I'm air compressor illiterate and mine is currently sitting at a friend's house, waiting for me to buy a house.
However, I went to the big orange hardware store, plunked down $200 for a big blue things that works on 110v, stuck the thing in the corner of my then garage, plugged it in, left it at 40 psi, and pretty much left it alone for about 5 years, maybe 6 years. I sometimes unplugged it to use the plug for something else and I sometimes remembered to turn it off. Usually it stayed on, at least the first few years it did, starting up every now and then to maintain pressure in the cannister thing.
I use it to air out the garage (blower), impact wrench often to swap wheels on cars or loosen bits and pieces on usually suspension/brake/exhaust stuff, inflate car/van tires. I never used it for whatever small grinding jobs I had because I used an electric motor grinder (I thought it was a tremendous waste of energy to pump up air in the tank and then use it to whirl a little stone) but I have a grinder nonetheless.
cdr