air compressors - again

[vqdriver]

the cost of one of those air blast pumps for seating tubeless tires is close to, if not more, than a small compressor so i figure it's time to just buy one.
will all of those pancake compressors at home depot work the same? thinking of the $100 bostitch, porter-cable, etc....
mostly i will use it for inflating bike and car tires and balls and such. no nailers or anything. primarily i want it to pressurize quickly and not be obnoxiously loud.

oil free? gallons matter?

[Ralph]

I have one of the $100 HD compressors. It sure is handy to have around the garage. Don't have tubeless tires, but use it for everything else where you don't need hi air volume. Mine uses a 1/4" hose about 25' long. Have nozzles for car tires, and for just blowing air. When I wash sweat off with water hose, use it to blow frame dry. Very handy item to have around. Blow up all the neighborhood kids soccer balls, etc.

[Birddog]

I think this is the newer version of the one I have and I use the hell out of it for work. It is very quiet as compressors go and the price is right. Don't buy the Blue Hawk from Lowes, it's loud, and the one I had lasted 13 mos, 1 mo out of warranty.

https://jet.com/product/detail/33bbe...2-eacfc41b2264

[11.4]

What you really want is to have a pressure regulator on your supply line. Get one that will let you adjust peak pressure to perhaps 30-40 lbs. You don't want to blow your tire off -- just have enough pressure to seat it properly -- and a regulator means it works perfectly every time. You can have a Y and two hoses coming off it, one with the regulator for seating tubeless and another for regular use.

You can also stand to have a filter on the line, or get an oilless compressor. With most compressors that require some oil in the compressor assembly, you end up blowing some oil into your tire. It's not a big issue but over time it's still something to avoid, especially if the same pump is used for expensive tubulars.

You can also do a pretty nice job with one of the cordless air compressors -- basically like a cordless drill with a rotary air compressor on the bit. It doesn't burp a big amount of air instantly, but it pumps enough to seat your tubeless tire quite nicely and you don't need electricity, and can use it out of the truck of your car when you're at a race or heading off from a trailhead or rest stop.

[vqdriver]

How about the reg on the compressor itself?

[sdrides]

I think they all pretty much work the same, they are all loud and they are all generally reliable and hard to break. My experience was that my interest in using it quickly outstripped the pancake's capacity: cleaning parts, painting a couple bikes with HVLP, painting a car... I never knew I needed a legit air compressor until I had one. I got a nice 20-gallon compressor on craigslist with all the accouterments for $125 and am on year 10 maintenance free.

[echelon_john]

California Air Tools; MUCH quieter than the Porter Cable pancake compressor it replaced. Can work right next to it with no bother from the noise...

https://www.amazon.com/California-Ai..._title_hi?th=1

[chiasticon]

Originally Posted by 11.4

You can also do a pretty nice job with one of the cordless air compressors -- basically like a cordless drill with a rotary air compressor on the bit. It doesn't burp a big amount of air instantly, but it pumps enough to seat your tubeless tire quite nicely and you don't need electricity, and can use it out of the truck of your car when you're at a race or heading off from a trailhead or rest stop.

I have one of these and love it. $18 Ryobi one from HD. doesn't have the fancy digital pressure gauge that the Craftsman one does, but it's good enough, and much cheaper. awesome for road tire top offs. and for cross, I'm not good enough to tell the difference between one psi of pressure anyway (arguable if the gauge is even that accurate), and it gets me there. haven't tried seating tubeless with it but seems to me it'd work.

[eippo1]

I have the slime inflator in my car for flat tires and just use that. But understand that an excuse to get a new useful toy is a good thing. Also for me a battery powered brad gun is enough I'll ever need since I'll never do framing beyond building a deck and I'd use deck screws for that.

[Mikej]

I would go for a 3-5 gallon on wheels. I know a pancake works fine, for tires, and a trim nailer, but the second you want to REALLY use a compressor you find out it runs out of air pretty quick. I just use an old pump for my tubeless set ups.

[11.4]

Originally Posted by vqdriver

How about the reg on the compressor itself?

The idea is to not have to crank the compressor regulator adjustment up and down when you go from mounting the tire to inflating it. Just leave the compressor regulator at a high pressure and put a Y downstream from it. One side of the Y goes to a secondary regulator that is permanently adjusted to your favorite mounting or burping pressure. The other side keeps the high pressure for actual inflation. If you go up and down on the compressor regulator with every tire mounting, you won't have reproducibility anyway, plus compressor regulators tend to be rather inaccurate and inconsistent at lower pressures. Make sense?

[11.4]

Originally Posted by Mikej

I would go for a 3-5 gallon on wheels. I know a pancake works fine, for tires, and a trim nailer, but the second you want to REALLY use a compressor you find out it runs out of air pretty quick. I just use an old pump for my tubeless set ups.

Definitely. The really compact trim nailer compressors just lose pressure so fast the second you start using them. You want at least a couple gallons in the tank so you can do a couple inflations and waste some air along the way and not have the compressor cycle incessantly or not even pump up to pressure in one effort. The compressor can be cheaper for bike tires if you have a bigger tank because you aren't bleeding out the tank a lot. Also, if you deplete a small pancake tank and then refill it, you're going to end up with more moisture in the tank.

I have a Makita MC310 high-pressure compressor with about a 3 gallon tank. This compressor is expensive because it works at 700 psi for the newer high-pressure nailers. Dang, it's nice and so are the nailers. It may be more overkill for you, but if you want to future-proof your compressor, this is it. However, when you have 700 psi, you can imagine how hard it is to burp 30 psi into a road tire; this is another case of where the intermediate pressure regulator really works.

[giordana93]

they are most definitely not all the same, including longevity and loudness. I went through this a couple years ago, having had a cheap little home depot model crap out on me. I went with the Makita MAC700 and would do it again in a heartbeat. the tank is smaller than ideal for seating tires, I guess, but it is much quieter than any of the pancakes or small hot dogs I had heard, it uses a real oil bath for long life, and when it comes down to it, yes, it is almost twice the price of the cheapies, but just as with bikes, the quality ends up cheaper in the long run because you only buy it once. I would get a supplemental tank if I thought it needed more volume, but has served my needs beautifully. and it exudes quality, down to being just a bit too heavy compared to the cheaper oil-less versions, but I just use a longer hose and don't carry it around unless I have to. my two cents