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What air compressor to get?

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Davefr

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And roofing nail guns, and impact wrenches, and intermittent cut off wheel use.


...and pneumatic ratchets, detail and limited HVLP paint spraying, medium impact hammer, riveter, air saw, air shears, needle scaler, grease gun, etc.

Just forget about most continuous sanding, drilling, grinding.
 

mengel

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Sep 17, 2009
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My personal experience with my Sanborn. Should be OK on 120V, NOT. The 1.6HP would trip all the time, and I did replace the 20A breaker. There was an ability to rewire it for 240V. Now it works perfect. It still can not keep up with my DA sander.
I suppose I could replace the motor pulley with a smaller one, convert it back to 120 and give it to a stepson.
 

Citation

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My personal experience with my Sanborn. Should be OK on 120V, NOT. The 1.6HP would trip all the time, and I did replace the 20A breaker. There was an ability to rewire it for 240V. Now it works perfect. It still can not keep up with my DA sander.
I suppose I could replace the motor pulley with a smaller one, convert it back to 120 and give it to a stepson.

This raises a good point. Wiring matters. In my current garage my Emlgo compressor had trouble starting when cold. The problem is the wires to the garage are not heavy enough and the voltage sag is too much. The same compressor had no trouble starting when plugged in near the circuit breaker. If your wiring is just so so you may have issues with your compressor when starting/cold. Oiled compressors will be worse in this regard.
 
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bob15

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This raises a good point. Wiring matters. In my current garage my Emlgo compressor had trouble starting when cold. The problem is the wires to the garage are not heavy enough and the voltage sag is too much. The same compressor had no trouble starting when plugged in near the circuit breaker. If your wiring is just so so you may have issues with your compressor when starting/cold. Oiled compressors will be worse in this regard.

Why you need to look at the pour point of the compressor oil you use and look at the actual air temps the compressor will see.

If you have too small of a wire going to the compressor (enough to drop the start-up voltage), you really should look at rewiring it. That is a fire waiting to happen.....not to mention a burned out motor from too low of a voltage
 

Citation

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Why you need to look at the pour point of the compressor oil you use and look at the actual air temps the compressor will see.

If you have too small of a wire going to the compressor (enough to drop the start-up voltage), you really should look at rewiring it. That is a fire waiting to happen.....not to mention a burned out motor from too low of a voltage

The garage wiring is the real issue and I intend to correct it as soon as I have the spare time. In the short term it means generally keep my power consumption under 10 amps (thus mostly use my CAT compressor).

The real issue isn't actually the garage wiring. The knob and tube stuff was removed long ago. The current wiring is 12/3 to the building (a run of about 20 ft from the house) and 14/2 inside. The ugly bit is how ever some idiot connected it to the house. The garage and the downstairs half bath are on the same circuit! Oh, and a single upstairs hall outlet. This is why I hate old houses. Oh, it's also not grounded.

Anyway, the solution isn't too bad. Since the exterior wires are all good, what I'm going to do is put a dedicated breaker into the panel (dual 120V, 20A) and rerun the part that went into the house right to the panel. There is plenty of wire for that job. The worst part will be dealing with going through a bit of drywall around the panel. Well that and finding time. Initially I had planned to ignore the issue until we built a new garage. However, the cost of a new building quickly went out of control so I'm working on fixing up the under sized garage the place came with. Sadly my garage ambitions were squelched by my wife's "old home with character" ambitions. But that's another story :D
 
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hi. best bets are Ingersoll rand (u.s-italian), atlas copco, Hyundai, Kaiser (german)....go Kaiser or atlas-copco rotary screw if u want smooth and quiet running. Kaiser and atlas copco are top shelf seriousschitt gear.
 

K'ledgeBldr

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Aug 22, 2011
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Johns Creek, GA
I'll keep to the OP's original question-

The best you can afford, that will fit the space you intend to put it, and you have adequate electrical supply readily available.

If you can't meet those requirements, it doesn't really matter what it's capable of doing, or the name on the side of it!
 
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