Home Tire inflation

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MG - 21 Nov 2007 21:34 GMT

Anyone have one of these little compressors for keeping inflation at proper
levels? Or are they just toys? Now that I'm up to 4 (2 teenagers, not
myself!) cars, it would be nice to do it at home when I want.

mg

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Don Bruder - 21 Nov 2007 23:13 GMT

> Anyone have one of these little compressors for keeping inflation at proper
> levels? Or are they just toys? Now that I'm up to 4 (2 teenagers, not
> myself!) cars, it would be nice to do it at home when I want.
>
> mg

Define "little compressors"? Something from Sears?

The 12 Volt compressor from Wal-Mart or similar like what I carry?

Something else?

I can speak from experience about the second kind - It's saved my bacon
more than a few times. It's a cigarette lighter plugin, 15-ish feet of
cord, the unit itself, with a 3-4 inch hose and a lever-flip connector
for the valve stem. I think I paid $25 for it, something like 10 years
ago, and it's been well worth the price several times over. It's slow,
but effective.

I used to run a 350-400 mile paper route in the middle of the night, and
getting a flat was, while not an every day occurrence, fairly common.
Between the spare, and a plugging kit and that little compressor stored
in the glove-box, I stayed rolling through pretty much any kind of tire
mishap short of an all-out blowout or a spilled box of roofing nails.
(The short version of that story: Somebody, I never determined who, lost
a 50 pound box of roofing nails. Quite obviously an accident, rather
than deliberately seeding the road, but even so, they managed to eat all
four tires, and I didn't have enough plugs along to fill all the holes.
That one was a definite "Glad I've got a Triple-A Plus card" night...)

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Kaz Kylheku - 21 Nov 2007 23:58 GMT

> I can speak from experience about the second kind - It's saved my bacon
> more than a few times. It's a cigarette lighter plugin, 15-ish feet of
> cord, the unit itself, with a 3-4 inch hose and a lever-flip connector
> for the valve stem. I think I paid $25 for it, something like 10 years
> ago, and it's been well worth the price several times over. It's slow,
> but effective.

Better than a hand pump?

I can inflate one of my 195/55/R15's from nothing to 40 psi in about
170 strokes, which is comfortably doable in under three minutes.
That's probably something like three times as fast as what one of
those little 12V compressors could do, which doesn't even take into
account the extra setup time to plug those suckers in, and fiddle with
the cord when moving from one wheel to another.

If you're going to by a compressor, spend a few hundred bucks and get
a big one that delivers a decent CFM at a decent pressure. Then you
can have fun getting various tools for it. Disk grinder, ratchet,
sandblasting gun, spray gun, ... You can be cooler than all your
friends who only have those wussy electric power tools. :)

Only a reasonably big compressor actually qualifies as a toy. A tiny
compressor isn't even a toy because it's completely useless. It can't
beat a manual pump for inflating anything, and you can't use it to
drive tools. Inflating isn't fun. Tools are fun. Okay /maybe/ one of
those little suckers can put enough air into a tiny airbrush so that
you can paint little things and do artwork. That's about the extent of
the toy value. However, oops, come to think of it, the tiny airbrush
compressors still have a tank. You need that tank between the
compressor and the airbrush so that it receives a smooth flow of air,
rather than pulsating pressure which will cause an uneven atomization
pattern.

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MG - 22 Nov 2007 01:54 GMT

>> Anyone have one of these little compressors for keeping inflation at
>> proper
[quoted text clipped - 26 lines]
> four tires, and I didn't have enough plugs along to fill all the holes.
> That one was a definite "Glad I've got a Triple-A Plus card" night...)

That's the sort of thing I'm talking about. I don't really need or want a
huge thing. I just want to keep my pressures a little closer to optimal.
If I bought some huge compressor and put it in the garage, I would suffer
serious marital injuries. Besides, I'm not handy enough to have any real
use for it.

mg

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Steve W. - 22 Nov 2007 03:24 GMT

> That's the sort of thing I'm talking about. I don't really need or want a
> huge thing. I just want to keep my pressures a little closer to optimal.
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
>
> mg

They work if you want something you can toss in the car. Just don't
expect miracles out of them.

