[frogvalley]

Dodge-

What plasma cutter are you considering? That would help with the advice.

I have a Thermal dynamics CutMaster 38. Its their small unit and will cut up to 1/2or so but works great on 1/4 and 1/8 which are more common sizes to work here in my shop. It runs great off of our painting compressor which is a three horse with a twenty gallon tank. We rarely have to wait for recovery but sometimes do. Not a big problem though.

To answer your question more directly, the compressor will make you wait if its too small, we first tested this unit on a smaller one horse and it worked for a minute at a time and then we had to wait. The tank size is important but secondary in my opinion, the recovery time relating to the actual output of the compressor is more important.