Please excuse me for being a bit enthusiastic -- I have found something that tickles my fancy and I wanted to share it with you guys ....
I have a lot of air driven tools and I own a 2 hp 20 gallon tank compressor that is 25 years old. It is old style 1750 rpm electric motor, 2 belt sheave, dual stage (2 dissimilar cylinder sizes) that could chug out 4-5 cfm at 90-100 psi. It had enough ass to run a paint gun on-going and it did everything else competently in its rattly noisy fashion.
My compressor was powerful, but it drank electricity and it was very slow to fill up the 20 gallon tank up to full 100 psi pressure. It is also noisy as the dickens and it runs all the time, seems like.
25 years ago it was a state of the art $300 compressor.
It was a very expensive stationary shop tool, in other words.
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Fast forward 25 years to the year 2010
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http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=95498This one hand carryable portable air compressor is on sale this week (coupon was in this past Sunday's paper) for jest
$74.99 which is about half price to what it normally goes for. Similar units American built cost over $250 and this Chinese built unit looks pretty much like a rip off of a commercial Devilbiss/Campell Hausfield design.
It has a 2 hp 3,400 rpm induction style ball bearing motor that has a built in direct drive to the single small cast iron cylinder. Balance of the motor and compressor are impeccable, when actuated the motor/compressor hummms along at 3,400 rpm and the pressure needle shoots up VERY FAST, much faster than my old compressor. Because it has double the motor speed the single small displacement cylinder cranks out 4.4 CFM (90 psi) at the same horsepower rating as my old compressor. It gives VERY SIMILAR results out of much less pounds of machinery (100 or more fewer pounds of machinery).
It recovers normal pressure losses ongoing, going hummm .... (pause) .... hummm .... bouncing between 85 and 115 psi tank pressure for my very largest air consuming tools. Using it to power an air blow off hasn't been an issue yet since I don't blow air for very long at a time and I never use compressed air to "sweep my shop" as I used to do with the old compressor back when electricity was cheap.
I do not think I would try to paint a car with it -- painting requires ongoing 40 psi air at a very even delivery rate. I think I would uncork the big tanked old compressor for any major paint work.
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This thing really shines for convenience, portability, low purchase price and its low noise/high performance levels. It takes just a skinny minute to pump up the 4 gallon tank to the full run your impact wrench level -- and it takes just seconds to pull it out, plug it in and go to work. And that means where ever I need to work, not just in the shop.
Note: you need to buy a large capacity 12 gage extension cord if you use one. Pulling 15-16 amps through a normal lawn & garden extension cord is a recipe for overheating and excessive voltage drop unless you have enough wire size in your extension cord. This is true for most major electric hand tools, so I already have "big enough" extension cords that were built using exterior grade romex cable.
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