Recommend small air compressor

[Indydriver]

My old Craftsman is about shot so....

Use is for auto and bicycle tires. Should be electric run and very portable. Price should be no more than $100.

 

[BigD1]

https://www.amazon.com/PORTER-CABLE-C200...+air+compressor

Bought mine at my local Home Depot over a year ago, and it's been doing good, Mainly use it for tire pressure maintenance, so it's not used every day.

 

[TinyVoices]

I have the more expensive of the two 12v auto air compressors from harbor freight. It's awesome and I have aired up countless tires with it over the last few years. Several tires from flat as well. Saved me many times.

 

[larryinnewyork]

I have a 'tankless' compressor.
It has no problem filling up vehicle tires.
NO 'tank moisture' worries.
I'm not talking about a little toy.
Mine is about 8" x 10" x 14"

 

[HerrStig]

As previously mentioned, the 12 V units draw a lot of current through the lighter jack and one way to avoid burning the jack out is to run the engine, which should raise the voltage and therefore reduce current draw. We have a couple of Roybi units which work well but have burned out fusible links in the "spare" jack circuits. As voltage drops a motor draws more current to compensate for reduced current. Current draw is related to what the engineers call "Back EMF".

 

[vintageant]

Had this for >2 years. Perfect!

https://www.amazon.com/Goodyear-i8000-12...e+tire+inflator

 

[totegoat]

If I were buying a small inexpensive compressor today, I'd check Harbor Freight.

 

[scurvy]

The HF 3 gallon pancake-or-hotdog compressor is routinely on sale for $40, draws very little current and works perfectly for small jobs like airing up tires occasionally.

Honestly, I haven't even turned on my 26 gallon Hecho-en-EE.UU. Husky super skookum compressor in over a year after buying one of the small HF jobbers. Yes, it is cheaply built. Yes, it will split your eardrums if you stand a meter away from it. Yes, oil-free is much less good than oil-lubricated. But the [censored] thing just works without issue!

 

[JTK]

Yep. For that price range unless you can find an old iron beast on CL, HFT units are decent for light use. I do wish they kept the slower spinning oiled units though. They're all ~3600rpm now and LOUD.

 

[4WD]

Try Craftsman again - I got a small unit for Xmas and it fills the tank fast. (3 gallon/1HP/135 psi)

 

[Nick1994]

I've got one of those harbor freight small ones. Takes forever to fill up and it can barely top off 1 tire.

I use the $39 Ryobi 18V One+ portable compressor. Wayyy faster than the harbor freight one and Campbell hausfield I have and it stops where I set it to all on it's own. 1 battery tops off about 13-14 car tires.

 

[TinyVoices]

https://m.harborfreight.com/12v-100-psi-high-volume-air-compressor-69284.html?utm_referrer=direct%2Fnot%20provided

This is the one I have. Works well and have aired up tons of tires from basically flat. No issues at all.

 

[spackard]

AvE did a teardown video of one of these recently, complete with some 1000fps video of it starting and running. Can't link to it because of the adult language he uses.
Can find him by Googling arduinoversusevil youtube

 

[RedVic]

I own a 26 gallon Quincy air compressor, bought it at Northern Tool.

The fact is in life you get what you pay for, you want cheap you get cheap, you spend money you get a better product, sure you have to watch out for the scam companies who try to over price their cheap garbage to fool people into thinking they are getting quality but those companies are exposed in short order.

If you want a truly high quality air compressor look at the Quincy line of compressors.

 

[JHZR2]

But a bicycle pump and get some exercise. Id never pump a bike tire with a compressor regardless.

Other than pumping up a larger balloon tire, like a 31x10.5r-15 or larger, from zero pressure, a bike pump is more than sufficient.

Oil free compressors won't last extremely long, but for tires, it's not a huge duty cycle. If you're not going to buy a Thomas, get the $29 HF special.