12v Air Compressor

I had been thinking of buying a 12 volt air compressor

to keep in our SUV for those times when you are far from a gas station and need some air in your tires. As it so happens we recently bought a travel trailer to go camping in.

This was a perfect time and reason to get a portable air compressor. Aside from keeping the tires on our SUV and trailer properly inflated,a 12 volt air compressor would come in handy for filling up beach toys and air mattresses.It would also be great when it came time to blow the water out of the supply lines in our new camper so that I could winterize it.Bonus!

So needless to say I started to do some research online to see what

12v air compressors were available.I wanted a compressor that was fairly light and small,had plenty of power and seemed to be easy to use.Here are a few that I found that piqued my interest.

The first 12v air compressor I looked at was made by Viair which seems to be one of the big names out there.Their model 00073 compressor had some interesting features that I liked.Being 6.5×3.5×6 inches and about 5 pounds it certainly was in the ballpark for size and weight.The Viair 00073 comes with a heavy steel stand that has vibration dampers to help keep it quiet while running.That’s a plus since I read that many pumps can get loud and start to walk around while running.

I liked that it came with a carry bag to hold all the stuff like the 3 piece inflation kit,power cord and air hose.Seemed like a nice unit but I kept on searching.

The next one that caught my eye was the Black and Decker AS 1300 air station.The first thing I noticed was that this 12v air compressor not only plugs into vehicle lighter sockets,it also plugs into household wall outlets.That really adds some versatility. Using the power port in my SUV to power a compressor is a main concern, but being able to plug into a wall outlet when we are at home so that we can inflate one of those air beds when company comes over is a plus.

One nice feature of the Black and Decker ASI 300 is that you can dial in the pressure that you want the compressor to stop at,so no over inflating.It’s small size helps with storage issues,especially in campers which don’t have a lot of room to spare.The two year warranty and that it is made by B&D is a good thing.

The third model that I found was from Goodyear.According to what I read,they claim that the i7000 will inflate a 14 inch tire in about 2.5 minutes.That sounded pretty good to me. Goodyear i7000 12-Volt Direct Drive Heavy-Duty Tire Inflator I also liked that it came with a 16 foot air hose with a quick connect and a 10 foot power cord,something most other models didn’t have. The weight was definitely in the ball park that I was hoping for but the physical size looked okay.

Something that I thought was a good idea was the light on the end of the compressor.On a dark road side or parking lot that should come in handy. A carrying bag ,four inflation adapters and two spare fuses  round out the package.

I’m not sure which 12v air compressor I will buy as they all have good points.But when it comes to getting one to fill tires,inflate air mattresses and toys,and blowing out the water supply lines in our camper,I’m sure that I can’t go to wrong getting anyone of these.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 30th, 2010 at 6:26 pm and is filed under Compressor Information. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.