Aircompressor

[clifpa]

Hi all,

I was looking at one at Sears, pancake style. The guy turned it on for me and it was pretty noisey. The price was good though, under $300.

I remember one being advertised in Framing Mag that claimed to be very quiet and affordable.

Any suggestions on best of the best with an affordable price-tag?

Thanking you all in advance, as usual :D


Hey Framerguy, are you still here?

[GUMBY, GCF]

Cliffton
When you find that ( best of the best at an affordable price )let me know. I have never found the best of the best at an affordable price. But I will let you look for a Porsche with an affordable price, they are quiet.

[Ron Eggers]

Hey Framerguy, are you still here?
Framerguy is in Florida, getting settled in at his new shop and his new home. He promised to check in as soon as he gets hooked up. I talked to him late last week. I lied and said we miss him.

Cliffton, I have two compressors. One cost about $150. It sounds like a jack-hammer and I generally use it outside at home when I'm mad at my neighbors. The other cost about $850. It is very quiet. I understand it was designed for use in dental offices. (I don't want to know what dentists are going to do with them.)

For my applications, the performance of these two compressors is pretty similar, EXCEPT for the noise factor. The cheap one would usually kick in while I was on the phone or working with a little old lady who was easily frightened.

Spend the extra money, or put the compressor in a sound-proof bunker 100 yards away and run a very long hose.

[Kit]

Sears is to power tools as Michael's is to framing.

Clif, try shopping someplace serious. I bought my compressor from a farm and tractor supply shop for $185. (I realize that tractor stores are easier to find out here in the middle of the corn fields than they may be where you are, but you get the idea.) It's huge and very reliable. Since it lives in the attic, I wasn't too concerned about noise.

Ron might have been kidding when he suggested a sound proof bunker and a long hose but that idea works well for me. Does your compressor have to be in the shop? Is there anywhere else you could put it?

Kit

[Jerry Ervin]

Originally posted by clifpa:
Hi all,

I was looking at one at Sears, pancake style. The guy turned it on for me and it was pretty noisey. The price was good though, under $300.

I remember one being advertised in Framing Mag that claimed to be very quiet and affordable.

Any suggestions on best of the best with an affordable price-tag?

Thanking you all in advance, as usual :D


Hey Framerguy, are you still here? What do you plan to use it for? How big does it need to be?

I bought one at Wally World for around $100.00. It was labeled as "supper quiet" and it is. We use it to run a framing gun. You can talk with it running at your feet. So far it has performed flawlessly. The brand name is Campbell Hausfeild or something like that. They also sell them at Tractor Supply Company if you have one in your area.

Jerry

[Ron Eggers]

I never kid about air compressors.

Kit, do you have Fleet Farm up in your neighborhood? I have friends who, when they were married, registered only at Fleet Farm. Instead of toasters and china, they got useful stuff like barbed wire and cow bells. (Though you CAN buy a toaster at Fleet Farm.)

Where else can you get a cattle prod and a Nesco cooker with just one stop?

BTW, Jerry: At our house "supper quiet" is somewhere between a din and a deafening roar. Last night at supper my wife, bless her heart, asked my 15-year-old daughter to please use her "inside voice." Sarah replied, <font size=7>"THIS <U>IS</u> MY INSIDE VOICE!"</FONT>

[ 05-22-2003, 12:09 PM: Message edited by: Ron_Eggers ]

[Jerry Ervin]

That would be super.

Jerry

[Ron Eggers]

Oh.

Never mind.

[printmaker]

Originally posted by clifpa:
Hi all,

I was looking at one at Sears, pancake style. The guy turned it on for me and it was pretty noisey. The price was good though, under $300 ... Any suggestions on best of the best with an affordable price-tag? I just went through this process. I knew nothing about compressors, but needed one for a CMC I had ordered...

