Stanley/Bostich repair parts- Are they nuts?

[Scott Shepherd]

We have a fairly quiet little compressor we use here, and it has to be because we are in a commercial office building and have neighbors that are business people, suit and tie wearing folks. We searched long and hard to find a compressor that would deliver the air we needed at the noise level could live with.

Well, it quit working this weekend. Opened it up, the belt was broken. I thought it was no big deal. Looking closer, the pulley that drives the belt is bad, it had developed a bad wobble, which is what caused the belt to fail. Okay, no big deal. A belt and a pulley, maybe a bearing or two and we should be good to go.

Look in my manual at the parts list. Can't buy the pulley, you have to buy the entire pump assembly.

Cost of a new compressor- $175.

Cost of a new pump - $279.

Are you serious? I can buy a new compressor for less than I can buy the replacement pump? You have got to be kidding me. The belt alone was $32.

Guess what's heading to the dumpster? It'll be the last Bostitch compressor I ever buy with replacement parts that cost more than the original purchase and not breaking the items down to sell replaceable parts. What's the big deal with selling a pulley and a belt? That's a realistic wear part. Apparently they don't think so.

Bye Bye Bostitch.

[David G Baker]

A compressor that costs $175 new can't be much of a compressor and I wouldn't expect it to last very long if it is used frequently.
The approximately $100 difference in cost between new and just the pump replacement is strange but probably normal. Like you, I would not repeat the mistake by buying the same brand again.
I can't imagine how the pump pulley was damaged without it being hit with something or dropped.

[Tim Morton]

Not sure how much air you ned, but we use this little guy for pinning frames..

http://www.amazon.com/Senco-PC1010-C.../dp/B0000AQK78

super quiet!!!

[glenn bradley]

My dad has the Senco Tim shows and it is a neat little machine. IMHO, many oil-less compressors are a throw away item when it fails.

[John Fricke]

Is there something special about the pulley and Belt? A place like Graingers sell a wide variety of pulleys. Might be cheaper to replace motor and compressor pulleys if you can't find a match to what you have. My compressor takes a special flat mutliple V groove belt that is around 30 bucks from Campbell Hausfield. Graingers has them for $11.37

[Scott Shepherd]

David, I think I paid about $250 for it, but it's cheaper now.

We have to have 2.5CFM at 40PSI which is all but impossible to find in a quiet compressor. We searched and searched before finding this one. It was the only quiet one we could find at 2.5CFM (more actually) at 40PSI. I think was rated at 2.5CFM at 90PSI. All the little Senco one's don't deliver enough air. We have one of them and gave it a try, it can't keep up with the machine and when the machine runs low on air, it shuts down all cutting. We actually have the on Tim listed.

I'm going to pull it apart and see if I can cross reference the pieces. It's a handy compressor and I hate to lose it, but I'm not spending $175 to buy a new one because they won't sell the pulley by itself.

[Brian Brown]

I had a neighbor with a similar noise problem. He has a noisy compressor that ticked off the neighbors, so he built a muffler enclosure around the compressor. A fiber wound drum with foam rubber glued to the inside. Works well, but you need to be certain that you have air flow for cooling. An inflow and out flow with baffles, and possibly a fan to increase air flow. Then buy the compressor you need, and don't worry about the noise.

[Curt Harms]

http://www.thomasairpac.com/products...5HD/t-35hd.jsp
It's airless but I believe Thomas compressors are known to be durable. They have oiled compressors as well. They ain't cheap.

[Scott Shepherd]

I don't need another one, I've already bought a new one, but I'd like to get this one fixed as it did work it's butt off and was relatively quiet.

[Stephen Tashiro]

One thing I often fantasize about is building enclosures to silence equipment. I've never come up with a good design for anything. In the first place, I don't understand the science behind it. Sound is so counter-intuitive. For example, why should I be able to hear the feeble vibrations caused by someone's voice through a wall? In the second place, all equipment seems to have some part of it that must be accessible - CD drives on computer cases, input and output openings on planers etc.

Even though I can't, you might be able to build an enclosure to silence an air compressor. You'd have to worry about heat build-up. If you need to adjust the regulator pressure constantly, that would be an accessibility problem. Most places with air compressors wouldn't bother to do this since the tools they use with the compressor are as noisy as the compressor itself.