I am looking at a 4.5" angle grinder for my service truck. I have a Miller welder and a high CFM air compressor onboard and am considering an air operated grinder. Found a new Jupiter on eBay for cheap but I'm not sure on if it would be a good choice over electric. My welder is an older model which I can EITHER weld or use 120 volt tools so I could use both the welder and grinder at the same time without switching back and forth with an air grinder. Any thoughts on or experience with them on here?
So long as you have an air dryer and a lubricator an air-operated grinder should be pretty reliable.
Noisy with high air consumption but a good ones are very reliable. Their biggest advantage for us is a lot of sites are very anal about electrical safety, test and tag, RCDs etc. Air tools overcome these hurdles niceley.
I have used them and i dont see any thing wrong with them but i wouldnt want to use them in the shop i dont like to hear the compresser. One thing i didnt like and it wouldnt be as bad for you was their very cold in the winter.
Actually air powered tools if used for prolonged time will get cold even in hot weather, but in the cold temps it can get to the point they freeze up.
Except for the noise I always like them in the field, especially when the moss on my back was soaking up the usual rain. I never liked using my eye balls as flood lights when an electric decided it was time to malfunction. They take a beating better than the electrics and are usually a little lighter to handle. A little alcohol or antifreeze once in awhile helps the freeze up issue.
One of each is handy in the shop. On a bigish grinding job, can use the electric till it gets hot and then the air till it gets cold.
noisy messy buggers but they do work. we have a big 9" unit that we break out when the apprentices get to full of themselves.
One nice thing about the air tools is overloading them will not cause them to burn out like an electric motor powered machine will.
Oh and the CFM demands are quite high, that 9" wont even run on a 1/2" line, needs a good 3/4"
Thanks for all the responses:notworthy! I had forgotten about my die grinder freezing up and stopping, and freezing my hands off in our humid winters. For its CFM draw, which I suspect at load is way more than the 4 claimed, I couldn't keep a drier working for long. As much as I liked the idea, I think I should stick with a good electric unit.
And for the small grinding jobs you can't go past the new batt one's.