California Air Tools CAT-1P1060S Light & Quiet Portable Air Compressor, Light...

May, I love this thing. I’m 65 this year, so decided to downsize since I no longer need a $400 air compressor taking up real estate on the floor in my garage. And the smaller compressor I had on my storage shelf was obnoxiously loud and about 10 pounds heavier than this one. So I ordered this smaller compressor and gifted the other two to my kids, who were always relying on me to air up their tires. Now they can handle that chore on their own. Before I gave those two away, though, I waited until this compressor arrived to test it out: As promised, it’s very quiet. Two people can carry on a normal conversation standing right in front of it. You won’t need hearing protection. Nice. Sitting in the garage, the 15 gallon DeWalt I gave my son would wake me up in the middle of the night from the other end of the house if I forgot to unplug it. I was afraid it would wake the neighbors and violate some city noise regulation it was so loud. The CA compressor is lighter than my 2 gallon portable compressor, as I would expect.. I no longer have to dread picking it up to carry it to the job location around the house. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the female air socket on the compressor was operable with one hand. Kudos to California Air Tools for adding that. The fit and finish are more than satisfactory. I could find nothing to complain about. I comes with the plastic air filter detached. So I installed that, plugged it in and the compressor quickly and quietly charged right up. I tested my small air nailers, up to the 18 gage unit. You shoot two or three nails and it kicks on for a few seconds, but you should expect that with a 1 gallon compressor. For a homeowner doing small jobs around the house, I would think this would work out just fine. It even runs my small palm nailer, which I use a lot for nailing jobs where it’s difficult to swing a hammer. It this continues to operate as it did today, I have no problem rating it 5 stars. Best compressor I’ve ever owned for its size.

Boy this thing is quiet. True, you are not going to forget it is there, but the average polite conversation isnt going to be disrupted by it either even it is sitting at your feet. FWIW, I use this at an SMD rework station for blow-off, drying, and powering small air tools where it has replaced my little DeWalt pancake unit. When the DeWalt kicked-on, I’d always flinch and often turn my head away from the noise. No more! This fact alone made this a worthwhile purchase for me. This compressor has a very pleasing “putt-putt-putt” sound, unlike the obnoxious “braaaaaap!!!” of other units, yet the air output is impressive for such a small unit. As other reviewers have mentioned, it only takes 60 seconds to fill from empty, and 15 seconds to refill itself to the cutoff pressure (~120 psi). Although my use case is pretty specific, I can definitely see where this unit would be a good fit for air brushing or powering a trim/brad nailer. And of course it will handle the usual tasks like inflating bike tires, car tires, athletic equipment, and levitating random sleeping cats (KIDDING!). Perhaps the biggest “like” (other than being so quiet) is the portability factor. Im guessing it is about 35-ish lbs which means even an over-the-hill duffer like me can pick it up and take it to where it is needed without needing medical attention afterwards. Its actually pretty well balanced. Hefting it up to the tailgate of my truck did not evoke any colorful language from my back. :) All in all this is a very impressive little compressor without any visible downsides. It is well-built, runs cool and is basically a steal at this price. If you need quiet, portable air in small quantities, you will love this thing. 5 stars. Update: July 19, 2020: When I went to throw the box away, something in the bottom rattled. Hmmm... Curious! Further investigation revealed an intake muffler. Wait... what? So I installed it. This means that when I wrote the review above, it DIDNT HAVE THE INTAKE SILENCER ON! After installing the silencer, its even quieter. You can listen to music or talk on the phone while this thing is running. Unreal! I use this compressor every day and it really deserves six stars. It sits beside my rework bench and just purrs along. Love it!

My voice in a normal conversational tone is 80DB. This CAT-1P1060S runs at 75DB, which is more than the advertised 56DB. Honestly, I did not believe the 56DB claim as my new 17 seer heat pump fan in my house makes 65DB and it is not loud at all so I doubted this compressor would be more quiet than my HVAC fan motor. Being that it is quieter than the spoken voice I am thrilled. I always hated the traditional pancake compressors that run close to 100DB on a good day as they make a work site louder than it needed to be. What I used to do is run my loud mechanic's compressor I have on my 2003 7.3L diesel F350 service truck to power my carpentry air tools, but that obviously used diesel at $3.50/gallon and I had to run a 150' to 200' long 3/8" air line to get the air inside the house where I needed it. With this compressor, I enjoy leaving Betsy (my truck's name) in the driveway turned off and I simply grab this tiny CA compressor. It is super light, which is very nice! It is compact so I can stow it inside my behind-the-cab truck box with plenty of room for other tools so it is always ready to use. On job sites without power, (which are few and far between) I use my 4000w pure sine wave inverter that is wired to my truck's electrical system, which requires I run the engine to prevent dead batteries (7.3 diesels needs gobs of battery power to start). I just use a 100' or 200' long 12AWG extension cord from the inverter to the job site with a short 50' long 3/8" pneumatic hose in the area I am working. I only use my truck compressor now to run my mechanic's tools such as impact guns and the like as they require tons of air supply, much more than any carpentry tool will ever need. I absolutely love this California CAT-1P1060S compressor.

