Adam Ligon wrote:
You will find if you look hard that there are really only like 2-3 manufactures of compressors, they just get painted and badged differently. For quality, cost, and not to mention service and warranty you would be hard pressed to beat what HD and Lowe's offer.
HD and Lowes generally sell Campbell Hausfeld under their own brand:
http://www.chpower.com/index.asp
(HD = Husky, Lowes I think sells them as Campbells)
I have a VT6195 and it puts out about enough CFM's that it can do just about anything that you want to do with an air tool. It isn't portable (drilled into concrete to mount it) but at the $400 I paid for it with a set of air tools and hose, it was a steal (if they are still priced at that much) compared to the capabilities of other larger portable compressors - only a few dollars more than something more portable and less capable. Unless you move a lot (and I take it you aren't a contractor needing mobility), I'm not sure what the portability buys you (have tow vehicle and generator to take to events?). It is going to take up garage space no matter what. Need to get to a car outside the garage? Use a longer air hose.
For as little as you will use it, the oil change thing for a belt-driven isn't much of an issue - I _THINK_ it is every 25 hours of use, but it takes all of 1 minute to do an oil change. I'm due for a change after the licking it took last weekend pulling vacuum down on an A/C system.
As for HP ratings - Campbell got sued over misprinting HP (I got another impact wrench out of the settlement) - peak versus continuous, so you might as well just ignore it when comparing compressors. Compare them using the CFM delivered @ 90psi (what you typically run high load air tools at). Less than 5 is useless IMHO and you are going to have trouble with extended use of impact wrenches. 10 or higher is ideal and lets you run 99% of air tools (I forget what it is that I can't run, whatever it is, must not be that important if I can't remember it, and I can probably coax it to run it by just letting the motor continuously fill the air tank).
As loud as it is, with the garage door shut, you can't hear it outside the house when it is running nor is it very disturbing inside. It's nice to be able to whizz off a fastener at 2am if you have to.
I have left it on a few times and had it cycle in the middle of the night - you can hear it, but it isn't so obnoxious that if you have heavy sleepers in your house that you couldn't use it in the wee hours of the night.
The only bugaboo is wiring up 230V to it and it wasn't as hard of a job as was made out to be - luckily, my panel is in the garage and there was room for a subpanel right next to it. Come to think of it, I just added a breaker in the main panel to start out with and added the subpanel later.
YMMV. IIRC, you drive a Honda and probably don't wrench as much as I do, so what I have may be overkill, but as Tim the "Tool-man" Taylor says <grunting> "More power!".
I drive these cantankerous Mazdas and they always seem to need attention so the more tools, the merrier they are - I seem to be pulling a transmission or engine on a regular basis, so it has more than paid for itself alone in saved time and reduced busted knuckles running the heavy duty impact wrench.
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The 110v with wheels can be carted out of the garage.
, I don't have air tools, but use it for nail guns.
However, you can zoom the images on the site and see the aftercooler on the upper left.