Battery Powered Impact Wrench?

You got that right....therein is a tale...I've told this before elsewhere.....

{as told to me...when I arrived at the Lab..}

There exists {or did..} at NASA-LeRC, a building called the Prop House. Sure it has some official name, Engine Power Research Building maybe, but don't ever bother calling it that.

It was built before/during WWII to test engines (and props), for things like P-51's and P-47's. Since that much umph can make big messes, it had VERY sturdy walls and doors, vault-type. That way, when Things Went Wrong, not everyone suffered.

As time went on, there were not many 2000 HP prop engines for NACA^H^H NASA to test, so other work moved in.

One sunny day, Plant Protection decided it was fire drill time. Now, in grade school, they pull the alarm, and time your exit. PP was ....more dedicated.... They showed up in plain clothes, and threw a few smoke grenades down the hall, and just waited.

So the erstwhile researcher was slaving away in his test cell when the Evac Alarm went off. You do not ever ignore an Evac Alarm -- even if you wanted to, you'd soon be deaf; and fired. OSHA must have turned them down by now, but *^%*^& were they loud!!

So, being smarter than the average PhD, our hero goes to the door, feels it carefully [not hot], undogs it and cracks it. Smoke POURS in. He slams the door, redogs it and goes to the phone. He dials "17" {the emergency number on the antique PAX...} only to discover... they can't hear him and he can't hear them...that damned horn, you see, is mounted near the phone.

The problem is, there's no other way out. The outside wall was glass block, solid. He bangs on it with a hammer, no joy.

But the smoke is creeping in under the door. So he takes a K bottle of CO2 or N2 and sets in on the counter, aimed it at the block. He figures he'll shear off the valve with a hatchet, the tank will punch its way out through the block, and he escapes.

BUT.. he is no fool. He knows that he may well go deaf from the noise of the 3000+psi gas escaping, and the cylinder can go any way IT wants... so he delays, and attacks the glass block with the hammer and screwdriver, as the smoke keeps coming.

He finally manages to punch a small hole through...

The rest of the building staff is standing across the road waiting for the building to clear of smoke when they see an arm waving....

When PP entered the cell in Scott Air Packs and saw the cylinder and the hammer, and listened to what he'd planned.....errr.

Thereafter, PP showed up and pulled the alarm, no more smoke grenades.

The End.

I suspect that a small gasoline/propane motor and compressor will do you better service for less money. Pick something annoying like a hopped up chainsaw engine (2-stroke) to get the weight down if that's an issue. And/or dual-purpose the motor to give the cart drive power.

Hard to be sure, but I suppose you could hook a different regulator to the appropriate tank connection. Can't change the tank connection too much and still get a fill at the usual fill stations. If you got your own high pressure compressor you could build to suit, but that is a large chunk of change to play with.

How many CFM you need for a particular tool is basically going to set a lower limit on how far you can draw down the tank and still have it flow adequately. The FD response indicates hope for 10 minutes or so of use, at least with their tools. For intermittent use you could also futz around with feeding a 150PSI tank from the high pressure regulator, and feeding your tool 90PSI (or whatever) from that, with more weight to drag and increased complexity/expense.

Shame you were not clos by. I just scrapped out 50 SCBA bottles. Some were brand new aluminum 2215s and I had regulators that fit them...

Do still have a couple steel Survive air tanks on hand (they make nice bells when you cut the bottom out)

Not allowed in the yard, alas.