Brief airbrush compressor TC-20T initial review.

Tools, Techniques, and Reference Materials Painting and airbrushing
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyrxKZlDa

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Very nice review. With the 2 years warranty, it is a much better deal than the Harbor Freight offers.

A bunch of guys from this forum got theirs from Northern Tools in Minnesota in 2011. Unfortunately, Northern Tools does not have it anymore. Here is the post about my test of the unit in 2011. I hope those owners will come back to offer their 2-years usage report now.

A few points about this Chinese compressor from FengHua BiDA.

  1. The manufacturer has another model change recently, but still calls it AS-186.
  2. The Chinese use a different horsepower rating than US/Japanese/Taiwan makers. A 1/5 HP compressor from China is actually 1/10 HP. (The Chinese use “startup” HP instead of the industry standard continuous HP.)
  3. The auto on/off is set at 35 and 60 psi respectively. (I wonder if the motor runs continuously if the pressure regulator is set above 35 psi.)
  4. It is as quiet as the Iwata/Sparmax Smartjet series, but the noise has a slightly higher pitch.
  5. It does not get very hot in typical on-off type use. But runs very hot when forced to run continuously for more than 10 minutes.

If you order from the TCPGlobal Ebay store, you can get free shipping. Their web store charges shipping.

Badger also offer the same compressor as “TC910 Aspire Pro”, with a metal carrying case.

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Evidently , Chinese horses are really small [;)]

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Just like Chairman Mao used to say, “any cat that catches mouses is a good cat.”

TCPGlobal spec the TC-20T to be capable of 0.7 CFM at 60 psi. But the “at 60 psi” sounds very suspicious. I have not seen very many airbrush compressor to be capable of steady flow much above 35-45 psi, much less a relative low HP one like the TC-20T. The “at 60 psi” is definitely in the “too good to be true” department.

Besides, the TC-20T auto on-off is 45-60 psi. The motor turns off at 60 psi and will not turn back on until dropping to 45 psi. That will make it difficult to keep pressure at 60 psi.

Despite the TGTBT spec, it is very adequate for most modeling airbrushes and as good as most other similarly priced compressor.

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Nice review… been thinking of getting one to tryout.

Isn’t there something else that is used for the connections from the tank out and into the regulator other than tape? The badgers I’ve had seem to use some kinda wax (unfortunately not much of it, so leaks were issue).