I need to paint my truck, but can't afford a shop compressor. What I have is an old portable 2hp/maybe 5 gal Emglo, a 1.5hp/5gal Rigid and a recently acquired twin tank set-up from an old Emglo wheelbarrow style compressor. I'm thinking of plumbing the two compessors into the old twin tanks to increase the volume of air and using a regulator and water trap on the old tanks. Do you think the two compressors will have any problems with this set-up?

Thanks

 

If all your doing is painting you wont have a problem cause you don't need a lot of volume, but if your doing body work and using air tools it will be hard to get enough air.

 

unless he is using a HVLP spray gun they suck air. Why not rent a larger one for a day and paint the truck . Jerry -rigging and compressed air not a great mix.

 

Just for painting. As far as renting, I'll need air several days, a little here, a little there. The truck is stripped to frame and bare cab. What's to be afeared of? Everything will have pressure relief valves. I'm more concerned about burning up a compressor pump.

 

Don't know how much CFM you'll need but I'd say that if you have properly connected lines from each compressor to your tank you should be fine. Watch you pressure as you're spraying and let them play catchup from time to time.

 

I've thought about doing something just like this for painting as well. Let us know how well it works.
The only thing I can think that might be a problem is if one compress is set to kick of at a lower pressure than the other. Once one stops, there would not be enough volume from the single to keep up so it would never shut off.
Or are you going to use a single pressure control to control both? If you do, do you have enough breaker capacity or circuits for both to start simultaneously?

 

I dont think there is anything wrong with running compressors in parallel. your just going to be limited to your weakest tank and keep all the compressors at about the same pressure setting so one compressor isn't doing all the work.
As far as running air tools, volume and patient. My boss has a 1 gallon 1/2 HP compressor for airing up tires. If he needs to run air tools, he connects to a 10 gallon tank and let it run.