Except the crap ones coming out of China, their giving all oiless ones a bad name..I work with and repair oiless compressors every day but they are made by GE with Franklin electrics..They are 1 to 2 hp models and the same size and look as compressors found on many of the differents brands of compressors you see today but thats where the similairity ends...These have cast iron cylinders and aluminum pistons and they run pretty much non-stop for thousands of hours turning on and off thousands of times in hot environments filling a 20 gallon air tank to pressurize phone cables..I have very few repair issues with them, I change the pistons sleeves, piston rings and air filters every 3000 hours of compressor operation(comes in an inexpensive rebuild kit) and they are like brand new again(and it only takes 10 minutes to do)..I feel they are superior to the oil type ones and require less maintenance..only thing wrong with them are they are a bit more noisy..If your saying "well there only 1 or 2 hp, thats whimpy", let me open your eyes to something...the compressors you see in the store that say 4,5,6, or higher hp and run off of 120 volt house current is bull, their not running anyway near that hp..more likely their running at less than 1 hp because your circuit breaker would trip at anything above 1 hp..They get around this little lie by stating that HP rating is peak which really means nothing....just my 2 cents on the matter

Dave

 

See, that's the whole problem with oilless compressors, noise. For most of us, myself included, we are working in a small 1 or 2 car garage, and in either a residential neighborhood or possibly townhomes etc. Running a LOUD oilless compressor for hours on end not only makes it deafening and annoying while working in the garage, but there's the neighbor issue to contend with as well.

Yeah they work well and are reilable, maintenance free, etc. But they are just too damn loud for my taste. My friend has a 5hp Craftsman oilless compressor in his 24x30 shop, and I can't even hear myself think when that thing comes on. I just want to throw the f***ing thing out the window.

I'm sure that a top quality, industrial grade oilless is both better and quieter than the Craftsman stuff, but price is why many people buy the oilless kind. They are generally far cheaper than an oil type compressor of similar quality and air delivery.

You are certainly right about the HP issue though. 5hp simply cannot be sustained from 120v 15A house current. I've seen 220v 3phase industrial compressors with three REAL horsepower that absolutely kick the *** of any 5 or 6hp consumer grade unit.

 

my Sears 5HP oil-less compressor is less noisy than my 4.5 HP central nuematics oil compressor...

 

5HP is only about 3300W, that's 15A service on 240
(which is what almost any >2HP machine is rigged
for). They rate motors on input power, not delivered
air power.

I ran my old cobbled-up compressor off the range
breaker, 240/40A, since I never cook. For my new
one I put in another 50A breaker in the panel and
hard conduit, 10Ga service to a couple of outlets.
It don'a go pop.

 

Do all oil-less compressors use plastic pistons? ...this sounds scary - ESPECIALLY since I own one now!