Garage sized air compressors?????

[Rubberdown]

I need a bigger compressor, I have a tiny little one, maybe 3 gallons max and it cant even pull 4 lug nuts without needing to cycle itself again. I was thinking a 26 gal. husky from the home depot, its a 110v so I just need to plug it in, anyone have any pro's or con's to something like that, make or size wise?

Thanks.

[harmonsbrute]

160 gallon sears... auctally is two 80 gallons to gether... i know u dont need nuttin that big. but we do a lot of paintin cars.. buildin motors etc ..its a 210v tho



i say a 26 gallon should do u well my neigbor has i think and 30 gallon it does ever thing hes ever wanted... if hes dont work. he comes over..

[Turk]

I was thinking a 26 gal. husky from the home depot, its a 110v so I just need to plug it in, anyone have any pro's or con's to something like that, make or size wise

Thats the one I used to have until I knocked it over and broke it.I used that thing for air tools and what not and it was great.At the time I bought it it was on sale for $279.00.

[badmaners]

I use a 60 gallon, 5 HP 230Vac for the last 11 years. It'll do just about everything.
Devillbiss is the brand

[BIG_T]

On the farm we had a 15 GAL 2 HP Campbell Hausfeld we bought from walmart 20 years ago. It did everything we ever needed it to do on the farm, it is still running great. Unless you're doing a lot of air spraying, you don't need much mroe than a 15 GAL. We used it mainly for an impact wrench, air hammer, and just general air.
Of course, bigger is usually better with something like that anyway. The nice thing about the 15 GAL was it's smaller and more portable.

[popomonster]

same thing here, i have a 15 GAL 2 HP Campbell Hausfeld, 11 yr old now no troubles.

[gates]

Princess Auto usually has some pretty good sales on compressors, maybe not the best in quality but guaranteed forever, even if you drop it off the truck on your way home, it's pretty amazing what they will take back and replace at no charge


gates

[OnlyPolaris]

Princess Auto usually has some pretty good sales on compressors, maybe not the best in quality but guaranteed forever, even if you drop it off the truck on your way home, it's pretty amazing what they will take back and replace at no charge


gates

ya we have one of there 4 gallin twin stack compressors. it was 80 bucks. we are on our second one. the first one broke after about 4 months and there was not a problem switching it. we have had this other one for over a year. it has plenty of power to run our air tools and to do lug nuts and so on.

[tnmale46]

mine is 6 hp 60 gal but i paint a few cars from time to time

[Rubberdown]

Does anyone know if I bought the 26 gal unit from Home Depot in the U.S. if the Home Depot in Canada would service it if anything happened to it? Its about $120 cheaper 10 minutes over the border....

[harmonsbrute]

just give them a call and ask them only thing u could do. but i bet they whould

[OnlyPolaris]

ya probably

[bmdjmd]

Paul i have a 5hp-26 gallon campbell hausfield, and it has painted trucks, removed lug nuts and everything else i have ever thrown at it, bought it used 8+ years ago and it was used then. it has given me no problems at all, for the little shop you have you will be more than pleased with the performance of a compressor this size. also it works great as an air pig for those "emergency" roadside repairs.

[scottginfla]

kepp in mind most of the compressors available today from major retailers are all aluminum construction, and will provide years of trouble free service, but if you want to buy one and never worry about it again, spend the extra money and get one made of cast iron, ingersol rand would be my reccomendation in any gallon size or motor hp you choose. spend the time to do the extra wiring for a 220v motor , it will cost less to run versus the 110v.

[Rubberdown]

Scott, for me to run anything 220, I would have to spend probably a few thousand to upgrade my service. I plan to do that after I get my new garage made (hopefully this spring, been talkin about it for like 2 years now :( ) out in the back yard. I was going to go 20x22 but now I'm thinkin maybe 20 x 30 or 30 x 40 or something and putting in a couple small machines, like a small vertical mill and small lather for some prototype machining.

[harmonsbrute]

ya rubberdown we have a 30x40 everything is 220. u can put alot of crap in it. we have 2 cars. 1 lawn tractor and 2 quads and all r tools and room to spare. so i say a 30x40 is just right

[choPppps]

Hey Paul, I have a 26 or 30 gallon 110v Sears, works great for garage stuff. If you need more air volume you can always rig up another tank.

[Rubberdown]

I got the 26 gal. Huskey at Home Depot last night, its a 5 hourse 15 amp and 110 v and it trips out my 15 amp single pull breaker, I even tried it in the dark so it was the only thing running on that breaker???? It will run fine if I take the belt off, the motor runs by itself but when its got to pump that piston, it runs for a second and TRIP..... So should I put in a 20 amp breaker or what????

[BIG_T]

yeah. Your motor will pull up to 15 amps when it's working (not when it's not pulling anything) and your breaker will provide up to about 15 amps. The problem comes in because there is some tolerance on both. Your compressor might be pulling 15.1 amps while your breaker might have gotten old and can now only provide 14.5 amps.
Besides that, there is also loss in the line, so even if your motor is pulling exactly 15 amps, there probably has to be a minimum of 15.2 amps leaving the breaker to actually provide that 15 amps to the plug. Heat, and wire resistance will take up the rest.
I would recommend a 20 amp breaker. If anything major goes wrong such as a short or something, it's still going to trip it.
If it is at all possible, I would recommend running a compressor on a separate breaker. Otherwise, anytime the compressor turns on it will brown out the other devices on the circuit. This is very bad for electronics, doesn't matter for other things.
But if you want to use an existing plug in, jumping it up to a 20 amp won't be a problem.

[Rubberdown]

Thanks Big_T