Air compressors?

[evolutionmovement]

I'm pricing a 220V drop to my garage for an air compressor. I'll be using it for sand blasting (making a cabinet big enough for a bumper), painting, and grinding among other things, and I'm looking at a 60 gal. oiled Campbell Hausfeld The reviews all look good and the price seems decent to me (probably because they don't include a regulator and such), but does anyone here have any recommendations or suggestions?

[gijonas]

My only recommendation is not to buy a CH unit,junk in my opinion.I mainly say this because a decent quality unit can be had for not much more money if you shop around.Also a 60 gal is about the minimum for the volume needed to blast without it running constantly,however even a 60 will run almost constantly if you are working for long periods.This is another reason to avoid the campbell compressor,they may be ok for light duty but they wont handle it for long if blasting.I use and abuse the shit out or my 60 gal porter cable (which is not the best) including sand blasting and i have had zero problems in 3 years of daily shop use.

[evolutionmovement]

Thanks. That's the kind of thing I was wondering. Reviews are great, but you never know who wrote them and generally are written shortly after purchase anyway and I don't know anything about the different brands' reputations. I won't be using it that often, so I don't need the best there is, but will be using it for longer periods when I do and I don't want to buy junk, either as long as the cost is reasonable. I look at it as still being cheaper than having someone else paint my car and a sandblaster is always handy.

I'll look into the PC. Anyone else have any recommendations? I'd like to be able to compare a few decent brands. What about the Ingersoll Rands? I wasn't so impressed with some of their air tools I've used, but their compressors seem to get a lot of mention, for what that's worth.

[Buffman]

IR. My inlaws have an 80 gallon unit they got a hell of a deal on at TSC. Great compressor. I love my IR 1/2" impact. well worth the $300 I paid for it.

[93forestpearl]

My Sanborn 60 gal has been solid, and I've ran at it at some high duty cycles. I did get it for $300 though...


If I were to buy new, it would be an Ingersoll, or a Cast Air (C'Air). I'd actually take the Cast Air over the Ingersoll.



I can't complain about the Sanborn though. It runs a rotary tool without issue, and I can paint cars with it. Its a 5hp model, and the oil was pretty clean after a year.





What are you looking to spend, Steve? I found some amazing stuff on Craigslist. I missed out on an awesome 80 gal 7.5 hp unit for $400 by a day.

[evolutionmovement]

I don't know what the 220V drop will cost yet, but I'd really like to keep everything under $1k (minus misc. hoses and fittings). The thing is that we're also upgrading the fuse box to breakers, scraping and painting the house, replacing the garage and front doors, and that's on top of a bunch of other, albeit cheaper, stuff we've already done this spring. I can have the drop done now and get the compressor later, but the delay to restoring Duchess that the house has caused is ticking me off so I'd like to feel like I'm making more progress on that front by getting a compressor and arguing it will save money because I could paint the car myself. Also, building a big sandblaster cabinet would be fun, but kind of pointless without a compressor. I'm also a cheap man who's savings are getting shorter and having been on the bad side of starving a couple of times, that makes me a little more uncomfortable than I'd like.

Used isn't a bad idea, but transportation would be a big problem and, other than looking for the obvious, I'm not sure I'd recognize a bad one.

[gijonas]

IR is good stuff.I would not hesitate to buy one.If you are on a budget just keep an eye out for a used one from a shop that is upgrading or something.In reality a quality unit from the 60's would be better than new junk,even if it needs new parts it would be worth it,air compressors aren't exactly hard to work on.

[evolutionmovement]

Don't the tanks rust out?

[entirelyturbo]

I only have experience with my household 120V Craftsman compressor...

But mine is upright and has a valve on the bottom. When you depressurize it, you open that valve up when you have about 20psi left, and it forces all the condensation out of the tank.

I dunno if the bigger badder compressors like you're looking at have such a feature.

My grandfather had a Campbell-Hausfeld portable DC cigarette-lighter compressor for filling up flat tires. I filled up a flat tire with it once and it was smoking before the tire was even full.

I've heard nothing bad about Ingersoll-Rand.

[evolutionmovement]

Cool. I'm seeing decent prices on the IRs and PCs.

[93forestpearl]

If you have a breaker box in the garage, running 220 to the compressor shouldn't be a big deal.

[evolutionmovement]

The breaker box is going into the basement, but the garage is attached and it should just be a matter of running it with the 110 that's already there.

[fishbone79]

I know this is a pretty old thread, but thought I would chime in anyway...

Heres my 80 gallon IR:


I've never had a single problem with it, and it's got a gazillion hours on it now. With my HVLP basecoat gun, this compressor is hardly needed. When I run my 1960's Devilbis primer gun, it runs at something like 70-80% duty - I don't know how to lay nice primer with a more efficient gun.

I'm at 100% of the duty cycle when sandblasting, but what saves the motor on my compressor is that I've got it wired through an industrial set of motor starters with heaters (blue box hanging off the side in that pic). My old man has his 3-phase woodworking machines wired through these (he's a cabinet maker) - they're crucial if you ever get close to the edge of your duty cycle. The wiring recommended for this compressor was 12Ga single strand from the wall, but I wanted braided (because of vibration) so I went with 10 Ga. I've never tripped the heater or the circuit.

Also, a good regulator and set of line dryers was key to good sandblasting (absolutely necessary for paint). If water comes out with your sand, you'll have rust issues no matter what you do (there's already allot of ions in sand, so the salt catalyst for rust is an issue). I've actually switched over entirely to glass beads (which are reusable anyway). In the humid northeast, I have to drain the water off the bottom of the compressor tank every day. If it runs all day sometimes more than a gallon will come out of there, so I piped a valve to a right angle off the bottom (removing the shitty petcock) to make it easier to drain.

[evolutionmovement]

Thanks! The more info, the better. I still haven't ordered one yet.

[Redlined]

Being a professional Industrial Sandblaster my vote goes to the Ingersoll-Rand Compressors. Now my experience with them IS limited to the huge industrial types (think 250 to 1600 cfm) but I've put thousands of hours in and they work with diehard reliability.

I also agree with Fishbone that in line dryers are a must for both painting and blasting. Though, in blasting, the media you use will be affected to greater or lesser extent by excess moister (glass beads being "not at all affected" and Sodium being "entirely worthless") your still exposing raw substrate (whatever it is your blasting) to moisture. Steel can exhibit visible rust in less that 2 hours, Using dry air helps protect your project till your ready to paint.

*notices everyone staring* What? I can know shit!