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Posted by David Sherman [72.47.9.228] on Saturday, February 05, 2011 at 16:41:02 :
In Reply to: OT: Gas Powered Air Compressors posted by Chris [68.61.94.167] on Saturday, February 05, 2011 at 16:23:37 :
I've had equipment with both kinds of engines and not had a problem with them. I did have a little trouble with a 2-cyl Kohler this summer, but it had sat for a couple of years out in the weather. It has an electric fuel shut-off solenoid in the carburetor that was clogged and rusted, and the governor is kind of a cheezy deal that doesn't hold the speed very well. Mine is on a brush chipper. Brush chippers and air compressors don't need a very good governor, so it doesn't much matter.
Bear in mind that most I-R tools these days are made in China, probably in the same factories that make the cheap brands. Ingersoll Rand is a big name around here in the mines, going clear back to the Rand Drill Company days and machines like that 400 HP direct-drive Ingersoll I (hopefully) salvaged recently. You still see a lot of old, heavy, Ingersoll stuff. The problem is their low-end consumer-grade products appear to be the same Chinese stuff that everyone is selling. They might be okay products, but they're trading on the name, sort of like "Hewlett Packard" computers.
I started paying attention when I bought a small "Ingersoll-Rand" chain hoist, thinking I'd get a good American-made one, and instead, inside the American box was a plain brown Chinese box and inside that box was an inspector's slip with Chinese writing on it. I've used the hoist a lot and it's worked fine, but I could have bought essentially the same unit at Harbor Freight for half the price. I highly suspect that I-R's small air compressors are essentially the same as Campbell Hausfeld, US General, etc, at a premium price. I'm not sure about the larger trailer-mounted units that you see all over the place. They might be higher quality.