Air compressor search

You'll pay more for these, but they will last longer and give less trouble. They will handle higher pressure requirements as well. Devair and Quincy QR are good to 300 psi stock (THE TANKS ARE NOT! THEY WOULD BE A SPECIAL ORDER), and the Quincy will go to 500 psi with some mild modifications.

2nd Tier Compressors: Puma (Chinese Swan Pumps), Campbell Hausfeld (splash oil lube), Curtis (Challenge Air Series-Fu Sheng Chinese Pumps). Eagle (Fu Sheng knockoff pumps). Schulz (may be excellent pumps buy I have limited experience with them, used to be sold as Ranger compressors). Chinook ("cheapy" feel to them, but they seem to run alright.)

These compressors are good for light industrial and home use. Generally lighter build, reed valves instead of disc valves, splash lube instead of pressure lube etc. Most trouble involves breaking reeds, but this is a minor issue if they are sized right and not abused.

3rd Tier Compressors: Coleman Powermate (Oil lube), Sanborn SC23 or SC46 cast iron units (Saylor Beall knockoff, bought out by Coleman).

The small Coleman Powermate compressor pump (oil lube) is actually pretty well built despite appearances. It is a bit weak in the valve area, and tends to be oversold as a true 5hp or "6-6.5" horsepower when it is really a 2 to 3hp max pump. I'd buy one for home use.

Sanborn cast iron units look like they are the business, but they eat their valves, take out their small end bearings and eventually wear out crankshafts, which cannot be economically rebuilt. They run quite awhile, but are throwaways when they finally need rebuilding. The fact that they look "industrial" sees them being put into hard use applications, which soon has them failing. Might be ok for a farm, but you take your chances with these.

4th Tier Compressors: Any Oilless.
There may be one or two which run ok. Campbell Hausfeld makes one which runs at 1700 rpm instead of 3000 plus, which actually is quiet enough (sounds like a mellow small engine), but generally, they are short lived, noisy, non repairable, and configured in such a way that even the tank cannot be reused with another pump.

Avoid.

This is not an exhaustive list by any means and probably reflects a few of my biases after working with compressors for 9 years or so. I am sure some people have had lemon Quincy's and gem Sanborns. Your experience may vary.

Thanks for your imput.
Jim

We have had 7 Jetstream pancake style Porter Cable compressors come through the shop in the past few month, all totalled.

If I was going to buy a compressor for a shop I was building, I'd consider a Quincy QT series or a small Ingersoll Rand. You really do get what you pay for.

Grainger has some nice Speedair and IR compressors on offer.

If you are going to invest in a quality machine, I would also make sure that the dealer knows what he is doing as well. I have seen a lot of guys selling compressors who didn't have the foggiest notion about how they worked. At least one guy on this board got burned with a lemon IR that the dealer washed his hands of.

Hope this helps,
Dave Laughead
Arcanum, Ohio

I agree with the poster who said to buy at least a 5 hp two stage, 80 gal tank unit for the shop. It should supply around 17 cfm at 90 psi. Of course you have to put a water separator/filter and regulator on it to drop the 175 tank pressure to 90-100 psi but it will run most anything including a bead blast cabinet.

If you buy just what you need you wind up wishing you had more and they you sell and buy up and lose in the process. Go ahead and get a real shop compressor.

There are lots of different brands, Pricey Emglo units, quality (and slightly pricey) Quincy, Champion, Cambell-Hausfield (who makes the Husky for Home Depot) and a host of others.

I bought a 7.5 (running hp) 80 gal tank unit, two stage for $1600 from Home Depot. Its American made and Home Depot will back it up. Runs good and supplies up to 24 cfm and I wanted it to run a bead blast cabinet and die grinder, and other high flow items. I'm glad I did. I could have got away with a 5 hp but the 7.5 is better by far.

TSC has a very similar capability Ingersoll Rand 7.5hp/80gal for about $1700, which is also a very good choice.

I thought about ordering something and having it shipped in, might save a buck (sales taxes if nothing else) but decided I wanted to LOOK at what I was buying and didn' want the hassle of having to worry about unloading it when the truck arrived, so I bought locally. If I did it again I'd probably buy the IR.

I do have a little 1.5 horse/12 gal/iron-oilfilled sears unit (30+years old) as my "portable" unit for away from the shop. A pancake unit would suffice for this buy you do need a small portable too.

Whatever you do, DO NOT buy an oil-less unit. They run and very high speed, are extermely noisy and don't last long before they are worn out. Total waste of money, even for ocassional use.

Be aware of the horsepower game the compressor manufacturers play. On the smaller units, they advertise huge horespowers, something with a 7 or 8 CFM airflow might be listed as a 5 or 6 horse motor. That is STARTING horsepower. The true hp of a motor is the RUNNING hp, and that 5 or 6 horse Starting is just barely 2 hp running.

My Cambell-Hausfeld/Home Depot Husky 7.5 hp is RUNNING hp, the STARTING hp is about 21 according to the label.

When you see huge hp numbers for the physical size of the unit and the amp rating doesn't agree, its probably because the motor is rated using its Starting hp, really bogus numbers to say the least.

On the really big units make sure the price includes the magnetic starter. I've seen a couple of low ball prices lately and upon reading the fine print, I discovered the magnetic starter (a necessity) is not included.

Also look at the outlet port on the tank. Most 80 gal tanks 5 to 7.5 hp seem to have a 3/4 pipe thread outlet. I almost bought a Speedaire 7.5 horse from Grainger, but it has only a 1/2 pipe outlet and I felt that wasn't enough (probably was and the compressor was slightly cheaper than what I finally bought, but that was a deciding factor for me)

Possibly Rodger might know who makes the Speedaire, that was my other problem, I think it might be a Champion but then again, it might just have a Chinese pump on it for all I know. At least the one I have has USA cast right into the block of the pump. (yea, I know, the motor was made in Mexico, but then again the IR motor was made in Brazil, so who knows?

Charles

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