It was a week ago today that Hilarie, Ginnie, and David from Campbell Hausfeld came out to deliver the new 30-gallon air compressor for me to test out. I couldn’t help showing it off to a couple of my neighbors this weekend. I even had to go so far as to fire it up for one neighbor, who is a professional contractor, so he could hear the difference between it and the pancake compressor I had been using. The new unit is still a power tool, and therefore does make some noise, but he and I could still stand in the garage and talk while the new unit was running. My old compressor would have chased us out of the garage if we wanted to talk.
As mentioned in my previous post, talking with the experts from Campbell Hausfeld really opened my eyes to the new possibilities that come with a larger air compressor. This compressor puts out 5.5 SCFM (standard cubic feet per minute) which is twice the flow of my old unit. Every air tool is rated by the air flow it requires but the issue is a bit more complicated than that as you can “bend” the requirements and only use a tool on an intermittent basis.
In other words, a tool like this impact driver, which requires 4.2 SCFM at 90 PSI, could be run easily while this angle die grinder, which requires 6.2 SCFM @ 90 PSI, would probably need to be run sporadically. For most of the projects I do, I don’t think that would be an issue but it is something I plan on testing.
Note: The Campbell Hausfeld air compressor series was originally posted on Posterous in 2010 and uploaded to this site after Posterous was shut down. Please see the free product disclaimer.