Can Pan Cake Air Compressor Refill a 5-gal Air Tank for a Brad Gun?

I wouldn't base any purchasing decision on whether the manufacturer describes it as "quiet". Being a relative term, it means nothing - quiet compared to what? A jet plane? Another compressor?

Unless they give a decibel reading, it's all meaningless.

Your best bet would be to go and look at them in person and decide for yourself just how quiet they really are.

P.S. - Many manufacturers advertising material consists of lies and half-truths.

Greg G.

Reply to
Greg G.
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Another point I forgot to mention is that it isn't the *motor* that makes most of the noise - it is the compressor itself. The air pump doing it's job of moving air around rapidly. The intake and exhausts of the compressor pump are where most of the noise comes from.

It sounds like you are looking for a vibrating diaphragm pump. They are generally quieter than a piston pump. You could operate one of these in an apartment and no one would notice. The problem is, they are slow to generate much air pressure.

FWIW,

Greg G.

Reply to
Greg G.

Those are the good ones. The bad ones leave out the half-truths.

Reply to
Roy Smith

The compressor is Senco branded. I don't know if its sold separately under a different brand. Here's a link on the Woodcraft website

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that link fails, go to
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and search for "Senco compressor".

The compressor is the smallest compressor I have seen anywhere and I really like the size. I can lift it with one hand. Just recently, I used the nailer to tack down a bunch of floor sheathing in the attic. I could walk up the attic stairway with nailer hooked on my belt and compressor in one hand. When I was using it, I would put down a 4 foot wood strip for a guide and pop the brads out at a rate of about 2/second. The little compressor faithfully did its job. I would hate to have been doing this same job lugging around the one of the other compressors I've seen (like the Porter Cable model).

Woodcraft prices are pure retail. If I had been on my toes, I could have purchased this combo at Lowe's for 10-20% off.

Bob

Reply to
Bob Davis

A regular pancake compressor has a 4-gal air tank. If I need extra 5 minutes for it to recover once or twice, this sounds OK for my infrequent need of cleaning filter cartridge.

A single hot-dog compressor has a 2-gal air tank. This probably means I need extra 10 minutes for it to recover. This is still OK.

An ulta small single hot-dog compressor has a 1-gal air tank. This probably means I need extra 20 minutes for it to recover. This sounds a bit long. If I go this way, I will need to see whether I have that kind of patient. Oh well...

Thanks for the reference point.

Jay Chan

Reply to
Jay Chan

Oh no... That Delta CP200 was at the top of my list. Now, I may need to rethink... Thanks anyway.

Jay Chan

Reply to
Jay Chan

I'm not saying it isn't quiet, I'm just saying that 'quiet' is a relative term. For all I know the CP200 absorbs noise from the room it is operated in. I don't have one - I use a loud and noisy 20 gallon Cambell Hausfield compressor.

Greg G.

Reply to
Greg G.

Sort of, but you are confusing tank size to the output of the compressor. If you have a 5 gallon tank and a 5 cfm unit, it will take half as long as a

5 gallon tank with a 2.5 cfm compressor. The 5 gallons with a 5 cfm will take the same time as a 2.5 gallon tank with 2.5 cfm, but th e tank will pull down in half the time of use.

The time to refill is directly related to the compressor output. Bigger is better, of course, but you also must look at cost effectiveness for your use. Ed snipped-for-privacy@snet.net

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Reply to
Edwin Pawlowski

Thanks for the correction. I look into the spec on the two small/quiet single-hot-dog air compressors that I am interested (Delta CP200 and Senco PC1010). They are both in the 0.35 cfm and 0.7 cfm range (both at 90 psi). This sounds very low as compared to a regular pancake air compressor (something like 2.7 cfm at 90 psi). This means that I will have to spend an extra half hour or longer to wait for the small air compressor to recover before I can finish blowing all the dust from a filter cartridge. This pretty much means that neither of them are good for blowing anything. This means I should use it strictly for nailers.

I probably need to use my shop vac in reverse to blow dusts off a filter cartridge (yes, I will do this outdoor).

Thanks for the useful information.

Jay Chan

Reply to
Jay Chan

I think I have found the combo kit that you are using. The compressor model number is PC1010, and the model number of the combo kit is PC0947. It is advertised as ultra quiet air compressor.

May I ask you two things about your Senco small and quiet air compressor:

- Does it say whether it can support the use of a finish-nailer? Review in Amazon.com said that it is not suitable for a finish-nailer. I am not sure whether this means it is not suitable for a finish-nailer PERIOD, or whether this means it is not suitable for finish-nailer in a production environment instead of a DIY environment.

- Does the operation instruction say anything about the possible uses of this air compressor other than using it with a nailer?

This is always nice to talk with something who actually has the air compressor that I am interested.

Thanks.

Jay Chan

Reply to
Jay Chan

Jay, I tried to find information to answer your question but the consumption specs are not available for Senco 15-16 ga nailers.

My guess is that the PC 1010 will operate it but will not keep up. It will go up to 120 PSI, but only 0.7 scfm at 90 PSI. The consumption of my Finish Pro 18 nailer is 0.84 scfm at 60 brads/second so it closely matches the compressor. The Finish pro XL25, a heavy duty brad nailer is 1.9 scfm at 90 PSI at a rate of 60 brads/minute. The larger nailers will surely consume more. With only a 1 gallon tank, I think the PC1010 may be a disappointment to operate the 15 or 16 ga nailers under anything but a few nails per minute. The pump up time for the PC 1010 compressor is 128 seconds (0-120 PSI) and it will recover from 90-120 PSI in 35 seconds. My guess is that you would have to limit the nailing rate for a larger nailer to about 4-5 per minute.

Bob

Reply to
Bob Davis

Thanks for giving me your assessment of how the small air compressor matching a finish nailer.

Actually, 4-5 finish nails a minute is more than enough for me. I am not a "fast-moving" woodworker. I like to do thing slowly. I will order a Senco ultra quiet air compressor nailer combo right after posting this message. Thanks for recommending this combo kit to me. I will first use it to nail baseboard trimming in my basement project.

This also means that please don't tell me there is a much better one else where.

Jay Chan

Reply to
Jay Chan

I used the Senco ultra quiet compressor with a Senco finish nailer (FP35) in this weekend. I found that the compressor will start kicking in after I had shot five 15-gauge finish nails. Then, I still could shoot the sixth nail without any problem. I didn't try to shoot the seventh nail; I just waited 10 seconds to let the compressor to catch up a bit before I shot any more nail.

This is of course not good enough for "production" use. But for DIYer like me who tends to work slowly and tends to have down time between shooting nails, it is good enough.

If I got a two-hot-dogs compressor, I (as a DIYer) probably would never ever need to pause to wait for the compressor. But then I would need to pay more and had to carry the heavy load around (it would be heavy as comparing to the very light Senco ultra quiet compressor). Therefore, I feel that I am much better off using the Senco ultra quiet compressor.

Yes, it is quite quiet. I cannot hear it running in the basement when I walked up to the first floor (and the floor is not well insulated nor sound-proof).

By the way, it works perfectly fine with the bundled FP-18 brad nailer. I don't remember hearing the compressor ever needs to kick in when I used the brad nailer to shoot brads at quarter-round shoe-molding around the entire basement wall. It might have kicked in once. But this happens so infrequent that I cannot recall this ever happens.

The bottom line is: It is cheap enough, quiet, very light, takes very little room, great for brads, and OK for finish nails for DIY usage.

Thanks for the recommendation on that compressor/brad-nailer combo.

Jay Chan

Reply to
Jay Chan

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