A compressor for Christmas?

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air compressor for Christmas
(Last Updated On: August 3, 2020)

Why not? There’s a huge array of low cost DIY home workshop compressors available throughout North America these days. Probably the rest of the world too, though I haven’t travelled off continent lately.

It seems for under $200 you can get a compressor and a combi-kit containing all manner of accessories and tools for the compressor.

Do you need a compressor? Yup! Absolutely? Well maybe not an absolute necessity. But once you’ve got one, you’ll find all sorts of uses for compressed air, and they really are a handy device.

One thing you must understand. No home workshop DIY type air compressor running on 120 VAC power can deliver enough compressed air fast enough for you to run air tools for more than a short time before your unit runs out of air.

So what?

When you’re working at home, there’s no assembly-line-pressure. You just put down the tool and do something else for the minute or so that it will take your compressor to come back up to cut-out pressure and to stop again.

Either found under my tree, or in an envelope (in the form of a purpose-specific gift certificate) it’s a Christmas gift that keeps on giving, for years after the lucky recipient received it.

Hello, I am Bill, the Compressed-Air-Man. I have years of experience in industrial and residential compressed air applications, air compressors and general pneumatics. I created this site to help professionals, students, and DIYers understand and properly implement and maintain compress3ed air systems.

4 COMMENTS

  1. Joe…thanks for the tip.

    It can’t be said often enough that the typical home power supply really can’t provide industrial quantities of compressed air. Though, I’ve done lots of work at home with my small, 1.5HP / 3 gallon tank compressor you just have to be patient while the unit “catches up”.

    I’ve good feelings about Exair having sold your products from time to time over the years. If you’d care to send me tips and information on using your products, I’d be pleased to feature some of them on http://www.about-air-compressors.com.

    Cheers,

    Bill

  2. When shopping for a compressor check the label for how may CFM it can produce @ 90 PSI. There is a lot of ahem…marketing inconsistencies.

    Some claim horsepower others claim gallon size of tank. Bottom line is that you are interested in the capacity of the compressor. About the most you will be able to get on a 20 amp 115V circuit is 4 CFM.

    Pulling that many amps does not make it very portable. You will have to have a extra heavy duty extension cord 25 foot or less.

    The importance of the size of the tank is that it acts as a reservoir. When you are using a tool that consumes more air than the compressor the longer you can run the tool before you have to shut it off and wait for the compressor to catch up.

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