I started out at the Home Depot and luckily found a fellow who knew a lot about compressors - both the commercial units sold at the H.D., and the artsy "silent compressors". After speaking at length with him, 2 technicians who fixed (all types of) compressors, and 4 different suppliers of silent compressors, here are my conclusions (for better or worse):

-either type will do the job!
-the commercial compressors are really loud (who'd have guessed? smile.gif ) and have a shorter life span due to excessive vibration
-the "silent compressors" are basically refridgerator compressors with holding tanks and will, all things being equal, absolutely outlast the commercial variety as they're built to much tighter specifications (how often do we replace fridge compressors?)
-if noise is not an issue, the commercial variety is the far better buy
-if noise is an issue, and budget won't allow for a silent model, you can put the compressor in a remote area and run longer hoses without much problem ... you could also build a sound-dampening box to hold the compressor, as long as it has sufficient ventilation.

All things considered, we opted for the silent variety (of which there are numerous brands out there). These are not, by any stretch of the imagination "affordable" - but they are, indeed, quiet!

Best place for a silent compressor seems to be the larger air brush suppliers. I like the Home Depot for the commercial variety simply because of the no B.S. return policy.

I hope this is of some help.

Best of luck! :D

- printmaker -

[Jerry Ervin]

Originally posted by Ron_Eggers:
Oh.

Never mind. I love this place!

Jerry

[wpfay]

I just got a sale flier in the mail from Grizzly Industrial, Inc. (www.grizzly.com) and they have a number of compressors in the $100-200 range including DeWalt and Campbell Hausfeld as well as their own brand.
I have a pancake compressor in the "clean" work area which is moderately noisey and a Hitachi twin tank portable for the saw room which can wake the dead. They are both small capacity and will turn on frequently during regular use. If I were to do it all over, I would get a larger capacity compressor and run high pressure lines in from tne saw room.

[Mike Labbe @ GTP]

We bought the Campbell Hausfeld jack-hammer type from Home Depot (was on sale for $129 or so), back in January 2002. It was SO LOUD that we couldn't talk, so I drilled a hole in the floor (air hose) and it now lives in the basement. (in a sound dampening box)

I wish we had made the investment for a more quiet model, and that's what we'll do when this one dies. You get what you pay for! smile.gif

Mike

[soho]

Don't know if you have a Costco warehouse store in your area but here in sunny FLA-USA they have a Porter-Cable pancake style compressor that comes with a brad nailer! for $149.00. The brad nailer alone is a $70 purchase at Home Depot. It is moderately noisy but a great deal. For that price the noise doesn't seem so bad...Celine Dion is worse!!

[Pat Murphey]

I have a small shop that is open for sound to my gallery. I invested in a Jun-Air compressor from Larson 9 years ago. It's expensive ($1450) list, but if you negotiate with your Larson Rep I'll bet that you can do better. I consider it one of the better start-up choices that I made. It's still running, trouble free, and it is QUIET. :D

[D_Derbonne]

If your compressor is in the shop and you can afford a quiet one that is definitely the way to go. My shop came with a cheap, noisy compressor. It works fine, but when it starts up it is really noisy. We have gotten used to the noise...well I no longer jump and squeal when it comes on anyway.
It is a hazard to other unsuspecting people, meaning customers however. I've gotten into the habit of swithching it off when customers are in the store since I would rather not have to dial 911 because someone has gone into cardiac arrest from the fright!
So do yourself a favor and buy a quiet one.

[ 05-22-2003, 05:40 PM: Message edited by: D. Derbonne ]

[clifpa]

Hey,

Heck with the compressor, this is LOL fun. :D

Should have put this in Warp.

"Best of the Best", should I have asked for worse of the worst...wink.

I'm printing this thread out and will check each entry out. Quiet is the more important to me and money is second, so there... smile.gif

Thank you my friends.

[Kit]

Originally posted by Jerry Ervin:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Ron_Eggers:
Oh.

Never mind. I love this place!

Jerry </font>[/QUOTE]Jerry, one thing at a time, please. I'm still trying to convince Ron that 'surprise' doesn't have a 'z' in it.

Kit

[Ron Eggers]

Kit,

Are you sure it doezn't?

[Lance E]

Many dentistry tools are air driven to avoid the chance zapping someone. I believe the chairs also rekwire air.

The most commen brand here for the kwiet ones is "Junair" (sp?).

Avoid "direct drive" (noise making) compressors, Ron's neighbours must be very annoying!

