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Quiet compressor for airbrushing


eglies

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can you define what you're doing when you're airbrushing? Are you looking to coat the whole mould in a short time or are you looking at individual cavities? If the latter, I have an Iwata SmartJet Pro which is very quiet, however it struggles to cover a whole mould, I need to wait for a few seconds after every pass or two before doing the next row of cavities.

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6 hours ago, eglies said:

Hi,

 

I am looking for a seriously quiet compressor which works well for daily bonbon airbrushing. Can someone recommend something that is quiet and oil free?

 

Thank you

 

I too had the SmartJet Pro and found it very quiet and satisfactory as long as I was using a regular airbrush. But when I introduced a more powerful airbrush with a larger needle (to get better and faster coverage) and later tried a paint gun, the Iwata, as Chris pointed out, struggled. I then got a California Air Tools model that is also advertised as quiet (which is "quiet" only in comparison to an industrial compressor, but does not bother me). It handles an airbrush without a problem and a paint gun with some struggling (it runs a lot more of the time). If you can imagine ever moving to something more in the paint gun category, I would suggest getting a compressor with more horsepower now (covering an entire mold requires it or you will be driven crazy by the time the process takes)--if you can stand the noise in your situation. If not, the Iwata may be fine. Many posters have expressed satisfaction with less expensive compressors found in home improvement stores. There is more discussion of these issues (including noise) in this thread and in several others.

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11 minutes ago, dcarch said:

Why not get a 50-foot hose and have the compressor in another room or closet?

 

dcarch

That's what I do with my Fuji - but it's loud even in the other room.

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7 minutes ago, Jim D. said:

It's odd but the noise of the Fuji does not bother me. It sounds like a vacuum cleaner (and, unlike a compressor, is a more or less steady noise).

It is a steady noise - but I do enjoy the quiet when it stops! I use the remote to turn it on and off when I'm working.

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10 minutes ago, Jim D. said:

That's a possibility, but my setup does not allow for that option. In addition, I read somewhere that the strength of the air flow is diminished with distance. 

May not be true.

With fluid dynamics (air is a fluid) there is static pressure and dynamic pressure in the hose. In general, static pressure (PSI) will mostly the same regardless of the distance of the hose. but if the diameter of the hose is too small and the hose is too long, dynamic pressure (related to CFM) will suffer.

 

An option is to have a large air tank and smaller motor/compressor. The compressor will be quieter, but operate longer.

 

Or an active noise canceling system (expensive), or an active noise canceling earphone (much cheaper, some with Bluetooth wireless music).

 

dcarch

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If you do a lot of airbrush work, I would get a compressor with air tank and a long hose as suggested by @dcarch.  The motor may be loud, but it won't run all the time - once it reaches pressure, it will just run for a minute or two when the pressure in the tank drops below a preset level.  In my facility (it's not a chocolate facility, but we do paint spraying) we keep our pressure in the lines at about 100 psi - but the spray gun only needs 25-30 psi, so we have a filter regulator at the spray booth to clean the air (there are filters that will filter all water and oil) and maintain proper pressure for the spray gun.

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I will need to cover many moulds at the same time, so I definitely need a compressor that can take it and not give me a headache after some hours. Does a compressor like that exist? If all these ultra quiet ones dont do the job why do they call them quiet even if they start quiet and then make noise? 

Since I am in Europe please suggest any brands that I can look up and see if I can find them, cause if there is a solution to a powerful quiet compressor I will get it to save me from the noise headache.

Thank you for all the replies 😊

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Would it be feasible instead to invest in a good set of hearing protection? Either industrial-quality headgear or disposable earplugs might cost considerably less than the equipment you're considering. Note that I am not a chocolatier, and may be missing something about the production process. I do know that i worked for years in a very noisy environment and still have excellent hearing thanks to the protection I used.

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40 minutes ago, eglies said:

 If all these ultra quiet ones dont do the job why do they call them quiet even if they start quiet and then make noise?  

 

Well, because they are quiet? I can use mine at midnight in my kitchen and no-one knows I'm using it, even if it does turn on every 30 seconds. But if you want this lack of noise, you're sacrificing power to pressurise a large tank to provide continuous flow for spraying whole moulds.

 

You can make a small quiet compressor work, but the time you take to spray will be increased. I bought mine and made it work for me because I couldn't afford getting another compressor or a different gun. If I could go back and change it, I probably would try a larger iwata instead.

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1 hour ago, keychris said:

I can use mine at midnight in my kitchen and no-one knows I'm using it, even if it does turn on every 30 seconds

 

That's good. I would wake up my neighbour with mine. :D 

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It is very easy to silence an air compressor. Manufacturers do it all the time  big time everyday everywhere. So silent that you can't hear it working just a few feet away.

Think refrigerator.

There is a powerful, reliable, ultra quiet compressor in there. As a matter of fact there are people who salvage the compressor from a broken refrigerator or air conditioner and use that as a air compressor.

Search youtube.

 

dcarch

 

 

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