heat to the heatsink.<br>
<br><br>To further assist in heat removal, i wired up a 80mm computer fan also activated by the relay.<br>
<br><br>You can also see my added cord grip, and the thin wires exiting to power the fan.<br><br>Here is where my compressor resides. It is powered by my main fuse panel, and retains its original fuse as well. NO quick release fittings, and I added a couple unnecessary extensions to the locking coupler just for ease of use.<br>
<br><br>The unit resides in one of my hatches located over the wheel hump. In the compartment next to it is the valves for my rear suspension helper airbags, and my water tank. My water pump cannot self prime, and I pressurize the tank with the compressor to prime it.<br>
<br><br>I left the power cord long enough to rest the unit on the ground outside my side doors. It also has a quick connector on the wire so I can plug it back into the provided alligator clips, or various power points located elsewhere in my van.<br><br>So you see, this unit is capable when new out of the box, but with some refinements can be turned into a reliable, much improved, easy to use compressor, if you apply some time and skills to make it so.<br><br>I think with the added grease between cylinder and heat sink, in addition to the 80mm computer fan, there is no longer any 30 minute maximum runtime. Before the upgrades the heat sink would get so hot as to be uncomfortable to touch after 5 minutes of running. No longer.<br><br>All of this type of compressor and the Viair clones are likely very similar inside as the design is so simple. Harbor freight has a couple versions of various size that get pretty good reviews, but I would upgrade/fine tune them as well before depending on them in a situation where failure could leave you stranded.<br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br>
