Compressor thoughts?

[raynerd]

Having previously had a basement workshop and working at night when the kids were asleep, I owned a cheap compressor for a week before I got rid! I'm not outside and so I can handle the noise better. Do you guys all use compressors? What have you got? What do you use them for mainly? Do you run air tools?
Chris

[awemawson]

4 kW Hydrovane with pressure switch set to 120 psi on 24/7 and piped between four buildings. Hours meter across motor so that I can keep an eye on unnecessary running due to leaks. Backed up by '3 tool road compressor' for the bigger jobs. Compressed air plumbed to all parts of the workshop  with blow guns on flexy hoses in several places . CNC mill has it's own drop from the ring.

[John Rudd]

Awweee..... Now you're just bragging Andrew......

I have a 3hp compressor with a 100 litre tank delivering 14cfm and a 2.5hp unit delivering 8cfm in to a 50 litre receiver.... around 100 psi....
I use them for Impact drivers, shot blasting cabinet and general paint spraying, and blowing up the tyres on the car/caravan 

[doubleboost]

Hydrovane

This video shows it better
Great bit of kit very quiet

John

[Spurry]

I have a couple of Hydrovanes, purchased because of the noise aspect of normal compressors. Apart from uses mentioned above, I have used it with an angle wrench to open and close the vice jaws on the mill, with a descaler gun to clean cement off a mixer, and with an air drill in a jig to tap m3 and 1/8" whit threads. To have a plasma cutter to use it with, would be nice though.
Pete

[awemawson]

"Awweee..... Now you're just bragging Andrew...... "

Probably John but he did ask 

One VERY useful thing I added earlier this year was an outside air hose reel of the 'garage forecourt' style complete with inflator mounted on a shed wall - intended for inflating tyres on the numerous vehicles here it has proved very useful when outdoor paint spraying. It turned up locally on eBay and no one else bid  One aside use is blowing out insides of computers as the dust stays outside !

[Arbalist]

We had a couple of hydrovane compressors at work. Not silent but very much quieter than a normal compressor. Outside the budget of most hobbyists though, you really need to have a good reason to spend £1600 for air dusting or blowing up tyres! Not sure why the Far East haven't copied them yet, I'm sure a smaller version could land here for a couple of hundred quid.

[AdeV]

I've got a 5hp compressor feeding its own 100ltr receiver, and an additional 150ltr receiver, so I've got tons of air on tap. I bought pretty much every air tool Screwfix/Toolstation do - drill, cut-off grinder (waste of time that one, no torque), air shears, nibbler, hammer wrench, ordinary wrench, inflator, air gun, sprayer, solvent sprayer... I've also just bought a Sealy air punch/joggler tool (brilliant) and I'm just ordering an air belt sander to get into those tight spots on the car where the grinding disks won't reach.

Air tools are great

[Jonny]

Just a cheap 3hp 90ltr 10bar (145psi) for normal every day use as a blow gun. Gets used daily but for me not worth investing in larger neither could I power it whilst other machines are running.

I open a tap up to feed in to my hard plumbed in network to old Clark compressor 100ltr tank via dedicated  large bore water trap and reg with drop off points. Also the way run bead blaster but with another  filter and reg hard plumbed in 15mm bore piping which aids cooling. Production repetition I hate but might but not always power a Noga mister.

Do have right angled drills, tyre inflators, paraffin guns great for cleaning engines, impact drivers, grease gun contained quirts oil in to machine nipples, bulk feed grease gun no use, spray gun and HVLP spray gun.

The cheap don't last that long, had to get one fairly quick last year via ebay think it was £270 delivered to replace the Clark the pump had packed up. Not much difference in price to replace plus retained the 100ltr tank and motor.  The small sub £160 ones aren't any good for anything other than a blow gun but will blow a tyre up eventually, gave one of them away.

[raynerd]

Hi guys, not been on here for a while and moved house shortly after posting so the entire thread became irrelevant to me. Ive now moved house and the workshop is not attached to the house so the purchase of a compressor has come back on the cards. I was working at a friends of a friends garage on my own car and his air tools made me want my own setup as I think they would be very useful! The air hammer wrench was fantastic as was the high speed Dremel like tool he used for deburing.

