home garage compressor: how many CFMs?

[Brett Dikeman]

At 8:24 PM -0400 4/18/03, Dave K. wrote:
>I have thoughts on the "oil free" design.  My guess is that it is done to
>reduce (eliminate?) maintenance on the compressor.  IF that is true, I'll
>take an oil lube version.  I am not that lazy that I can't change the oil in
>my compressor every couple years.  I would think the oil version would last
>longer.

We've got an ancient 1HP cambell-hausfield(sp?) that is 'maintenance
free'.  During the summer, it saw use almost every weekend for years,
pumping up the tires on an old blazer we had for going out on the
beach...and it then got converted over to playing "garage compressor"
for when we needed to inflate tires, work with air tools, maybe do a
little sandblasting...it's not quite enough to keep up with the
sandblasting gun, but it works fine for almost everything else.

Anyway, my father didn't believe the "maintenance free" claim, and so
a year or two ago, he pulled it all apart- and found that there's
absolutely nothing to service.  I asked him how it managed to seal,
and he said it was some sort of carbon seal, he wasn't sure, but it
didn't need any servicing, nor was it even possible, far as he could
see.

>I have a 60 gallon 6 hp single stage upright BlackMax by Coleman unit.  I
>will get the cfm rating on it but I think it is around 8 or 9 cfm.  It runs
>my die grinder nicely. I put it in the basement and ran hard pipe up to the
>garage.

One note here- I've read that PVC has an incredibly failure rate.
Even though the stuff is often rated to 250PSI, it seems to shatter
easily, and I've seen a lot of reports of people installing PVC,
having tons of problems, switching to thick-wall copper, and not
having any further problems(steel pipe seems to be the ultimate, but
requires regular maintenance, as the water vapor causes rust, and
that's not good for the tools.  Copper naturally doesn't have that
problem.)


>   It doesn't take up room in my garage and it sucks in clean air from
>the basement.  Great set up.

One problem with most compressors is the sheer noise- our 1 HP unit
is absolutely deafening, although I suppose the belt-driven units,
which operate at slower speeds, are quieter.

   Scroll compressors are supposed to be the best thing since sliced
bread, but it seems they're simply not made in small sizes.  I can't
understand why- startup power requirements are lower, they're
completely vibration-free, and almost dead silent.  They could market
it as "The MarriageSaver"...

B
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