On Tue, 22 Mar 2016 21:46:56 -0000, "Gareth Magennis"
wrote:

Right,


I would really like a very small, cheap, air tank that I can charge every
now and again at the local garage (i.e. can be filled with a standard car
tyre pump).
I would also like it to include one of these, to blow all the dust from the
heatsinks and chassis in Power Amplifiers, amongst other things.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VINTAGE-19...AOSwpzdWrsU q



Does such a thing exist? Are retail tyre pumps powerful enough to charge
these?
I've been Googling but don't know the connector terminology that says "you
can charge this with your local tyre pump".

I've found lots of portable air tanks aimed at Motorsports, but I'm really
not sure about the local tyre pump mechanism thingy to charge it.


Cheers,


Gareth.

Greetings Gareth,
Small tire, oops, tyre pumps will fill a small air tank. The problem
is how long it takes and the duty cycle of the pump. Some will have an
extended duty cycle and can be used without stopping for it to cool
down. The problem with all the small pumps is that they need to run
the tiny piston up and down very fast in order to fill a tire in any
reasonable length of time. This makes them noisy because the little DC
motor is spinning so fast. Oh crap, I just re-read your message and it
seems you are asking if the local gas station air compressor will be
powerful enough to fill your tank. Here in the USA most gas station
air compressors will be able to fill a portable air tank, but some to
maybe only to 80 PSI or so. Some of the gas stations have a stand
alone air compressor for filling tyres off away from the gas, er,
petrol pumps and they tend to have undersized compressors so filling
your tank may take a while. But they will fill it. I imagine that in
the UK there are similar things since ti, um ,tyres are the same the
world over no matter how you spell the name. I know some folks here
will also use old beer kegs to hold compressed air. They are made from
pretty heavy wall stainless steel. I have an old keg that I use for
just this reason. Recently I modified a keg, converting it into a
still for a new local micro distillery. The keg had stamped on it that
it would burst if pressurized over 60 PSI. After putting some holes in
it for various pipes I was able to measure the wall thickness and it
would take more, something around 350 PSI, to burst it. I think there
must be a lot of folks stealing kegs to use as air tanks.
Cheers,
Eric