[wpfay]

A compressor that Sounds like Celine Dion every time it comes on.... THAT would really be annoying!

[Ron Eggers]

I had a tooth extracted in the dentist's office several years ago 'cause there wasn't room for it. (I have a small, delicate mouth that looks just like this: :D ) The dentist used, I think, a vice-grips and a nut-cracker.

I refuse to believe they are really concerned about zapping anyone.

There is some interesting information about air compressors somewhere in this thread. Does direct-drive = oil-less = sounds like a jack hammer? I suspect so.

When I was a SCUBA diver/instructor, we had compressors that had to run at something like 4000 psi for some of the high-pressure tanks. Hydrostatic testing of SCUBA tanks was required and essential to make sure one of those babies didn't explode. Anybody ever have a air hose rupture in the shop, maybe with a blow-gun attached to the end?

[Mike Labbe @ GTP]

They use the air to operate drills, for polishing teeth, etc.

My cousin is a dentist and his compressor was thousands of dollars. It's extremely quiet and has TWO motors. I guess it alternates from one to the other during the day, so they don't overheat and to serve as a backup.

Mike

[Pam]

I am bringing this one back to the top because it was a fun read AND because my compressor fried.

I bought a chatterbox Campbell Hausfeld at Home Depot summer 2002. It started smelling like melting plastic a few weeks ago - so everytime it would turn on I would go watch it. It started smoking last week so I banished it to the outside. I talked to a fellow at a repair shop and he recommended getting a belt driven compressor (not the oil free, maintenance free kind I had). He said the oil free motors tend to run really fast and fry easier.

So, this happen anywhere else on the grumble planet?

Pam

[Alan Sturgess]

Compressors purchased from big box stores are NOT the same as those purchased from industrial distributors. They look the same, smell the same and the salesmen/women tell you they are the same. The only way the manufacturers can get the prices down for the big box stores is to reduce the quality of the component parts.

Big box stores want you to think that bigger is better. Yes, it is sort of like the spam that floods your in box. The worst compressor buys are those large two foot diameter units about five or six feet high with the motor sitting up on top. I think the tanks are about 100 gallons. The motor they put on this unit is the same as on a 10 gallon unit. You see these units on special for $399 to $499. If a frame shop gets two years out of one of these units, count your blessings. They are usually positioned at the entrance to the big box store or the entrance to the tool area.

The manufacturers put cheaper valves, cheaper controls and these units are not designed to operate 6 days a weeks, 8 hours per day in a production facility like a frame shop. These are weekend warrior units designed for the unsuspecting public who will use them occasionally.

The bulk of these units will not even maintain the pressure needed to run underpinners. They usually will not kick in to rebuild the pressure until the pressure drops to 80 psi. In many cases this is a lower pressure than in required to drive a hardwood nail in most underpinners. The only underpinner I know that will successfully drive a nail in hardwood at 80 psi is the Alfa Macchine ITW/AMP underpinners. Cassese underpinners require up to 120 psi to successfully drive nails in hardwood.

The first thing you do when you need a compressor is make a list of all your air tools, or ALL the air tools you PLAN to eventually have in your shop. Then you phone the distributor of the tool and ask what the air consumption of the tool is.

Every air tool is rated as to how much air it uses to keep it operating on a continuous basis.

You should find this in the booklet that comes with the tool, but not always. You then add up all the consumption requirements for all the tools and make sure that the compressor you want to buy can continuously put out that maximum amount of air. Every compressor is rated by the continuous output of air it will maintain. If it will not put out that amount of air all your tools will require, then your pressure will drop and you will find nails that do not go in all the way.

This is no different than calculating the number of light bulbs or appliances you will put on an electrical circuit. Do your research and go to an industrial supplier of compressors not a big box type operation.


Alan Sturgess

[ 10-23-2003, 10:18 PM: Message edited by: Alan Sturgess ]

[pcascio]

Here's a tip for making a Poor-man's Junair, that mught help. I suggest to my eqipment customers that they buy a compressor at their local Home Depot or Lowes. The Campbell-Hausfield is more than adequate for most frame shops and is pretty cheap.

