An air pump? Have you lost leave of your senses man? Weren’t you the person who gave the world TLS and now here you are talking about air pumps. Err true but in my defence, I would firstly point out that I bought this for my packraft, which probably doesn’t sound like much of an excuse but it should start to sound more convincing when I say, it weighs 79g less than my raft inflation bag. Now, add the 54g that my Exped Schnozzle bag weighs and that’s a total weight saving of 133g. At 80mm high by 50mm square, it also takes up less space … so am I forgiven?
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| Everything you need and things you’ll probably never use. |
The pump is powered by a 3600mAh internal battery that you charge via usb and a full charge lasts about 50 minutes. Is that a long time? If you consider that it will fully inflate an Exped UL7 in 12 seconds and my Longshore SL260 raft in 1 minute and 28 seconds, then I’d say that 50 minutes is quite a useful run-time.
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| Packraft inflation bag and pump – no, the bag won’t fold up more because it has handles. |
Don’t go thinking you’ll be blowing your tyres up, it’s not a high pressure pump. The listed maximum pressure is 0.27psi but it can move 265 litres of air per minute, so it’s much more about volume than it is pressure, which makes it ideal for mats, rafts and those giant blow-up unicorns you saw in Lidl. It comes with 4 port adaptors, a charging lead and a little water resistant bag to keep it all in. While there’s not actually a specific Exped or packraft adaptor (there’s a surprise), it doesn’t appear to matter. Simply use whichever one you deem to be the closet fit, hold the pump in place and let it do its thing – it really doesn’t have to be a tight fit in order to work.
Not only can it blow air but it can suck it too. I’ll admit that I’ve not really thought of a good use for that particular function (stop it) but I am wondering whether you could add a little brush to the end and give the inside of your tent a good vacuuming after an evening of crisps and crackers?
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| It’s a pump, it blows things up. |
It certainly seems to be robust and has a solid quality about it but only time will tell just how robust it is. I paid £25.99 which spookily is the same price as aforementioned Schnozzle bag – I’m hoping to recoup some of the purchase price by renting it out on those cold, wet nights when speed is of the essence.
If you want one, try Amazon, they seem to be the cheapest source.