Air Compressor Recommendation

Accompanied by the sound of a chisel on slate DervMan, managed to produce the following words of wisdom

I got mine from Motor World. It's a Road Angel or somesuchbullshitname but it's excellent.

Was "reduced" from £30 to £10 when I bought it.

If you're inflating your car tyres that often getting the puncture repaired will be more cost effective :-) All the mains ones even the £40 ones from B&Q are far better than the

12Vones.

Or there's a lot of Senco combined units knocking around at the moment.

DervMan ("DervMan" ) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

If it's "need (want, meh)", then I suspect you're tring to justify one of these to yourself...

JUST DO IT, MAN.

Heh, I've got one of those with a diesel engine. Portable it aint.

I have seen a portable compressor designed for touch up spraying or drivign an air tool remotely. It was very well made with two quick release air fittings and a small receiver of around three litres. It was powered by 12V batteries and possibly the best of these small portable jobs that I have seen. Sadly I can't remember who made it.

I'll have a scout around and see if I can find details.

The halfords digital is excellent, known people using weekly for a year plus with no troubles.

You want one just for topping up tyres in normal use? Not for air operated tools or spraying, tyre changing etc?

I bought one built into a jump start pack from Lidl several years ago. It got a lot of use with the SD1 where the wheels had started corroding or whatever. But still works fine - and it's aslo been used for jump starting quite a few cars. Cost 20 quid and owes me nothing.

I think there's a big jump in size/weight/cost between this sort of device and something capable of inflating tyres quickly. And probably not available in 12 volts.

Single phase 2hp compressor with 50l receiver at Netto at the mo' for £60. That'd make short work of a tyre or two :)

That's a decent deal.

I have a 25litre 2.5hp job which is decently powerful without being a monster. Wouldn't fancy painting a car with it, but it fair inflates tyres and bouncy castles. Also runs a rattle gun too.

Current project - installing engine hoist gantry. To fit the netto hoist that JoelP sent me up.

Mine a bit knackered at the mo', the outlet pressure regulator stopped letting air out at all so I've bypassed it. As always, I'll keep a look out for an old cheap one ;)

That netto engine hoist of ours has been worth it's weight in gold, the number of times we've had the engine in and out using it is kinda embarassing :) It's strong enough to lift half the car up too if you even need it on stands.

"engine hoist gantry" sounds a bit pro, I used a couple of fence posts ;)

That's the sort of thing I want! :)

Wrong fuel though, innit?

That's the sort of thing...

Charlie has a half-baked idea that she wants a nail gun capable compressor, but I can put paid to that idea fairly easily.

Gotcha: Lidl.

You have issues with Lidl? I think Lidl/Aldi/Netto all pretty much sell the same stuff and I haven't had any problems with the compressor I got from Lidl (or Aldi) a year or so ago, it cost 60 squid and came with a windy gun, various accessories and airline etc. The only thing I didn't like were the connectors, so I changed the output on the compressor for a PCL one. It drives my windy gun, ratchet, nail gun and tyre inflator no probs.

I always check out the Lidl leaflet when it comes through the door now just in case there's something else decent coming up. Wish they'd do a lathe.

Steve

Now, if you can track down this thing here in the UK....

This review may be helpful (if you believe AutoExpress is unbiased):

OK, here's one (mains only) which is on sale at my local B&Q and also online. It looked decent in the store.

Possibly the best combination of just about portable and useful looking for a reasonable price. The negative point is that it's not rechargeable. OTOH you could charge the receiver and run it for a time without pumping. They also have two larger units and they appear well made for the money.

I'm fairly sure the battery powered one was NuTool which could be a bad sign. I still can't find it, although there is something similar sold in the USA:

I'd guess the above is about exactly what you are looking for? It may be worth importing if the transport isn't ruinous.

This is the only NuTool I can find so far, but it doesn't look right. I'm sure the one I remember was designed to be shoulder carried and had a rechargeable battery like the Hausfeld above.

DeWalt make one, at a price:

I bought one of these, from this supplier:

It's to be used for harvesting olives so it will be carried on a platform on the tractor. It's pretty decent for the money, although the belts were badly tensioned on delivery.

And finally, we used to use these pancake style compressors for powering pneumatic equipment (gamma counters, tissue processors and auto analysers). The main advantage is that they are cheap, light and quiet. However they won't drive a spraygun if that's what you want one for.

I don't have a suitable outside bit to do that, and I'm working on my own as well. Car has to stay in the shed and move the engine around it.

It'll be worth the little effort involved and the steel only cost thrity quid. Roller bearings are a fiver. Bolts seven quid from screwfix.

Forty two quid isn't bad to have hoist on rollers in the garage.

Ugly yellow one? Apart from the odd connectors (I fixed that with an extension with a PLC on one end) the only problem I've had is the gauge on the tyre line had a random bit of plastic floating round in it. It gets regular use across my fleet as well as through my PCs as an air duster though the windy is a bit more of a weedy gun.