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[TheBoy]

Seeing as I have a MM voucher that expires at midnight, I thought I may treat myself to an air compressor.

What should I go for?

Reality is I won't do spraying with it, but may wish to use air tools at some point (although the battery impact wrenches seem as powerful as the cheap air ratchets ). Would also like it to be able to run a plasma cutter in the future.

Advice, from the MM range?

[Marks DTM Calib]

whats the budget?

[TheBoy]

whats the budget?

Nothing set, but don't want to throw money needlessly, for something over the top for what I'd need.

The old one did little more than pump up tyres once I got the battery impact tools 

no idea what the requirements of a plasma cutter are.

[Marks DTM Calib]

Plasma cutter does not use much air, maybe 3-5 cfm at only 50psi

[TheBoy]

OK, similarly priced (before discounts), is Airmaster better than Clarke, or same shit, different badge, much of a muchness.

Thinking its worth going for the highest cfm possible, both do 14.5cfm, max working pressure of 8 bar.  Would this cover most eventualities?

Then 50l or 100l? No plans to spray, and an annoyance with my old one was a tendency to leak all the air after a few days, so waiting for the receiver to refill was a pain (think it was 100l, might be wrong), so a smaller receiver helps with that, and is £50 cheaper. But I don't want to limit myself if a bigger receiver is significantly "better", without being able to define "better" 

Thinking along lines of Raider 15/500 or Airmaster 16/510  (or their 100l equivs, if its worth the extra money/size/fill time)?

[TheBoy]

Also, anyone know of a cheap, retractable hose, as it will initially be used for little more than tyres. MM ones are too dear. I think I paid well under £20 for my last 10m one, possibly Aldi/Lidl/Pikey (can't remember which)

[Marks DTM Calib]

For your applications a 50 litre tank will be fine, try to get a 14cfm one at 3hp (no more) if you can.

Belt drive is always better but tends to cost more so is budget dependent.

Either Clarke or Airmaster will be fine for what your doing.

And you should be dropping the tank after every use anyway to blow the water out.

[TheBoy]

For your applications a 50 litre tank will be fine, try to get a 14cfm one at 3hp (no more) if you can.

Belt drive is always better but tends to cost more so is budget dependent.

Either Clarke or Airmaster will be fine for what your doing.

And you should be dropping the tank after every use anyway to blow the water out.

Is 14.5cfm too high then?

[Marks DTM Calib]

I should have said 14cfm or higher 

[Andy H]

14cfm roughly equates to 3hp which is the biggest motor that you can run off a 13A plug top (without having to think about it too much...)

[Nick W]

For your applications a 50 litre tank will be fine, try to get a 14cfm one at 3hp (no more) if you can.

Belt drive is always better but tends to cost more so is budget dependent.

Either Clarke or Airmaster will be fine for what your doing.

And you should be dropping the tank after every use anyway to blow the water out.

Is 14.5cfm too high then?

I notice that they show that as displacement, and not Free Air Delivery, which is what the tool actually needs to see. And FAD tends to be about half the displacement. And that is what makes DIY use of compressors and air tools so disappointing, as 240v compressors are simply not up to the job. Couple that with a small tank(and a 100l one IS small), and you'll wonder why you bothered with an air grinder(for example) compared to a decent £50 electric one. I've had a 100l 2Hp compressor and tools for over 20 years, and have only been happy with the tools performance when I got to use them off the compressor at work. And we put that in place with the forklift, and wired it to the the 3 phase supply.

If inflating tyres is going to be your main use, then just buy a cheap tankless one that will do the job instantly, and put the other £300 to a worthwhile use.

[Kevin Wood]

If inflating tyres is going to be your main use, then just buy a cheap tankless one that will do the job instantly, and put the other £300 to a worthwhile use.

I tend to agree. I've got machine mart's cheapest at the time - 25L 7.8 cfm job. It's as good as any other compressor for pumping up tyres, blowing dust out of old PCs and the very occasional light use of some basic air tools and it charges its' reservoir rapidly.

It can't cope with anything near continuous duty operation and is noisy, of course, but, on the other hand, it was sub-£100 and is worth its' weight in gold at that price. I could have bought a 50L 14cfm one for £300+ and I'm wondering what it would do that this one doesn't. For the uses I put it to (similar to the OP's, I reckon) the answer is probably very little.

It would also take up space in the garage that I'm not prepared to lose, so unless you have a requirement to run air tools, I'd question the need for anything more, TBH, especially as most domestic level tools are cheap enough and more convenient if electrically powered.

[Stemo]

If you're only gonna use it for pumping up tyres, buy a 12v plug in one. Your battlebus should have 12v sockets galore. The pot of glue that came with my daewoo (for tyre repairs) seems to have quite a decent tyre inflator with it. I will keep it just for that as I now have a full sized spare slung underneath.

[Andy H]

If inflating tyres is going to be your main use, then just buy a cheap tankless one that will do the job instantly, and put the other £300 to a worthwhile use.

I tend to agree. I've got machine mart's cheapest at the time - 25L 7.8 cfm job. It's as good as any other compressor for pumping up tyres, blowing dust out of old PCs and the very occasional light use of some basic air tools and it charges its' reservoir rapidly.

It can't cope with anything near continuous duty operation and is noisy, of course, but, on the other hand, it was sub-£100 and is worth its' weight in gold at that price. I could have bought a 50L 14cfm one for £300+ and I'm wondering what it would do that this one doesn't. For the uses I put it to (similar to the OP's, I reckon) the answer is probably very little.

It would also take up space in the garage that I'm not prepared to lose, so unless you have a requirement to run air tools, I'd question the need for anything more, TBH, especially as most domestic level tools are cheap enough and more convenient if electrically powered.

I bought a 3hp 14cfm/7fad 100 litre air compressor years ago and it has been very useful. I does take up too much space though and it produces wet air which isn't ideal for painting. The only tool where it noticeably struggles to keep up is when I use a D/A sander non-stop.
If I was buying one tomorrow I would probably buy a 3hp 50L compressor, a cheap HVLP spraying kit and an air fed mask (taking air from the compressor) (I don't think my compressor can provide enough flow for a spray gun and a mask at the same time  ).

The nice thing about air tools over domestic electric tools is that they get colder the harder you work them  . I have got 240v angle grinders where the sticky labels have melted while I was using them. 

[Marks DTM Calib]

Some may know that I have a bigish compressor, only 3Hp but a 100 litre tank.

Cant think of any tools I have that dont work well on the compressor be it pop riveters, cut off saws, spray guns, plasma cutter etc.

You do need the 14cfm to get a decent output though.

And as the op has a voucher for Machine Mart.....