| About |
History behind the ShoeBox CompressorThe ShoeBox Air Compressor was conceived, designed and developed by Tom Kaye. Tom has a twenty year association with the paintball industry and developed many products such as compressed air for paintball markers. Tom retired from paintball in 2005 but decided to come back into manufacturing when he saw tremendous demand for this small home air compressor. More information is available here TomKaye.com Historic Time Line12-12-12 Introduced the Freedom8 model 3-26-11 We expect to be out of backorder in the next few weeks. 220v motors are now shipping to Europe. 2-2-11 Compressors are now shipping almost every day. 220v motors for Europe are in testing. 11-25-10 The second run of 500 units is in assembly. The first 100 should ship out before the middle of December. 8-11-10 The first run of 100 has sold out and shipped. Overall there were very few problems. Gearing up for the next run of 500 scheduled to start assembly in Sept. I will be back in Chicago again for an extended stay to oversee the production. 3-24-10 Suppliers are all gearing up for parts production beginning in April. I get a couple weeks off before the fireworks start. I leave for Chicago 4-6-10. My suppliers went from dead to working 3 shifts inside of 6 weeks. Looks like the recession is over but that's going to make it really hard to hold down the cost. 3-17-10 Finalizing the production blueprints. Purchase orders go out this week hopefully. All the problems I know about are solved, its the ones you don't know.... 3-1-10 New motor solved the overheating problem. The new motor is higher RPM which needs more gear reduction. The chain drive now has two more sprockets. The power switch welded itself. Searching for a better switch. 2-22-10 Prototype is working well but the motor is overheating. Searching for a new motor. 1-22-10 Construction of 2 pre-production prototypes begins. 1-12-10 Finished CAD design of final product. 1-7-10 First prints go out for quote. 12-18-09 A two stage piston design is settled on with an 85 psi shop air feed as the best solution. 12-15-09 A single stage to 4500 is prototyped and tested. It hits 3000 psi but is found to not work well enough for production. 12-12-09 Poll on Automags.org indicates about half the players could use a 3,000 psi compressor. The other half really want 4500. http://www.automags.org/forums/showthread.php?t=24753312-20-09 New motor that spins at 95 rpm is tested and works well but is expensive. 12-08-09 Prototype compressor fills a tank in under 20 hours with a very slow 16 rpm motor. This was achieved using an 85 psi shop compressor feed. http://www.automags.org/forums/showthread.php?t=24745111-26-09 Players polled on Automags.org about the idea of using a shop air compressor at 85 psi to feed the mini-compressor for faster fill speeds. Most players have a compressor. http://www.automags.org/forums/showthread.php?t=24718511-25-09 Prototype hits 4500 psi on first run. 11-2-09 Three stage piston compressor is machined from scratch. Initial tests are positive but the motor is highly stressed working against three pistons. 10-15-09 A post to the forum at Automags.org confirms players are very interested in a small compressor http://www.automags.org/forums/showthread.php?t=246171 |