Quote:
Originally Posted by Michael Hill
The Thomas fills 13.7% faster than the Viair (1 CFM vs 0.88 CFM), meaning if you would have 8 tanks with the Viair, you can get by with 7 with the Thomas (And I've definitely seen more than 8 tanks on a robot as I'm sure you have in the past couple years).
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This is not true for operating robots.
Your quoted CFM specs are at 0 psi. The Thomas is not even rated to go to over 100 psi. Reading the specs at 80 psi, the Thomas will fill at .33 CFM, and the Viair will fill at .45 CFM. Above around 50 psi, the viair is faster.
The Viair is more efficient at higher pressures than the Thomas, but the thomas is better at filling empty tanks. The Thomas was never designed to go over 100 psi, so the efficiency drops off really quickly.
Team 358's test show that in the last 31 seconds of run time to fill tanks, the ViAir added 18 psi, but the Thomas added only 8 psi.
If you do some testing with the ViAir, you'll discover it's actually a pretty good compressor if it is kept cool.