12v Air Compressor

If you are like many avid boaters or campers, you probably have at some point needed to fill something up with air. That could have been an inflatable towable for pulling behind your boat at the lake or simply an air mattress bed to sleep on while you camped. Or even both things.

Finding a 12 volt dc air compressor that will both fill up something with air and be convenient to use can be some times difficult to do. But it looks like the Kwik Tek Airhead High Pressure Air Pump will do the job.

Being a 12v air compressor, the Kwik Tek air pump doesn’t require you to be near an electrical outlet to work. Which is great when you are out on the water or camping off the beaten path. Electrical outlets can be hard to find in those situations!

It does, however, require 12 volt dc power which has to be supplied by a  battery. That battery could be a stand alone battery that you use specifically for inflating items or it can be the battery in your vehicle.

The Kwik Tek Airhead utilizes alligator style clips to connect to the 12 volt battery. Alligator clips are what are used with car jumper cables. If you have ever needed to have your car jump started you will know what they look like.

This arrangement makes for a better set up than the type of power connectors that simply plug into your power port in your car for a few reasons.

First is that with the alligator clips, you can bring a battery with you to fill up your towable or air mattress. An example of this scenario would be if your primitive campsite was far away from the parking area for your car. You wouldn’t need to walk back to your vehicle, fill the air mattress and then walk back with the thing to your campsite. Simply connect your Kwik Tek to the battery and away you go. The same would hold true if you wanted to add air to your inflatable towable out away from the dock.

Second is that the Kwik Tek Airhead High Pressure Air Pump uses lots of energy to run. According to what I have read , this 12v dc pump uses 28 amps to run. That is quite a bit more than your typical power port in a car can provide. Those usually top out at 15 amps. Alligator clips allow you to connect directly to the positive and negative terminals on your battery there by giving you more amperage. Think of the alligator clips as the difference between a garden hose and a firehose. Obviously the firehose will give you more in less time.

Third, the higher amperage allows the Kwik Tek to run faster and create higher pressure which means that you spend less time filling something and more time enjoying whatever you are doing. Isn’t that what you want ?

The alligator power clips are connected to a 10 foot cord so that you should be able to comfortably reach whatever you are filling even if you are using your vehicle battery.

A nice feature of the Kwik Tek Airhead compressor is that it has a removable pressure relief valve that limits the output to 1.4 psi or pounds per square inch. That is just about the perfect volume of air for inflating your towable rafts and boats. Too much pressure could potentially cause a leak which you may not discover until you are out on the water far from a patch kit.

The Kwik Tek Airhead comes with adapters for all of the most popular inflation valves including Stem, Boston, Leafield, Bravo, Hulkey Roberts and more. This simply means that you should have no trouble filling just about anything you care to. Nothing is more irritating than arriving at the beach or campground to find out that you don’t have a way to fill your towable or mattress. With this 12v air compressor should have no worries.

It is not very large at about 7 x 6.5 x 6.5 inches and weighing under two pounds according to Amazon’s site. This should make it very easy to take with and store for your outings.

Many  customers have left positive reviews praising the Kwik Tek. Most stated that it performed as promised. The only negatives that seemed to be reported were of noise while running. But as one reviewer pointed out, the pump was fast so it didn’t run long.

The Kwik Tek Airhead High Pressure Air Pump retails for about $65 to $70. The least expensive that I found was $40.24

So if you are considering a 12v compressor to fill your inflatable towables or air mattresses this may be the one that you should consider.