I don't really know what I am looking at. I'm going to have to go second hand because I can't afford new but to give me a useful setup that is worth having, what should I be looking for in terms of pressure and volume ?

I looked at the hydrovanes that John posted but the price of those is crazy! No noise is not so much of a consideration, anything else make and model wise that I should be searching for?

Chris

[awemawson]

Be very skeptical regarding claims for cfm and horsepower regarding compressors. It's a minefield with obfuscation and downright lies from some importers

[vtsteam]

What does your friend's friend have, and how does he feel about it?



ps. I don't know what Andrew is on about. Simply divide any compressor mfr. spec by 4 to get hp and cfm (works for metric units, too).   

[mattinker]

I went looking for a 200litre compressor ( any smaller and you risque not having enough air) and ended up with a 500litre one that had been well maintained in a hospital. Unless I do a lot of plasma cutting or sand blasting, it will run briefly maybe once every couple of days. The great thing is I never have to wait for it to build up pressure. It wasn't any more expensive than the ones that were half the size as it was too big for most people. It is three phase, which I have.

Regards, Matthew

[John Hill]

I have a cheap little compressor, combined motor compressor on a small tank and the best thing I bought to go with it is its own little garden shed!  I can switch it off and on from inside the shop and if I forget to switch it off I hear it start up in the middle of the night.

[awemawson]

Yes even my Hydrovane is tucked away in a Portakabin remote from the workshop as they are by no means silent. It's the biggest single phase one you can get, which is 4 hp iirc. It runs a distribution system around the workshops in 25 mm blue mdpe water pipe that significantly adds to its storage capacity. I've a 3 tool 'road compressor ' that I hook into the distribution network if I'm using the blasting cabinet. Otherwise the Hydrovane is very adequate for my needs.

[raynerd]

What does your friend's friend have, and how does he feel about it?

Tried to ask but he was good enough letting me do my work at his garage and was busy. Doubt I'll get the opportunity again soon.

I actually have a shed right next to the garage and wondered about putting it in the cornered of the shed. I don't know if you could box it up a little more and sound proof it a touch or if that would cause over heating? Just a thought.

I'll keep reading... Looks like 3hp + with minimum 200l tank.

[PekkaNF]

I have "oiles" piston compressor, maybe 2,2Kw motor and maybe 20l reservoir. It's very loud. Therefore I have two smaller airbruch size compressors for other jobs.

I use some air tools very ocassionally when chances are the you don't
a) want to start fire (E.G. working on 1m tall 18m deep space between ceiling and roof)
b) risk of electocution, like rain, water bogged something or too much conductive stuff around

Is some cases compressed air is safer. On the other hand you don't want hose to run amok.

Overall efficiency of compressed air system is very low, you need about 10x more feeder than good electric motor....therefore my compressed air tools tend to be small, but a small low rpm drill still can drive fairly big hole saw on most build materials.

Paint spraying and nailguns work just so much better with compressed air that it's all worth it.

I'm dreaming of small size big capacity, low rpm unit, something like this, but way over 3kW 3phase:
http://www.ferramentaveneta-toolshop.com/Compressore-Gentilin-C330/24

Pekka

[hermetic]

I have mine in a concrete block shed, just bigger than the compressor, which is a 5Hp 22cu ft min twin cylinder broomwade. The vast majority of the noise comes from the air intake. I junked the little paper element and fitted a tractor style oil bath filter, and it made a huge difference to noise levels. Although an oil filled filter is counter intuitive, it has been there since the early eighties, and in that time has sprayed hundreds of cars with many different types of paint, without any problems at all, and I only use a normal pressure reducer/water intercepter on the line.
Phil

[Arbalist]

My 2HP 25Litre compressor is noisy as well but it's surprising what you can do with them. I like a sand blasted finish on some items and my little compressor runs a Clarke Sand Blasting Cabinet without too much trouble although I'm only blasting small stuff once in a while.

[vtsteam]

I have the same as Arbalist. I built my house with the nailgun with it. And I haven't run out of capacity on the small stuff I do -- nailguns, sprayer, small die grinder. But for bigger tools or big sandblasting jobs  also agree that if you have the money and space for it, bigger is better for a fixed compressor.

If you need to wheel it around for outside jobs or building a house, maybe smaller is better. All depends on what you need it for.