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The (truly) silent compressor option
Desmoquattro
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New Brunswick, Canada
Member Since: September 10, 2008
entire network: 235 Posts
KitMaker Network: 39 Posts
Posted: Saturday, November 15, 2008 - 04:15 AM UTC
I live in an apartment and I'm on a budget, so paying through the nose for a silent compressor is not in the cards for me. Building one from fridge parts isn't exactly high on my priorities either (good idea though).

My father was shopping at an discount industrial supply shop (Princess Auto, if you are Canadian I highly suggest you find one and go shopping for dirt cheap tools) and picked up a 9 gallon standalone compressed air tank for about 30$. It will handle up to 80 psi and has a tire valve fitting to fill it. I added a good quality pressure regulator from Husky (28$ from Home Depot) and hooked up my Badger 155. With the pressure regulator you can set the flow psi easily, a steady 15-20 pounds will make the tank last quite a while; it drops maybe a pound a minute of as long as you keep it in the 15 psi range (I made a mistake by running it sans regulator, it dropped about 50 pounds in five minutes, ouch). When you run out, just take it to the nearest garage and fill it up with a tire fitting. It's cheap, silent, and pretty darn effective. If you have a noisy compressor, you could pick up a tank to fill periodically, at least then you don't have it blaring constantly while you work.

As far as I can tell there is virtually no moisture coming through either - I guess using a compressed air tank eliminates that problem you get with cheap compressors sans moisture trap.

JC
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