Air compressor recommendations

[Micke_Sahil]

The Best Air Compressors

• 1-Gallon. Rolair AB5Plus.
• 1.2-Gallon. Bostitch CAP1512-OF.
• 2.5-Gallon. Senco PC0968.
• 3-Gallon. Makita MAC320Q.

and the list gose on...

[BigAl205]

Spammers gose on the banned list

[rob feature]

Since this got bumped back up - I picked up the 1 gal Makita Quiet Series for my home bike shop. It's in the house, so I wanted something quiet and out of the way. This little thing is the tits. It's super quiet - can't hear it in the other rooms. Build quality is great. Has enough capacity to seat large tubeless MTB tires - even fatbikes. It's not a good garage compressor - have a standup for that, but if you need compressed air in the house (and who doesn't?) it's hard to beat!

[BigAl205]

I got the California Air Tools compressor a couple of years ago and it's not much louder than a microwave.

https://www.amazon.com/California-Ai...%2C217&sr=8-13

[rob feature]

The quiet is nice, eh? I have to use earplugs if I'm running my 30 gal Husky.

Current draw is also low on these little guys so you can run them off an inverter. Who couldn't use an air compressor in the truck?

[BigAl205]

At my last meet, I ran the Bostitch pancake compressor for a few second, then switched on the CAT compressor. One person exclaimed "You've gotta be fukkin kidding me"

[dookie]

I got the California Air Tools compressor a couple of years ago and it's not much louder than a microwave.

https://www.amazon.com/California-Ai...%2C217&sr=8-13

I have the same one. Quality seems great and it is unbelievably quiet. Also, aluminum tanks make it lighter.

[geolemon]

This looks promising - I'd even consider impulse buying this to replace my still newish 20 gallon LOUD compressor.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Husky-20...311273546-_-N&

I love the vertical format because the footprint is small. I love mine.

I wouldn't go smaller than a 20 gallon personally - it's got enough air to get stuff done. I've even painted a car with an old one I had, and even used a vacuum venturi for overnight for vacuum bagging a composite project.

True story - we had a foundation crack buried behind drywall in the basement. After removing the drywall, I tried borrowing a pancake compressor and it simply didn't have the air or the pressure to run my air hammer. Fortunately my 20 gallon wasn't too tough to wheel down the stairs and I jackhammered 3" deep, floor to ceiling.
And I often use a Mac impact gun and never had a need for more power.

And this one looks promising because it's priced inexpensively, if it's truly quiet as advertised. Mine is so loud I'm worried about my neighbors complaining every time I fire it up.

Big enough to be powerful when you need, small enough to be portable if needed, quiet > loud, and bang-for-the-buck is a good thing.

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[Whiterabbit]

I wonder if I can hook one up to a secondary tank. There is a real hyperbolic price curve on these things.

1/2 gal, $200
1 gal, $225
2 gal, $275
6 gal, $325
10 gal, $450
20 gal, $900
60 gal, $3000

Why no 30-40 gal option at the $1000 price point, or less. they cut off at 20. Air body saw runs the tank immediately. Primer sprayer also depletes the tank instantly. 30 is marginal but doable. 60 gal is overkill on the pocketbook.

Putting a 10 or 20 gal passive tank inline right off the main tank might be good, wonder if that would cause undue stress on the compressor.

[geolemon]

I really think it depends on how often you are abusing it. Adding a larger tank could shift the equation from "infrequent" to "every time it fires up", but maybe I'm not quite thinking of it correctly:

Air compressors have a "duty cycle" for the percentage of time the motor is supposed to run before you are being abusive to it, so that's worth digging out of the spec sheet.

But like I said - I painted an entire car black with my old, cheap 20 gallon Porter Cable compressor... And later, used a vacuum venturi that basically had my compressor running constantly to make that vacuum - for like 8 hours straight. And it didn't die.
Other than that I didn't really abuse it.

Of course I can't say that is true for every cheap - or expensive - compressor, but I have a feeling that duty cycle factors into how often you abuse it - but adding a larger tank WOULD definitely run the motor longer.

Honestly, for portability alone (the emergency air-hammer chiseling in my basement is an example of why) I'll probably stick with a 20 (maybe 25 or 30, but that's starting to get huge) gallon vertical compressor, at risk of infrequently abusing it.

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