Actaul capacity of Porter-Cable Compressor?

[Mike Dobony]

I am looking at a compressor to replace my oversized 240v compressor that I can only use in my garage. I am considering getting this Porter-Cable pancake compressor and wondered if anybody has used it to power a roofing gun:

If you have used it for either serious framing or roofing, how well did it work? Thanks.

Mike D.

[Oren]

I have one and we did use a framing gun. It will not keep up (fast work) - imo. The compressor needs to catch up. You can add a 100' hose to help with air.

I love this compressor. It turns on when I blow of the miter saw ... (constant air). For finish nailing - great.

If you buy it, get the kit with 3 guns (?).

-- Oren

"The voices in my head may not be real, but they have some good ideas!"

[BobK207]

It all depends on the cyclic rate you demand of the gun.

If you're expecting this little guy (they sure are convenient for size & weight)

to drive a framing gun like a Hitcahi NR83A,

your sustained cyclic rates going to be ~20 shots per minute; a nail every three seconds.

Pretty inconvenient if you're doing a lot sustained nailing. :(

check out this Senco page for compressor / gun match ups

Running a coil nailer you'd get more like a shot every 1.5 to 2 seconds.....better but still a little on the skimpy side.

If you're really doing production work, I think you'll be disappointed with this compressor.

It's better suited to intermittent demand and smaller guns (8 or 16 gage brad nailers) such that it can catch up while you're doing something else.

In the product description it talks about supporting a two man "trim crew"

For real roofing or framing work you're going to need 2 or 2.5x this air compressor capacity :(

this larger compressor

4.5 gallon storage capacity air tank supports heavy use of brad nailers, staplers, and finish nailers; moderate use of roofing and framing nailers.

"moderate use" :(

cheers Bob

cheers

[Oren]

I ruled this out. You nail I cut! :)

-- Oren

"The voices in my head may not be real, but they have some good ideas!"

[Edwin Pawlowski]

It works fine for my uses, but I'm not in the "serious" category doing such work. If I put 3 or 4 nails into framing without a pause, that is normal. If you expect to bang in 100 nails down the line, go bigger. If you are doing the roof yourself, it will easily keep up. For Joe Weekender, it is sufficient, but for a pro, marginal. It is not made for a roofing crew.

[Mike Dobony]

I'm not that fast. With a framing gun it will be smaller projects and only that fast on the sheeting for a shed or addition.

This is about my speed, but only for a few shingles at a time.

Link does not work. Are you talking about the Job Boss?

[Mike Dobony]

My wife and I make up our roofing crew, with her laying out the shingles and me nailing. When I get to sheeting (laying plywood on the roof or floor) I can be pretty fast, one row of nails in less than 2 seconds, and then another 2-3 seconds to line up for the next row of nails across the 4' run, nails about every 4-6 inches.

[BobK207]

Mike-

Sorry about the bad link

yes I was talking about the Job Boss (it comes in two flavors; oil lubed & oil-less)

The link is for the oil-less, it has a higher cfm rating

Air tool matching to a compressor is all about compressor cfm (horsepower if you can get a believable number) , tank size , tool air consumption per shot & tool duty cycle.

I'm sorry I haven't given you a good answer about whether the compressor will do for you but it really depends on your usage.

You can "help" the compressor by plumbing in (use QD's) an extra storage tank. I've a 7.5 gallon extra tank that I add to the "circuit" closer to the point of use. I have regulator just downstream of the extra tank. The extra tank setup gives me better volume flow at the tool & more overall "burst" capacity. Of course sustained use is still limited by compressor capacity.

I think the small compressor will probably do it for you. But you could buy more hose & an extra tank to improve the usability of your current compressor.

What's the amp rating (or cfm @ 90 psi) of your current compressor?

cheers Bob

[Mike Dobony]

I don't think it would do much good to have 44,000 feet of hose to get the

240v compressor to work when I can only plug it into a 30 amp 240 outlet. I need something I can use anywhere on a job site. I have had to rely on manual labor to do a lot of jobs for many people because they did not have the proper outlet required. I need a decent 120v compressor that will power a roofing gun and a framing gun. I am not building homes or working with a big crew. My wife and I do little jobs for people occasionally and need somthign that will do decent work with a single roofing gun or a single framing gun. My son's cheap Harbor Freight compressor almost did the job for roofing, but lost it just before having to recharge the tank. His compressor had a max psi of only 115 and didn't kick in until it reached about 80 or 85PSI. It was like this one, but a lower capacity

About 8cfm at 90 and 30amp 240v.

[Oren]

Broke link --

Binary stream '0' does not contain a valid BinaryHeader. Possible causes are invalid stream or object version change between serialization and deserialization.

-- Oren

..through the use of electrical or duct tape, achieve the configuration in the photo..