No Drop Shippers! This product is shipped from our own warehouse. No 3rd -party shippers, no delays, better service for you!

Not all compressors that look alike are alike.  Read here to find out why.

In 2005, we received a phone call from a supplier in mainland China who offered us compressors "just like" our compressors at a lower price.  A MUCH lower price....like $25 apiece.  We were naturally suspicious and passed on the offer.  A few months later, we started seeing these cheap knockoff compressors appearing on Ebay.  Not long after that, the phone calls started.  People who had purchased compressors that "looked just like ours" wanting to know how to get replacement parts because the compressors they had bought burned out after only a couple weeks of use.  Curious as to what these Chinese knockoff compressors were about, we bought one on Ebay.

The first difference we noted was the weight.  Our compressor weighs 11 pounds, but the knockoff compressor weighed over 2 lbs less.  On the outside they looked almost identical.  The only exception was that the 'brass' fittings on top of the knockoff compressor were already starting to corrode - which means that they weren't really brass.

Intrigued by the weight difference, we took out the ol' chop saw and cut both tanks in half.  Using a micrometer, we measured the thickness of the walls in the tanks.  The knockoff tank was 20% thinner in some places, 12% thinner in other places and the same thickness in a few places too.  Not only did they scrimp on the tank walls, but the quality control was lousy.

Next, we took the compressors apart.  That's where it got interesting.

The first thing we saw when we removed the cover was the size of the piston shafts (see red arrows).  Ours uses a double sized piston shaft to connect the piston to the motor.  The shaft on the knockoff compressor is half the size.  This was one of the parts that people who purchased the knockoff compressors were looking to replace.  Also, the knockoff piston shaft is just pressed into place.  Ours is bolted into place (see blue arrows), so even if there were replacement shafts available for the knockoff compressor, there would be no way to put the new one on.  The oversized shaft and bolt attachment only cost a few cents more in the manufacturing process.  We were surprised that they would scrimp on something so inexpensive!

The next thing we did was open up the motor itself, and this picture almost speaks for itself.  The armature (pictured above) is the heart of the motor.  The more powerful the magnets, and the more copper windings, the more power the motor will generate.  The magnets in the Chinese knockoff were 18% smaller than the magnets in our compressor, but that was nothing compared to the difference in the copper windings.  The photo shows the difference between the tightly packed copper windings on our armature and the sparse, loosely wound armature in the knockoff.  When we unwound all the copper and from both armatures and weighed it, ours had 3 times the copper windings.  This explained why so many of the knockoff compressors burned out - the motor was way undersized for the job!