Compressor specification for alu chip blower

[John S]

There are some cheap hydrovane compressors out there.
This one sold for £155.

Hydrovane 6PU air compressor | eBay

Best to get the tank mounted ones but many can be had single phase for under £450.

My shop is about 50 foot away from the house but it against my neighbours house so I can't run anything really noisy late at night. I often forget to switch the compressor off and due to small leaks it often starts up a couple of times during the night.
Never had any complaints from next door.

There are differences in the models, the tank mounted ones are like normal compressors and use a pressure switch to cut off at a pre determined pressure.
The tripod mounted ones have an unloader valve built into the compressor that stops it pumping, the motor carries on running. These can be uses as a normal compressor when fitted to a tanked system if the pressure switch is set to say 10 pounds below the unloader pressure.

One way to save a lot of money is work out what the max pressure needs to be. Mine is set to run to 120 psi but I only use it for general use, no power tools etc so I have dropped the pressure to 95 pounds because it takes 5 minutes to get to 95 but 8 minutes to get to 120, that extra 25 pounds cost a lot of money as it has to do more work. It's also less strain on the compressor.

[Shinobiwan]

One way to save a lot of money is work out what the max pressure needs to be. Mine is set to run to 120 psi but I only use it for general use, no power tools etc so I have dropped the pressure to 95 pounds because it takes 5 minutes to get to 95 but 8 minutes to get to 120, that extra 25 pounds cost a lot of money as it has to do more work. It's also less strain on the compressor.

Great advice John. I forgot to mention but after killing 2 compressors in the space of a year I hunted around on the spraying forums for advice and found this is fairly common practice on smaller hobby to light trade models. I adjust the pressure switch on my last one in a similar way and that's been good for all these years, might have something to do with that.