-AUDEW-
Portable Air Compressor

The Audew compressor comes in many different sizes, shapes, colors and designs. From a dual cylinder model reminiscent of a classic laydown style compressor like the one I review here to a more modern style tri-side design, all with one thing in common, they all blow. 

Air that is. 

If you all of a sudden find yourself stuck on the side of the road staring at a low tire and you just don't want to, or can't drive to the nearest service station to air it up, this little plastic and metal gem just may save your day.

Actually, it likely won't do a darn thing for the tire, because there's a hole in it! But what you can do is go air up your spare because you and I both know that you haven't checked the air in that one probly ever and it's likely in just as bad a shape as the one kissing the ground at your feet. 

The saving grace with the spare though, is that it shouldn't have a hole in it and you can air it up because you were smart enough to carry this handy little compressor with you!

Running on twelve volts from your car battery by either plugging it in to the cigarette lighter or using the provided clamps to connect directly to the battery (the preferred method), it's easy to set up and get to pumping.

Manufacturers Claims

Audew Compressor Pressure Gauge showing 150psi max claimed pressure is clearly in the red zone

Heavy duty cylinders

For heavy duty cylinders I would expect very thick steel with heavy duty cooling, but you can see by the pictures below that the cylinders are only slightly bigger than a quarter and don't show anything spectacular as far as the cylinder walls. 

See my comment below on the "heat sink" for cooling.

Audew's Quarter Sized Cylinders and Thin Walls With No Cooling Fins.

Fast inflation

See my 150 psi comment above for that.

Audew Stability Technology consists of little rubber feet

Portable

It is very light and portable. It's small enough to fit well behind the seat of a truck, in a small storage bin, and it doesn't take up much room sitting in the trunk.

Multiple nozzles

The selection of nozzles will help air up various different things with a small air hole.

Audew's three accessory inflation tips for inflating smaller items

Positive lock connection

The positive lock on the air hose is a good feature. It's a standard type of connection used on full size compressors and works perfectly to positively lock the hose to any end you may need with the proper male connector or another hose to extend the length. 

Audew's Posi-lock Connector For The Hose Makes a Solid Connection

I shaved off a sliver of Audew's Plastic "Heat Sink" with my pocket knife just to prove to myself that it actually was honest-to-God plastic

Anti-slip and Shock Absorbing Mat

I'm not sure what they mean by "Anti-slip and shock absorbing mat" as there is no mat of any kind.

See my comments on their "Stability Technology" above.

Portable Handle

The "portable handle" would be better describes as "collapsable" but either way, it does a good job of easily folding down out of the way to make for a smaller package to pack away.

Audew's Collapsible Compressor Handle

Double Cylinders

Double cylinders are pretty self explanatory and are kind of irrelevant as what matters is the overall volume of the compressing pistons that will give a larger volume of air the bigger they are. So twin pistons just allow them to keep the pistons smaller than a single piston compressor and give the same performance... but there are two of them so I'm not sure how that benefits us except maybe it vibrates less?

What I see

Upon first receiving the compressor from Audew, I was immediately suspicious. 

It came in a box made out of that very thin, cheaply made cardboard that had a label from a company called Camel as mentioned above. I thought I had been sent the wrong product and I still don't know who Camel is. 

But the compressor looked as it should and I proceeded to scrutinize the the thing to figure out what we were dealing with.

The first thing I noticed was that it came with a good compliment of parts and pieces to make a complete, useful tool.

The pros:

• Rather than a short little hose, it had a separate, coiled hose that connected with a positive lock connector
• It has an integral gauge conveniently located right next to the tire connector
• The hose connects to the tire with a threaded connector so you don't have to hold it on. Which is good but you'll really understand why when you see the fill time

Audew's Threaded Valve Connector so you don't have to hold it while inflating

• Rather than power being provided only from a cigarette connection (you shouldn't run a lot of amperage through that), it came with an adaptor to allow a direct connection to the battery

Audew's Battery Adaptor to connect directly to the battery

• And of course, the handy, dandy carrying case is a nice feature
• The case material is fairly thick
• It has an integral holder for the extra tips

Audew's integrated accessory tip holder

But, regardless of the well thought out pieces, that's when I started noticing the low quality of everything.

The Cons

• The battery connectors were so thin, I accidentally bent them just by putting a little bit of pressure on them
• The wires connecting to the battery clamps were incredibly small, they looked to be about 12-14 awg which is way too small for the max amperage of the motor of 30 amps and were just held by squeezing a piece of the metal over the wire with the copper just resting on the metal of the clamp rather than soldering them properly

Audew's tiny wire connection

• The case had stitching that seemed to start falling apart by just rubbing my finger over it along with needle holes so big that it likely will start ripping there in a short amount of time
• The craziest thing I noticed was the plastic cooling fins
• And later, during my actual test, the gauge showed to be off by several pounds

Conclusion:

While I appreciate the opportunity to have reviewed this little compressor, I think my conclusion is fairly obvious. I would never pay any amount of money for this tool. It is a perfect example of the type of tool to stay away from. 

And it's a shame, really because it has a lot of really decent ideas but they are just so poorly executed. 

I give it a rating of three for the good ideas but that's it for the quality and poor performance.

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