Years ago I bought a little, cigarette lighter-powered air compressor to fill tires that were a long way from my shop air compressor. What a waste of money. The cheesy little unit could barely pump tires to 35 psi, and died a noisy, somewhat smoky death trying to fill some wagon tires.
So it got my attention when Milwaukee Tool Company announced earlier this year that they were introducing a battery-powered portable air compressor. I’ve learned to trust the “Milwaukee” name, and the spec sheet impressed me.
The little compressor weighs only 7 pounds and is about the size of a bread box. (Does anybody still use a bread box, and do young people even know how big a bread box is…?) It comes with a 3-foot-long hose, a Schrader chuck, and is rated to 150 psi.
No portable air compressor is going to quickly fill a semi-truck tire or grain cart tire, so a cool feature on the Milwaukee unit is that it can be set to shut off at a pre-determined air pressure. Outfit it with a lock-on air chuck and go do something else until the tire is filled.
Milwaukee anticipated their portable compressor would be used for filling big tires, and incorporated an internal cooling fan to keep the unit from overheating during long fills.
That little portable air compressor I bought 20 years ago cost around $35 and proved to be worth what I paid for it. Milwaukee’s portable air compressor kit sells for around $180 and includes the hose, chuck, battery and carrying case. Not cheap, but worth the money when there’s a flat tire in the far corner of the machine shed.
