You can never have a good enough air compressor! Even the one I have is BARELY adequate... and mine is the bottom of the barrel commercial version. It's still barely able to stay ahead of serious use. I have a Champion - 5 hp 230V single phase - two stage - soft start... 80 gallon vertical tank.
If I'm running a cut off tool or a grinder - it's running non stop... and while it keeps up and I never have to wait for recovery. Running a 100% duty cycle is never good for compressed air. Compressing air makes moisture.... and we have lots of moisture in the air here... so if you take one pound and press it into 10 pounds you end up with 10 times the moisture...
Forget the plasma cutter - get a killer compressor.... and then buy cheap air tools from Harbor freight or wherever else you can get them - toss 'em in the garbage when they quit working. I have Snap On stuff - I have Matco Stuff - and chinko stuff - the chinko stuff works just as good as the stuff I paid 10 X's the money for. This is true ONLY for die grinders and small cut off tools -- I would NEVER advise this for anything else.
|