Then, place the compressor on a foam door mat and build a wooden box to place on top of it. Cut a couple of small holes for air circulation and line the box with some fiberglass insulation.

I'm always amazed that a refirgerator compressor (essentially what a Junair is) costs more than twice the price of a whole refrigerator. And you can't even store your beer in it.

Paul Casio
www.framingequipment.com (http://www.framingequipment.com)

www.pictureframingschool.com (http://www.pictureframingschool.com)

[Framerguy]

Paul,

Have you ever touched the compressor of most air compressors after operation?

Well, don't. They heat up to the point where you will know that you touched a "hot thing"!!

I'm not too sure that I would box that piece of equipment in completely. It really needs a large volume of air moving around it to help dissipate the heat created while running. And that heat is part of what shortens the life of most air compressors.

Instead, place the compressor in a basement or back in a storage room where the noise will be muffled.

Framerguy

[JFeig]

I prefer to have the box totally open on one side. The side toward the wall with a gap of 3" for air flow.

I have a Home Depot unit (6.5 hp C-H 60 gal.) and it has worked for over 3 years. The KEY to any equipment is maintenance . Clean the air intake filter and replace the oil on a regular basis. My last C-H (3 hp 20 gal Sears) lasted over 15 years.

[frameconscience]

I stand corrected. You must leave air circulation for cooling. This is meant to dampen the noise, not eliminate it.

[Mike Labbe @ GTP]

It's also important to bleed the unit once in a while to let the moisture out. Our (VERY loud) Home Depot toy compressor was so loud that we had to put it in the basement. There's a lot of moisture down there and it really builds up in the tank on a weekly basis.

I can't wait until this thing dies so we can get something of better quality smile.gif

[katman]

I'm glad this topic came back up cause I'm trying to decide what to do about another compressor. I have a Junaire running my CMC, which I have in the front of the shop for all to see. I have another noisy small compressor in a closet that we use to blow off negatives. It had enough pressure to drive my AMP, but I just got a cassesse rated for 110 psi.

Last time I checked the Big Box models they dropped to about 75 psi before cycling back up to about 100. Can these be adjusted safely so they will sustain 110?

[clifpa]

After spending a lot of time chasing down all the suggestions, my pocket book, etc. I went with the compressor from M&M (uses oil) and have been pretty happy with it so far. A little noisy but only for very short spans of time.

Mark at M&M was really helpful in my decision.

Good Luck, Cliff

[Alan Sturgess]

Katman said

Last time I checked the Big Box models they dropped to about 75 psi before cycling back up to about 100. Can these be adjusted safely so they will sustain 110?

Yes and/or no, depending on the model you have purchased and the pressure switch on the machine.

The adjustment device is actually a spring. One spring sets the top pressure when the machine reaches the top pressure setting. The other spring sets the bottom pressure setting. If there is just one spring then it should be for the upper setting and there would be no adjustment setting for the lowest pressure where the compressor starts the cycle.

You use either a small cresent wrench or a screwdriver to adjust the spring.

The pressure switch is the little box that is about 3inches x 2 inches wide and about four inches high. Often it has an off/on switch on the top that you pull up to start the machine and push down to stop the machine.

You can purchase and easily change these pressure switches. The prices range from $25 to $60 depending if they are domestic or imported models.

[ 10-24-2003, 03:13 PM: Message edited by: Alan Sturgess ]

[JFeig]

most single stage compressors are limited to a maximum pressure of 120#. By adding a second stage (compressing the already compressed air) you are up to about 150-175#.

The switch that operates a compressor has a upper and lower limit. It turns on when the lower limit is reached and turns off at the top limit. Some compressors have adjustable limits while others have "factory set" limits.

With a line pressure of 110# required for equipment, a single stage compressor might not be enough strength to operate if the bottom limit is below 110# (check the owners manual). A 2 stage compressor might be required.

Do not forget that if you have a single stage machine that requires 110#, most of the other framing equipment requires much less pressure. Air regulators should be used to protect the lower line pressure equipment. An analogy would be that you have 110V and 220V lines in your electrical service coming from the same electrical box.

[ 10-24-2003, 03:15 PM: Message edited by: JFeig ]