Anyone bought one of these

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180227250105

? Looks good value for a 3hp / 50l

hmmm, appears the same spec as the clarke one i bought for £350, but with a much smaller tank (mine's 150l)
looks alright for the price. i don't know how you could go about adding another tank to increase the capacity. depends what you want it for. depending what you use might empty the tank quite quickly, and have the motor running longer than it should be

I was considering a 3hp 50litre after having a 1.5hp 50litre upright (nice and small but too weedy a motor) and a 3hp 100litre upright, better but took a long time to come up to pressure for small jobs.

Thought this might be a good compromise.

Not planning to spray anything but use air rattle gun, air drill, air saw etc.

Reckon this will be up to it?

Consider some of the Lidl / Aldi ones but they are 2.5hp rather than 3.

Can't see from the photo whether this is oil free and how many outputs (and the size of them as this seems to affect FAD etc).

£12 is quite reasonable for postage too, the 100litre one I had came on a pallet :O

Though I could be tempted to pay the extra and go for something like this:

http://www.tooled-up.com/Product.asp?PID=134141&MAN=Sealey-Compressor-50ltr-Direct-Drive-30hp

Does the V-twin mean it'll sound like a V-max when charging up

Seriously though do the twin pistons mean it will charge up a lot quicker than similar 3hp units?

nope... depends on the cylinder size. the air displacement is 12.9 cfm on that one, as opposed to the 14 on the first one.
free air delivery has something to do with it too, but i forget how

Yeah but thats only the sellers guess and he's more likely to talk the spec up if anything:

"we do not have the manufactures spec. regarding this unit but all 3hp motors produce about 14 cfm free air between 8 & 9 cfm"

ah, yeah, likely to be about the same then. in which case, maybe not worth paying the extra?

"all 3hp motors produce about 14 cfm free air between 8 & 9 cfm" ?
What the hell is that supposed to mean?

14cfm of free air means about 2cfm at 100psi.

The spec that matters is how many cfm at maximum pressure.

I was planning on using it for spraying, but mainly air tools. Would like to be able to spray PVA for fibreglassing. Most of the spray-guns for that seem to want arounf 9cfm, which all the 3hp/50l compressors seem to cope with - guess as you say it's how long the motor will keep running for.

Would anyone rate the quality of the Sealey one better than a generic "no brand" enough to justify the extra cost?

I've seen some very cheap compressors and I wasn't convinced they'd last all that long.

I know they are essentially a simple item but still.

I've got more confidence of getting spares for the Sealey than the unbranded one.

(if you search around you can get a complete exploded diagram for the Sealey with all the individual part no's)

you could buy 3 of the cheap ones for one sealey.
as long as it lasts a third of the time then its ok

Well I've found the Sealey a bit cheaper than the link I posted initially.

It about £160 posted plays £90 posted.

I suspect it may perform better as well as last longer...