Guide to electric air compressors for home shops

And noise. Put it somewhere NOT where the people are. Use big shock mounts and flexible lines to avoid coupling.

And that advice would apply rather you are buying an oilless or not. While a slight amount of oil had very little effect on solvent based paints, that is not the case with today's water based epoxy and latex paints.

Some of the auto paint shops in my area have switched to turbines and HVLP guns for use with water based finishes that get destroyed by the smallest amount of oil.

What brand/model compressor is this? Price?

On Fri, 12 Dec 2008 06:39:36 -0800, Smitty Two cast forth these pearls of wisdom...:

As is true of most everything. We do however tend to fall back to the rule, rather than the exception, since for 99% of the folks, the exception is either out of their reach, or in some other way, not really applicable. That makes the rule (for all intents and purposes) seem more absolute.

I do agree that in the greater sense of understanding something, the exception should be noted.

Not a bad article, if you don't mind the tone of the Very Authoritative Home-moaner.

But as far as size goes, buying small-ish isn't necessarily a bad thing, as compressors are simply additive. Three small compressors should be exactly equivalent to one big one, with a few advantages:

1. You now have inherent staging, with all of its advantages: reduced electrical surge/"demand"; greater economy at low demand. Would proly need better pressure regulators in each unit, tho, as those in small units are usually not the best.
2. Likely quieter. Doubling the number of sources of the same noise only adds 3 db, vs. perhaps a much greater decibel increase of a larger unit. ie, two trumpets each at the same db is not as loud as one trumpet played more forcefully.
3. Smaller = portable, if nec.
4. May be easier to fit numerous smaller compressors in nooks and crannies.

1. Repair is easier, due to redundancy -- you won't be totally out of air. And Quincy's are nice, but I could proly buy a whole new small HD/c.h. for the price of one Q repair.

2. One can be set up for special apps, like painting, etc.

Proly some other advantages, as well.

HD/campbell hausefeld has a very nice upright 30 gal compressor, dual voltage motor, belt driven cast iron compressor w/oil, sight glass, wheels, VERY quiet. I would buy multiples of these in a minute.

Also, in many cases, larger resevoir volume is all that is needed, not a bigger compressor. I have numerous small makeup tanks for about 70 gals, works great with one small compressor. Would work even for air tools, depending on how much you use them vs. your total gallons.

5HP on a 120 volt circuit? Somebody is pulling your leg, but looks like you realize it! I bought a Porter Cable 7HP, (sure you betcha), 60 gallon tank compressor a few years ago. Motor amps tell me that it is closer to 3 HP. It does all I want it to do. I can run any air drill, DA sander I have, and it just about keeps up. And what I mean by that is for a home, weekend warrior shop it is just fine. I don't drill or sand continuously for hours on end. By the time the tank starts to run a bit low I am ready for a 30 second break, and the the compressor catches up again. Really I don't even notice any short comings. If you planed on running a sander continuously with no break at all it will not keep up. In my opinion, most any one man home shop can get along nicely with 10 CFM at 90 PSI. Greg

I will argue that point! Seems to me that the larger HP cast iron pump compressors are very quiet, certainly when compared to a 1HP oil less unit. My cheapy 7HP, (really about

3HP) Porter Cable is quieter than the 1-1/2 Craftsman it replaced. Much quieter than the oil less models we have at my job. Some of the 5HP cast iron compressors are strangely quiet. Low RPM pump and motor reduce noise a bunch, but at a premium price. Greg

Hi, My main goal was to use it to blow sprinkler system in the fall. What I got does it OK but very slowly. Wish I had a bigger one. Then I hve to run 208 circuit for it. As a compromise I am happy ith what I have. That Hp rating is bogus. They don't tell trun Hp, they invented a term peak Hp to fool general consumers. They do the same with stereo system. When they brag about 200W output power it is barely 50W rms.

If you paint and don't want to have any problems, get a bottle of dry Nitrogen and a good two stage regulator. NO oil No water that you can blame as to your quality of the paint job. :)

John

175 lb. is not enough pressure for many Jet aircraft tires, and most of the time dry nitrogen is used because of that fact. I remember a couple of jets taking 250 lb. in the mains. The Jetstar was one.

John

If I ever have a JetStar then I'll worry about getting a bigger compressor.

Geez, how rich do you think that the people hanging out here _are_?

I'm so poor my prop only has one blade...

I've worked in a few factories. They start out with two big enough compressors with one providing redundancy. Then slowly the demand gets to the point that both have to run to keep the largest shift running.

Now in the beginning, management signed off on a spare but later on they can't seem to get it into their head they need to buy another spare. They look like it is an acquisition I look at it as replacing a loss.

Wes

You've got a prop? Why in my day we had to flap our arms . . .

They are very creative about horsepower ratings, same with shop vacs and power ratings of cheap audio amplifiers. Ought to be illegal to fudge them so severely but so far it isn't. There's the whole "peak HP" thing they use, worthless number, but it sounds impressive.

If God had meant men to fly, we would have been born with a propeller.

Wes wrote in news:R1V0l.357842$ snipped-for-privacy@en-nntp-09.dc.easynews.com:

Management tends to think in terms of what I call "The Anvil Theory": All equipment and furnishings (other than THEIR office furnishings, that is) is like an anvil - buy one, use it forever, no maintenance required, no replacement required. [Note: even anvils may require occasional maintenance!]