homemade air compressor

[jderou]

I don't feel like listening to my noisy oil-less compressor any more. I am wondering if anyone has ever converted a briggs into an air pump, how much hp it would take to run it, and how quiet it would be.

I am thinking about either taking the valves out of the engine and putting one way valves on the intake and exhaust, or making a different cam to turn it into an air pump. I have a 2 horse dc brushless motor that I would like to turn it with. I don't remember the size of the briggs off hand but I think its around a 10 horse.

I also thought since I am using a dc motor, that I could make a control that would increase rpm of the motor as the demand for air increased.

Here is a pic of the motor, any thoughts?

[Karl_T]

Just a suggestion for you.

The compressor pump out of a car AC sytem makes a perfect air copmpressor. Just weld the 12 volt clutch closed. Be sure and take the freon lines to/from the compressor when you get one, the connectors are non-standard. One of the very large cars from the 70s has the biggest units.

I used one of these for many years.

Karl

[jderou]

What kind of volume can you get from an ac compressor? Are they quiet? How do you keep it oiled?

[RTP_Burnsville]

I used a York AC compressor for many years as well. You had to add oil to the compressor every now and then as the pump did not have an oil ring and a small amount of oil would get into the air stream. The York style pumps were nice in that they were easy to mount, had standard fittings, and worked very well.

I used a good filter system and never had an issue running small air tools, paint spray equipment, etc...

As for noise it was about the same as as any other pump type compressor/motor combination.

I have heard of people using a 'briggs' engine but never with very good results as compared to those using an AC pump.

Today if I were going to build a compressor I would check out some of the low cost china pumps form places like HF or Northern Tool.

Robert