About 15 years ago I lashed out and bought a "shop" compressor for my shed. 3hp, single phase, 2 piston splash lubed direct drive on a 36l receiver from the local toolmart. They suggested 10 or 12 cfm. Which was fine for occasionally doing a bit of spraying or air dusting or rattle gun. For maybe an hour at a time I (and the neighbours) could put up with the 94dBa measured at 1m as this thing blatted out the air.

Anyhoo, flash forward and things have changed. The unit is shagged, it leaks from the receiver back through the check valve and head valves and back out the intakes. It seems to pump more oil than air. It's gotten noisier, too. Sadly Toolmart advise that the brand has evaporated long ago and so the new rings and valves it so desperately needs are no longer available.

I could possibly strip it, get out the verniers and hope like hell that one of the eBay compressor bit vendors has something that fits, and rebuild it. Or, for the sake of the $400 it cost me I could keep the motor for something else, keep the receiver to bank air and buy a new compressor - a small price to pay for the labour and frustration it would save me.

None of this helps with the noise. Running the mister and air blast on the router, the sand blasting cabinet, the air duster and so on means some days it's on/off for 8 hours which is just being plain rude to my neighbours. That 94dBa needs to come down to something closer to 60.

I /could/ buy another ~$500 compressor and make up a sound damping box with a ceiling ventilation fan and baffles for the compressor and motor.

I'm waiting on a price for a baby Pilot Air screw compressor but have a fairly strong suspicion it's going to be more than my router was.

And I'm intrigued by the Chicago (not Chicago Pneumatic) brand oil-less compressors being flogged by Sydney Tools. I think @RCaffin may have mentioned them in another compressor thread somewhere. Particularly this one has my eye.



There's another mob flogging these ganged dental style compressors on eBay too but they won't quote FAD, sound like they don't know their 4rses from their elbows and sound like they are just bringing in and flogging off containerloads of Alibaba crap. I would rather pay the extra couple hundred bucks and get the Sydney Tools one, even if it turns out to be the same machine from the same place. But, at around $1400 delivered, it's a danged expensive way of getting quiet air.

Still - it's oil-free air which is a bonus, particularly in the blasting cabinet if I'm trying to prep stuff for powdercoat or paint. And, again, would save me a mountain of stuffing around.

Does anyone have one of these compressors and feel like rating it?

Does anyone feel like pitching in and making another suggestion on getting quiet air around the 12cfm FAD mark?