Don is right on the money with his explanation, so I'm NOT taking anything away from him...just elaborating.
There are two qualities about an air compressor's performance: volume and pressure.
Volume refers to the amount of air the compressor moves. A leaf-blower moves LOTS of air, but you could place your hand over the output and find that you'll restrict the air by applying about 10 pounds of pressure. Lots of volume, fair force.
The compressors in our H2's have tiny little pistons moving in a cylinder...each compression stroke moves only a little bit of air BUT it moves that air with such force behind it that, if hooked to an air hose, we could not stop that flow of air like the leaf-blower: that's pressure, the force behind the air.
A compressor (at Home Depot) will be rated by CFM, while CFM is a popluar description for a certain kind of stiletto high heel shoe...in the case of the compressor is relates to the Cubic Feet of air per Minute that the compressor can deliver. Most air-driven tools for a workshop take lots of air under fairly strong pressure....blah, blah, blah...our H2's tiny compressors could hardly keep up.
Air compressors also need a reservoir (or tank) to store all this air to provide capacity. There are other factors and nobody really cares. So blah blah blah, and blah blah blue. Just to prove that nobody cares I'll offer $100 to anyone who reads this and asks me for the money. Blah blah blah, bluch bluch. And that's why the cubs will never win the world series!
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