Topic: a little electrical help needed, please

[MikeJW]

I have one of those little 12V air compressors that I bought at Harbor Freight. It's noisy but works pretty well for my auto and bike tires. My problem is I hate having to hook it up to the vehicle battery. I only use it at home and I have multiple AC outlets handy outside. I looked at 12V-DC power supplies online and found several inexpensive ones but I'm not sure about the output current. Obviously, I need enough output amperage to run the compressor motor but I'm afraid if it is too much I might burn it up. Can't find any data about the compressor, made in China by Central Pneumatic. I thought perhaps one of you electrical geniuses could help. Thanks. Mike

[Spanner 1]

Might have to live with it Mike !.... you would need 'prolly a 10 or 15A D.C. transformer to mimic the amperage available from your car battery .... would be expensive as heck... Those inflators won't run your battery down unless you ran it for, say, 20 mins. at a time and didn't run your car between uses.... my 2c.

[MikeJW]

Thanks, Spanner,
Wow, I never would have guessed that little tiny motor would require 10-15 amps. I'm not worried about running my battery down....I would just rather plug it into house current.
Mike

[onepieceatatime]

Is there an inline fuse in the cable you connect to the battery? If there is, you can look at the value of that fuse, and just go for a power supply that will provide that amount. probably a better solution would be to look it up at harbor freight. They should have current requirements listed in the specs. For example, this one is rated at 30 amps.
http://www.harborfreight.com/12-volt-150-psi-high-volume-air-compressor-66399.html?utm_medium=cse&utm_source=googlebase&hft_adv=40010&mr:trackingCode=7B6E0F9E-782A-E011-B31E-001B2163195C&mr:referralID=NA