looking for a 12volt air inflator recomendation
 

I'm looking for a 12volt air inflator for blowing up swim rafts, water toys / towables etc.

Does anyone have one that puts out a lot of air, blows toys up quickly and isn't so loud that it's unbearable. I've tried all the hand and foot pumps, and that gets old real fast.

Or, am I better getting a power converter to turn 12v into 110 and getting a plug in type inflator. Would that give me more "power" and be quieter?

thanks for any suggestions.

I paid about $10 at Wal-Mart for theirs (blue in color). I would not say it is real quiet, but not too bad. It blows up an air mattress in less than a minute and a large (70") tube in several minutes. They have a 6 or 8 $$ one but I pulled out all the stops and spent a few more and happy with it. The power cord is nice and long as well.

Good luck.:)

My first $10 pump started smoking...and I don't mean cigarettes, rather quickly...

So I bought an "Airman" kit from Sharper Image.

It has 2 pumps, high volume (rafts) and high pressure (tires), along with an AC adapter, 12V cigarette lighter adapter, and a battery pack (the charge is good for a pretty long time)...quieter than the $10 one, too.

However, a bit overpriced at $99, but it sure is nice to pump up the trailer tires wherever, whenever you want to...along with the rafts...

havasu,

I looked at sharper image and they have the airman kit for $69. But the pumps look so small, do they really work as advertised?

I can figure out how that much air could be pumped thru a small pump like that.

Hey on a related topic....

Baja232 the pharmasist called and your inflatable sex doll is in :D:D:D:p :p :p

Just plug Shorgasm into the 12V recepticle, he'll fill it with plenty of hot air. :D

Well I'm ticked off...
 

They must have dropped the price...

Yeah, the pumps look like pistols...they also include a light with the kit. The kit also has a bunch of fittings for different size openings, and a gauge for the tire pump.

Suprisingly, they work pretty well. A raft will only take a couple minutes with the high volume pump. It makes a "whirring" sound, where my cheaper pump made a "chugging" sound. It blows air (like a hairdryer), rather than pumps it, and it's good to a couple PSI...a mouth will do the rest. My kid's pool takes about 4 minutes.

The high pressure pump makes the "chugging" sound. As a point of reference, in the storage yard, I pumped my trailer tire from 20 to 32 PSI in around 5 minutes- it won't set any records, but I usually do that while I'm getting it ready to go (multi-tasking).

Overall, it is a very flexible kit. I usually throw it in my truck for trips, as you never know when you might need the light, or pump up a spare, etc.

To your point, they look kinda cheap. I've had it for a couple years, and have had no problems to date. The battery has never run out on me on the lake. However, for that much money, it better keep working, if you know what I mean...

Gotta add this.
A group of friends went to the boat show here in Ohio in January.
We had a DD and the rest of us got hammered and ended up back at our place. After the beds ran out we had the Coleman air mattress that we use on the boat in the summer time in the closet. Only problem was that we didn't have a way to blow it up because the wife decided to use the battery powered air pump as an air conditioner on one of the outings in the fall and it quit working. (hot in the v- birth one fall night and it generated some air movement).

I rigged up a way to fill the mattress by blowing the air from a hair dryer into a funnel taped to the air mattress inlet with duck tape. It worked great! probably better than the pump that came with the mattress.
Sure beat trying to blow into the thing.
Cordell

I use a 12v model from Sears. Came with a couple of different sized adapters.

If you have 110v, use the shop vac. That thing will inflate a air matress in only seconds!

Yeah, the Walmart one. $18. Blue. Looks like a dustbuster without the nosepiece. Works awesome.