Air Compressor

[spacebluesonoma]

I have a Porter cable pancake compressor 4 gallon size. Sears sells a craftsman 5 gallon tank for 18.99 a 15 gallon for a few more bucks obviously. is it cost effective and reasonable to purchase one of these and hook it up to my pancake to increase the capacity to use tools that require more constant airflow than an air nailer?

[BadgerDave]

Probably not. It's true that you would increase the amount of air that you'd have available but the SCFM output would not increase sufficiently if at all to run most other air tools besides the nailers that your compressor easily handles now. Also, the recharge cycle time would increase due to the extra capacity causing increased wear and tear on the motor.

[spacebluesonoma]

That is one of the things I am trying to do is cut down on that compressor running. It does not run constant, some say their's does, no big problem there, but one of the thinds that was suggested to me was to get a secondary tank. this will be used for finish nailers and brads primarriarly, but would love to be able to use some other tools that require constant air. Not constatnly, but the thought was to increast tank capacity would decrease compressor rate?

[imported_PLUMBER RICK]

BADGER DAVE IS CORRECT. ALL THIS WILL DO IS GIVE YOU A LONGER RUN TIME BETWEEN STARTS AND STOPS OF YOUR COMPRESSOR. THE COMPRESSOR WILL HAVE TO RUN LONGER TO FILL UP THE EXTRA CAPACITY.GOOD FOR A SHORT BURST, SUCH AS AN INPACT WRENCH WHEN YOU NEED THE HIGH PRESSURE FOR NUT BUSTING. A SECONDARY TANK IS A VERY GOOD IDEA ON A LONG HOSE RUN SUCH AS A CONSTRUCTION SITE. RUNNING A HOSE TO A COMMON AREA INTO THE SECOND TANK. THEN A SHORT HOSE TO YOUR GUN. SIMILAR TO A POWER SPYDER BOX ON CONSTRUCTION SITES.