Si bien es menos ruidoso que otros compresores es más ruidoso de lo que esperaba, me gusta que la presión la mantiene constante y el automático funciona de maravilla y es muy compacto, lo único malo es que no puedo trabajar muy noche por el ruido, por lo demás muy bien

I mostly bought this compressor for cleaning my pellet stoves and computers(with pressure dialed down), as the compressed air dusters run out of pressure really fast and are expensive. So I ordered an air kit to go with the compressor. The compressor works great and fills up very quickly. It is surprisingly quiet, not like those pancake compressors which sound like a jackhammer. I was a little worried about the quick connect air hose attachment on the compressor-the release ring looked like it was stuck. I thought I might have to replace it, but as soon as I plugged in a male quick connect fitting, it popped securely in place. This compressor is very well designed with quality craftmanship. The compressor has no where near the power of my Campbell Hausfeld 5HP 26 Gallon compressor, but it will come in handy for cleaning, and is definitely more portable than my big brute, lol! I love this thing!

Uso doméstico para el matenimiento vehicular. Eficiente y sin molestar a los vecinos con el ruido porque es silencioso.

The compressor was even quieter than I expected, a conversation is louder. It takes no time to get from zero to 120 psi. I tested it from about 8pm to 10 am the next day and the guage reads exactly the same, the system lost no air pressure over 14 hours. I'm using this to run a Lindsay pneumatic air graver, its performing better than expected and I'm glad I didn't spend more money to buy one of the silent air brands that come recommended by them. This sits less than 6 feet from me and the noise level is inconsequentia. I'm set up in the basement and I find the HVAC system more of a bother than this, it really is impressive!. It has no trouble keeping up with the airgraver. I originally was having to go out to the seperate garage and turn on/off a big 5hp two stage compressor twice each time I wanted to use this. This will make life much easier, especially in winter. There was a rattle when I first turned it on that made it atleast twice as loud as it should have been. A quick investigation revealed that one of the compressor isolation mounts wasn't tightened as much as the other two. If find yours loud take a look at the threaded bolts on the bottom of the frame, if one of them doesn't have as much thread sticking past the nut as the others give it a half to full turn to even it up. It look care of all the vibration and rattling changing it to an uber quiet tool. If they appear even and its still rattling try giving all the bolts a 1/4 to 1/2 turn. The difference was night and day, I suspect that this was the issue behind a few of the reviews that weren't happy with the noise level. Make sure the air filter/muffler is threaded in by hand in far enough and push the rubber hose in making sure its secure, this is a big part of how quiet it runs as well. You shouldn't unplug these while the compressor is running, it may trip the overload. The reset button is located beside where the cord enters the compressor motor (NOT where cord exits near the on/off lever on the pressure switch body, follow the cord from that box to the compressor motor). I noticed a few bad reviews stating that the compressor just quit working for no reason after a few uses, there is always a reason and the reset button is the solution. Its light and easy to move around. Mine is sitting on an old section of carpet on the shop floor. This keeps it firmly in place, it has rubber suction feet that worked very well on a sealed wood table. I wouldnt use it on top of a table, the vibration of the compressor resonated through the table causing a lot more noise. Sitting it on something soft of the floor really made a big difference. The seperate tank and regulator gauge is a nice touch, the panel makes it easy to set the pressure and the air quick connect mount is very robust. They make two models using the same motor and compressor. The other one has the air quick connect mounted directly off the regulator and doesn't have the nice panel/guage setup. It does have a very basic water seperator that this model does not have. This was around $20 more and is superior in every way IMO. So far there's nothing not to like, as long as you use tools that are rated below the 1.2 cfm output at 90 psi you'll be very happy with it. A brad nailer is about as big as you can go. It would be great for airbrush work with added air cleaning/filtration. Keep in mind its a very tiny compressor! This won't run a die grinder, ratchet, impact driver etc. It's great for use with a brad nailer or to top off air in car tires. If you need to fill a car/truck tire from flat expect you'll be waiting for the compressor to fill the 1 gallon tank upwards of a dozen times for larger tires. The only thing this doesn't have is any type of air filtration. There is NO oil/water separator on the regulator. A oilless compressor doesn't contaminate the air nearly as much as a traditional compressor and the tank does have a nice valve on the bottom to easily drain off and water that will build up in the tank over time. Depending on the tool your using you can add a lubricator directly to the tool (brad nailer). This keeps oil out of your hoses so it doesn't become an issue if you want to air brush or use a pneumatic engraver (etc) like I am. Whatever you do, you MUST consider the tools requirements and add the necessary filtration, drying or lubrication. For my Lindsay air graver I'm running a standard oil/water separator followed by a 3 microm coalescing filter, then a 0.5 micron coalescing filter. Finally there are another two regulators that set the idle and run psi of the unit. For air brushing I'd consider using more than a cheap standard oil/water seperators. Anyways, just keep in mind that this has no oil/water separator. You could buy a regulator with built in oi/water separator, add a male quick connect and plug it directly into the female quick connect on the panel. Put another female quick connect on the output side of it. You'd have two regulators but its likely the easiest/cheapest way to get better air quality, plus its easily removable. You could even add the second regulator to your bench so your l don't need to adjust pressure at the compressor every time. I find this very convenient. Allright, too much information in this review! You won't be disappointed with this compressor, its a fantastic machine!

El modelo, tamaño y prestaciones de este compresor, lo hacen EXCEPCIONALMENTE perfecto para realizar cualquier trabajo de pintura con aerógrafo, especialmente para todos los medelistas que realizamos determinados patrones de camuflaje en aviones. Su funcionamiento, especificaciones técnicas y lo silencioso, lo hacen verdaderamente excepcional!!