Tools, Sharpening and Power Machinery - Need to make my compressor silent?

Hello all,

I have a Campbell Hausfeld Pro Air 5HP 20Gal upright Compressor.

I love it, I swear buy it, but it is loud and driving me nuts, I need to be able to work in the night time around the house.

But my compressor is so loud that I cannot, I need to know how to make it silent, I found a page on the net someone had made a conversion with some type of refrigerator line and I don't know what else.

I need to know if their is any place out their that just sells a converter to convert my compressor to a silent compressor.

This is an oilless compressor.

Loki247 :(

Your answer lies in your second to last sentence...that is why it's loud.

The best thing to do is isolate it. Put it in a shed and run the lines forward.

What I do with my oilless Craftsman is put it outside and run it out there. In this way, the noise doesn't resonate inside the garage.

Consider stepping up to a better compressor (I know I will).

thats a bummer,

oh well.

Thanks

Loki247:

As Joe_F said, putting it outside is the answer.
I have always had my compressors permanently mounted outdoors and am kinda curious as to why this isn't more popular.

My current compressor uses a Campbell Hausfield, 3 hp cast iron head and all I do in the winter is heat it with a 100 watt magnetic heater stuck on to the crankcase. Our winters get to 40 below and havn't had a bit of trouble.

As far as I know, the only silent compressor is one that isn't in the same room as you. :D

Especially oilless compressors....terribly noisy and unreliable.

I"ve had the same problem with my campbell hausfield dual tank compressor - putting it far away from me is not the solution, because it's often the case that I'm working at night, in the cirty, and it's other people's peace I have to consider. Once, in an apartment building, I was able to silence it quite a bit by finding the innermost (most interior) closet, surrounding it with cushions from an abandoned couch and actually suspending it by a rope to a rafter. It actually became a non -issue, for me or anyone else in the building. (The nail gun, that was another thing...). I realize that hanging your upright may not be feasible, but think about isolating it from the floor and walls as much as possible. You'd be surprised at how much of the noise comes from resonance through the framing. I have this vague memory of my dad rigging something up for a telephone - this was in the 70's, when phones still had big bells in them - anyway, he was a psychiatrist, and I guess the phone was startling his clients at inopportune moments. Anyway, he made a pretty tight box for it out of plywood, and he lined it with that yellow foam. With the lid on, the phone could still be heard ringing faintly, but it took all the bite out of it. Seems like our compresesors are pretty much the same thing - big bells that come on with no warning. Try it, just make sure you're not suffocating the thing. I guess that's the toss up - you've got to let it have plenty of air, yet air tight would be the quietest. If low frequency noise is no longer a problem, you might be able to modify the air intake port, which on some models like mine is almost as much of a muffler as it is a filter. I found this out because when I'd take mine off (it was like a plastic box which housed a big foam sqare) the sound would get dramatically harsher. Perhaps a bigger, more insulated "silencer" could be the answer.- basically a more efficient, localized version of the box I described above, but it wouldn't have to surround the entire machine.
Still, if you've got it in a big, cement floored garage, I think sound absorption is your first priority. If you make it a little six-sided garage of it's own, pad the inside and get it off the floor, you'll probably be happy with it.

Put the compressor in a corner and frame a box around it. Put foam or something cheap on the inside panels.

As for the psychiatrist's phone - I had one like that - stuck a piece of rolled up cardboard around the bells. Too bad you cant do that with the A/C piston.

I did something similar for an autobody repairman here. I built a small lean-to addition onto his garage, made just for his large upright compressor. He wasn't worried about the noise as mush as wanting to have clean air. But having it walled off made a lot of difference in noise reduction, and the inside of the room wasn't even soundproofed with foam. It had a door that opened into the garage that contained removable furnace filters.

The reason its loud is because its oilless... but dont worry, it wont last too long :D

Your best bet is to enclose the thing, but you need to be carefull of the heat inside.


Also, Piping hte air intake outside may help as well.


Jim