Another option is to buy one of the small pancake style compressors, the
type they sell to carpenters for use with nail guns and such.
Like this type http://snipurl.com/1u0wd or http://snipurl.com/1u0wf

Then buy a lightweight portable air tank. Then you can hook the tank to
the compressor and take it where you need it.
Like this http://snipurl.com/1u0w6

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Steve W.
Near Cooperstown, New York
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the fly - 22 Nov 2007 01:35 GMT

>Anyone have one of these little compressors for keeping inflation at proper
>levels? Or are they just toys? Now that I'm up to 4 (2 teenagers, not
>myself!) cars, it would be nice to do it at home when I want.

Spend about $200 and you can get one that's not a toy. Good
for airing up tires and using a blowgun for short periods.
If you want to use air tools (impact wrench, grinder, drill,
etc) it will take quite a bit more, for a two-stage compressor and a
big enough tank to act as an accumulator.

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Steve B. - 22 Nov 2007 02:10 GMT

>Anyone have one of these little compressors for keeping inflation at proper
>levels?

I keep one in every car. They seem like something that ought to be
junk but I have a couple that have been used and used and used and
they still keep going and work fine. They are a little slow and a
little noisy but a lot convenient.

Steve B.

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Don Bruder - 22 Nov 2007 03:33 GMT

> >Anyone have one of these little compressors for keeping inflation at proper
> >levels?
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
>
> Steve B.

Yep, absolutely perfect description of mine.

And unlike the hand-pump I carried for a short time it has yet to be
munged from rattling around in the trunk. A hand pump is great - IF IT
FUNCTIONS. Have something shift, or something get tossed in carelessly,
or whatever other thing happen that crimps the barrel or bends the
shaft, and that hand pump is totally worthless when you actually need
it. Meanwhile, my little "worse than a toy" 12 volt pump is tucked into
the glovebox safe and sound, and hasn't yet shown even the slightest
sign of failing. (It likely helps that I've torn it apart, cleaned, and
oiled it a few times over the years)

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Ad absurdum per aspera - 22 Nov 2007 02:35 GMT

> Anyone have one of these little compressors for keeping inflation at proper
> levels? Or are they just toys?

I've got a couple of 'em scattered around the family fleet. They work
well enough within their limits (jacking up four large tires from near
flat in a single session heats them up pretty alarmingly, for
instance) and are convenient to have around for non-car purposes such
as bicycle tires, sports balls, and whatever that has a Schraeder
valve or a suitable adapter. And their rather low cost pays off
nicely if all the gas stations near you charge 25-50 cents for the air
pump.

As someone mentioned, it's nice to have one actually in your car --
say, if you need to juice up a tire to get to the gas station safely,
or if you get a flat and the spare proves to be pretty soft.

I got one at Costco some years ago that has a detachable flashlight
and emergency blinker capable of working either off the pump or (with
a couple of C cells) independently, and a hiding place for a sports-
ball needle. Lately some of those laptop-computer-sized emergency
jump start battery packs contain a small compressor too.

--Joe

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Daniel W. Rouse Jr. - 22 Nov 2007 09:01 GMT

I have better luck with a bicycle foot pump. Less noise, and actually faster
than the smaller and noisy air compressors.

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Tegger - 23 Nov 2007 01:25 GMT

>> Anyone have one of these little compressors for keeping inflation at
> proper
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> I have better luck with a bicycle foot pump. Less noise, and actually
> faster than the smaller and noisy air compressors.

I use a Schwinn tubular pump. It's great for Saturday morning top-ups and
for corrections as the temperature goes up and down.

The pump is in the shed just now with six inches of snow in front of the
shed, so I don't want to go get it to check. As I recall however, I get
about 2 psi for every eight pumps or so. I can confirm on the weekend.

I actually inflated a van's tire to 32psi from flat once using that pump.
Boy was I tired (ha ha) afterwards...

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Tegger

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