What did you do in your shop today?

[MiniDave]

IR is def a great brand, I bought my no name one at HF and was surprised to find almost all of it was made in USA, the electric motor came from Mexico. It was half the price of that one.....

I see these on FB Marketplace all the time (5hp 60-80 gallon compressors), a lot of them look brand new - like bought and rarely used - so if you don't use it constantly like a production shop, maybe something like that will do?

Are you already wired for 240?

[94touring]

The only thing it has going against it is that's a 3450rpm motor, which will be louder, have less torque, and be more duty cycle limited.  I specifically replaced my massive motor with a 7.5hp 1750rpm motor.  The lower rpm units cost more.  I think the motor on mine was $1500 by itself.  I shed some tears when the original motor died on me.

[Mudhen]

Interesting about the motor RPM, never knew about that, was only looking at the 15CFM number.

Yes, wired for 220...should be OK for 230/240 as well?  Or no...

[94touring]

If you're doing some all day work like I'm often doing in my shop, the lower rpms might be important.  Plus mine sits in a shed that gets about 120 degrees out there.  Or if you just want less noise. Mine barely chugs along and I never hear it inside on the other side of the wall.

[cstudep]

The lower rpm is also easier on the compressor components. I mean its basically a small motor, crank, rods, pistons. Its just using the compression stroke to compress air into a tank rather than light a fire for a return trip.

[94touring]

Yep.  That one is a single piston setup looks like. I'm not sure how that would compare to something like what I have which is 3 pistons. I can probably get away with the lower rpms because it's more displacement filling the tank. I can fill my 120 gallon tank from empty pretty quickly. Then it takes awhile before it kicks back on.  That's a benefit to an 80+ gallon tank too.

[cstudep]

I think the reason the cheaper ones are generally faster Rpm is two fold. 1 - higher rpm motors are usually cheaper because they have fewer windings, so they pair them up with the cheaper, lower scfm compressor components. 2 - running the higher rpm means more strokes per minute so that helps recover some of the scfm gap between the cheap single stage etc.. Compressors and the much more expensive dual etc.. Stage.

All that said, if you are generally only using it on occasion in a home shop it probably does not matter, buy as much scfm as you need to do what you need. If its going to be running a lot more you are probably better off buying a more expensive unit to start with as it will likely outlive the cheap ones by 2 or 3x. Maybe more. My old industrial grade compressor is easily 50+ years old. I rarely change the oil like I should and it sits in a shop that goes from 110+ in summer to - degrees in winter.

[94touring]

Got the rear shocks done on the truck today.   Bolts and nuts were really rusted on and the one side top was hard to get to.  Old shocks were dead.  Barely any rebound and easy to fully compress. 

[cstudep]

Nice, I have my rear shocks sitting in the shop waiting on the front struts to arrive. They shipped this morning so hoping they get here before the weekend.

[94touring]

It's like a whole new truck lol.  Nice smooth ride and stops.