Whats the difference between air compressor for spray painting n air tools?

[robbie86]

What’s the difference between these two full boar air compressor 

[MikeTNZ]

Hi @robbie86,

Welcome to Bunnings Workshop,

I am a qualified electrician that has worked with compressors since I started my apprenticeship, 30 years ago.

If you're going to be either spray painting or using air tools from a compressor, you need the following:

At least 200 Litres of reserve air in the receiver tank.

A compressor that will fill that tank without going out on overload when it will not keep up with the demand at the point of usage.

If this compressor will be high demand, think possibly getting a large 3 phase unit installed, reason I say that is because it will save you a lot of

electricity and a single phase compressor needs to be limited to a certain number of starts per hour, if you go above that, the chance of the

motor driving it and the compressor being damaged, a lot of the smaller compressors just aren't up to the task and a few of them have either

burned out or have gone on fire due to overheating.

You might have to have your submain to your garage upgraded, but if you are going to do stuff like this, you need air capacity from a receiver tank and something to keep that full, constantly.

I hope that this makes some sense, if it doesn't, by all means, drop me a line.

Cheers,

Mike T.

[EricL]

Hello @robbie86

Allow me to welcome you as well to the Bunnings Workshop community. It's a pleasure to have you join us and thank you for sharing your question about the air compressors.

It's great that you've received excellent advice from @MikeTNZ. Although both units have a lot of similarities, the main difference is that the Full Boar 3HP 50L Oil Free V-Twin Air Compressor is ideal for powering a wide range of air tools, requiring low to high air volume. It's also rated for spray painting and has a motor with higher horsepower. 

The Full Boar 2.3HP 50L Oil Free Direct Drive Air Compressor on the other hand is only capable of powering tools requiring low to medium air volumes such as nail guns, drills, impact drivers and shears. It has a lower maximum working pressure and does not provide the same amount of free air delivery.

My best advice is to look carefully at your spray gun requirements and match them to the compressor. Just keep in mind that mobile compressors are nothing like stand-alone shop compressors that have large reserve tanks. You'll need to factor in the reloading time of the mobile compressor when doing large projects.

If you have any other questions we can help with, please let us know.

Eric

[MikeTNZ]

Hi @EricL, @robbie86,

If you're going to use any compressor, for things such as spray painting, I cannot recommend strongly enough that you install a line drier in the outlet

of the compressor that feeds your tools, etc.

There is no such thing as a compressor that does not put moisture into its outlet, even if you drain the receiver tank every day, with the heating and cooling cycles of the compressor itself, there will be some sort of moisture in the tank, that gets fed out through the outlet wether you like it or not.

Dessicant driers are pretty common, they use silica gel beads ( like the packets you get when you buy a new pair of shoes or what-not), I would recommend you get one of these drier units and a couple of refills for it.

One final thing, if you are going to go down the track of a permanently installed compressor, please don't use them stupid plug-in fittings that all compressors seem to come with these days.

They leak, if you leave your compressor powered up all the time, it will run when you aren't using it and I've replaced so many compressors because of these fittings alone, they are the quickest way to kill a new compressor.

My advice is, go to a pipe fitting shop with the plug-in socket, so you have the thread size and get a push-lock fitting and the nylon hose that fits that regulator outlet, these don't leak.

If you need further clarification about what I'm on about, by all means let me know.

Cheers,

Mike T.

[Noyade]

G'day @robbie86 

How did you get on with your air compressor? Come to any decision on what to buy? Or not to buy? Please keep us informed. 👍