Portable air compressor

I carry one of these MV50 12VDC Tankless Air Compressor since around 2008... I got mine from AMAZON... Have seen them in Northern Tool... It used to air up tires pretty good but I guess it is getting worn out now. It would take a very long time to air up a 120lb tire now...


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If I was going to get serious about airing up high pressure tires I would use a 120VAC tank model air compressor... My tankless 12VDC model is great for keeping tires aired up and filling tubes for going down the streams etc.. Also great for doing my real quick winterizing for my off-road POPUP trailer. Just takes a few minutes to blow out all of the water in the water lines. Also great for airing up my air mattress when in camping mode...

Should work great keeping the air lifts up...

The MV-50 has battery clamps and I set it on the tailgate of my truck and clip into the trailer batteries on the tongue then I can walk around all the tires on the truck and the trailer...

Roy Ken

I use a bicycle pump on mine. A friend uses a 12v Air Compressor from Harbor Freight. But it's easier by hand or with air compressor if you air up the bags before you hook up the trailer and then bleed them down to whatever air pressure you need to level out your truck & trailer. When airing up before hooking up, you will probably only need around 50psi as the psi will go up once the trailer load is on them. If you don't have one already, get you a good digital air gauge.

get one that clips to your battery. that cockpit outlet is next to worthless. even my 90w laptop charger caused it to shutdown (ram 1500, outlet was rated at 150w)

It takes 70 psi to get my truck leveled out. Not sure if the capacity of different types of inflators.

115 watts is not much. You're basically talking about a little inflator, and a 12V one that plugs into the lighter socket would probably work just as well.

If these airbags are at all like ride-rite helper springs, they don't take much air at all, so a little inflator would be perfectly adequate. An old-fashioned bicycle pump is also perfectly reasonable; it only takes a few strokes generally. Neither one is particularly useful for inflating truck tires in any sort of reasonably quick time.