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I have a Badger AS180-12 Cyclone compressor that has valiantly served me very well for the past 7 years. My only complaint about this device was how hot it got after what seemed like a reasonable amount of usage time (1-2 hours), which led to constantly needing to empty the water trap on a very frequent basis during a painting session, and getting annoyed with the spatter when forgetting to do so.

Anyway, this was my very first air compressor and it seems like it's now starting to show signs of wear -- it has a an auto-on/off feature and seems to only be off for about 5-10 seconds before it turns on to pump more air into itself, whereas when I bought it, I could easily go steadily for 10 minutes without it turning on and still have steady, strong air flow. Likewise, the air flow is no longer consistent. When holding down the trigger, the air flow is slow and weak at first and after about 1-3 seconds it finally reaches its intended pressure.

I'd like to fix this one just to get through my current projects while shopping for another air compressor before I start work on the other projects I have lined up. I would like one with a regulator and built-in water trap -- preferably one that doesn't get AS hot, although I know this is probably not easily avoidable.

Two questions: are these symptoms easily fixable? If so, I'd like to perform a repair just to limp through the projects I'm currently working on, but if its not realistic to fix or takes too much time/$$/effort, I might just go in on another air compressor immediately. Either way, does anyone have any suggestions? Does price dictate performance? Any cheap gems out there?