Preset tire inflator?

I have both. The inflator works well, but has a duty cycle of 5 minutes on, 5 minutes off to prevent overheating, which can be a limiting factor when trying to inflate 4 tires.

The compressor works continuously on demand with no duty cycle. It is my go-to when inflating more than 1 tire.

I only gave Ryobi as an example. There are other more professional and costly options in Milwaukee and Dewalt.

 

All great ideas. Thanks a ton guys.

 

Not Ryobi, but I have a Milwaukee that is similar. Only one comment, make sure you have a charged battery and a charged spare.

 

If you have an ARB, you may like the idea I almost went with. I was going to mount a manifold under the hood, have two Y hoses coming off, an open/close valve, and a pressure dial on the manifold as well. Flip on the ARB and walk away for 15 minutes. Shut the valve and check the pressure. Repeat until you get to your desired pressure. You can dial in the time so once you figure it out, you set a timer on your phone and go do other things. This will speed it up because you're not moving a hose from wheel to wheel and you can use the time for other things rather than stand there.

I was planning on just wrapping up the hose and leaving it in the engine bay.


edit: Instead I sold my ARB and went with a powertank CO2 system. It's stupid fast.

 

Powertanks / Scuba tanks are just a pleasure to deal with. With the two tire inflator / deflator, it is a breeze.

 

Here is the CAD drawing I made when I was considering the idea. I forgot about the second valve to bleed off pressure. This will set all the tires to the same pressure but add another valve at each Y hose and you can do front and rear separately.

 

The guy I rented a travel trailer from had a Milwaukee version. At least I think that was the brand. Set and go X4. Yes, it took 2-3 minutes each tire.

 

Are you guys actually putting CO2 in your tires? Or are they CO2 tanks filled with air?

 

It's CO2. CO2 is stored in a liquid form when inside the tank. This allows an immense amount of volume, and at a relatively low pressure too. The pressure inside the tank is only ~800 PSI. If you're curious about it, there are some good FAQ here.

https://powertank.com/apps/help-center

 

Awesome. Down the rabbit hole I go

 

I looked at the Powertanks, and really like them. I also know myself lol, I am not a great planner. I tend to just grab shit and go. At least with the ARB I should always have an air supply that does not run out or get forgotten.

 

Having worked with cryogenic gases for a bit I have a couple concerns. If as stated the CO2 in in liquid form, it will super cool when it expands to a gas. What is the temperature of the gas as it enters the tire? If the gas is super cooled, how will this effect the material the tire is made of?

 

It does cool, you can see it on the regulator attached to the tank. It gets a little frosty. I've blown the co2 on my hand before and it feels no different than shop air out of a compressor. Must just warm up pretty quickly CO2 in the offroad community has been around for decades so I would think if it's a concern, we'd know about it.

 

Gasses change temp really quickly. By the time it gets out of the reg, along the hoses, and expands into the tire, I doubt the temp will be much different than cold air out of a compressor.

The bigger factor here is going to be heat in the tire from running aired down, esp if you were seeing any speed. There, you would want to go up 1psi or so to compensate for the gas / tires cooling. Also, recheck the tires when cold the next day.

 

The gas is super cooled in a compact space. Spreading that load over the size of a tire would drastically increase the temperature. It would be no worse than leaving your car parked outside in zero degree weather over night. The air in your tire would also be at zero degree. The biggest danger from co2 I’ve seen people screw up is letting the liquid form co2 actually enter the tire by having their bottles on its side and not paying attention. There’s a YouTuber somewhere that did exactly than filled all 4 of his Jeep tires to pressure and the entire time complAining about how cold the inflator was getting. As soon as that gas expanded ....... boom

 

that is exactly my fear. On industrial systems they usually have some sort of vaporizer to both turn the liquid into gas and warm it. But those systems are generally much higher volume units.

 

But that wouldn’t be a relative fear if you have your bottle upright the way it intended to be. Now if you tip over I could see that becoming an issue. But the second part is paying attention. If you feel your line move which you should then stop and stand the bottle up.

or do like @EatSleepTacos i think he has an upright mount for his tank. Either way if the inflator gets so cold it’s uncomfortable then stop and see what is going on.

at worst you get some liquid state if it’s not a lot ok. If it’s a whole tire full unscrew the valve stem and take a couple steps back.

 

What's the cost to refill your Tank?

 

If you don’t have air lockers, just install a 40 psi pressure switch on the compressor and be done. I don’t think there is a simpler solution than that

 

~$25 for my 15lb tank. Lasts me about 7 fill-ups if I don't use it for air tools on the trail and I go on roughly one trip a month at most.

https://powertank.com/pages/tire-air-up-chart


Sorry to get off topic OP.