Ingersoll Rand SS5 Electric Air Compressor Start Up Kit & Maintenance Kit

I have been a custom fabricator and painter for over forty years now. I have a small shop where I build some custom cars and many motorcycles over the years. This is not the first time I have owned Ingersoll Rand as I have had a compressor like this way back in the seventies but with the horizontal tank. I have purposely not written a review until I was able to use this item for a while to get a real good feel for it.

There are just a few things I would like to praise and complain about, things that would make this a better unit. Number one, this Is a real quality piece of equipment as far as can see. It makes a good volume of air and has no problem keeping up with my sandblaster and other air tools. The best part is the quality of air......no condensation. For me this is very important being a painter. nothing like screwing up seven hundred dollars of PPG with water in the air.

The automatic drain is so important, how often do we really go over there and get on our knees and drain the water from the tank like we should...? So the two most important things I was looking for when I bought this compressor were, good clean air and enough of it; and it does that well.

However, there are some things that need to be addressed by Ingersoll Rand to finish out this package. THIS THING MAKES TOO MUCH NOISE. I have to shut the shop door where I keep this so the neighbors don't complain. One would think that Ingersoll would have addressed this issue seeing as it is so obvious.

The tiny air filter for a head this big doesn't make sense. For the money this machine costs an intake silencer could have been developed and added. I am trying already to develop one myself seeing as I now own this and will for a long time.

The guards rattle. This adds to the already irritation of the lack of a silencer. However, with a few layers of duct tape between the guards and the mounts this goes away.

The automatic drain is a great addition but could have been better. Even though it is adjustable, the parameters of adjustability are too restrictive. I have it set on the shortest possible discharge and that seems to be fine, but it is overkill for it to blowoff so often. Every few hours would be fine. also, a muffler on this thing would also keep me from jumping out of my socks every hour as it is very loud.

Lastly, my preference would be for this head to be mounted on a sixty gallon tank. It just takes to long to fill this thing.

Now about the installation packages... WAY OVERPRICED. I called Ingersoll Rand and they told me the compressor head is warrantied as long as their oil or an oil of similar qualities are used. This unit uses a little over one quart of oil which can be bought any place this machine is sold for around twelve dollars. It seems to me that an almost three thousand dollar machine would come with oil. Also, the flexible lines and pads are necessary but for over a hundred dollars one could get stainless lines custom made of any length.