My advice is to build increasingly larger boxes around the boxes around the compressor until it is completely silent 🙃

In my experience there are 3 things you need to worry about to quieten down an air compressor. 1~ Air intake. Some machines have a very crude strainer for the air intake. This will allow a lot of valve noise out. My standard solution is to remove and modify the air intake to use an automotive paper element air filter. if you use a big enough element it will completely shut up the intake noise and with the added benefit of better filtration. 2~ Contact points. The type of floor plays a part as the action of the compressor vibrates the floor and frequently amplifies the noise. plenty of high density sponge rubber under the contact points, can use carpet pieces 2~4 layers. The tank can also amplify so if you are really fussy you could use some stick on sound deadener sheet. Make sure all guards are tight and not vibrating. 3~ Compressor itself. Some units are naturally nosier than others, as a rule of thumb direct drive piston is the noisiest, belt drive piston is next then come all the specialist types like diaphragm, vane or even screw. A rule of thumb is slower is quieter. If you do put a box around it it will get hotter, for air ducts into the box the easiest and best way is to get a couple of soft cheapo brooms and line the path with them. The broom bristles should intersect in the middle 1/3. That works quite well.

You could also remove the wheels and use rubber mounts, this significantly reduced the noise from my compressor before I built an enclosure for it. Better still I moved it outside.

Something to also consider is that, while the reduction in noise in dB is not sufficient, the sound characteristics are way less "sharp" with the insulating case. I don't know how much of a difference it really makes as I can only compare microphone recordings but even without a significant reduction in dB I would probably still prefer the case just because the sound is not as shouty and more basey.

Very important that you provide a way to drain the water from the tank. One way is to plumb a line directly to the drain fitting, then to a valve, so you can leave the compressor in it's comfy home. Don't forget to service the oil.

A trick you can do to optimize the design of this sort of sound isolator is to use a speaker enclosure design tool. Measure the noise that you've got and look at the lowest frequency. Then use the enclosure design program to design ports that are tuned to 1/2 of the lowest frequency that your device produces. Remember to set the program to use two ports because you need a separate one for intake and exhaust. This will give you the maximum noise attenuation for the shortest port length. However in this case I suspect most of the noise is either vibrations transmitted via the floor, or is sound coming through the sides and top. Take a look at how subwoofer boxes are braced. The side with the air intake is probably fine as the vent acts as bracing, but the other side and the door probably could be improved quite a bit. Google the kraken subwoofer build to see what I mean. Also consider using some mechanical isolation such as springs or foam rubber under the compressor and pay attention to draining the tank.

A 20 Db drop is pretty huge! Rather than a complicated enclosure though, just build a more normal closet and use thicker rockwool to surround it. Much simpler design, and probably just as effective if not better. The problem with the chamber design is that you are inadvertently tuning the sound from the compressor to fill a frequency range like a bass box, when your goal is just to kill it entirely. Building a much larger/simpler cabinet or closet space with thick wood and drywall, and 4-8" of dampening material will allow you to shove all of your loud items in 1 space together and will help a lot.

A design I created when building speaker cabinets is to bond two very different density woods together to help make them acoustically dead. You can imagine if you have two bits of wood with very different resonate frequencies, when they are mechanically bonded they the two bits of wood fight each other and there is basically zero sustain at the new resonate freq. Works really well for internal braces in a cabinet.

Short version to save a lot of work: Instead of building an enclosure for the entire compressor, much of the noise comes from the intake hole since that's right up against the piston. You can access that and add a muffler or make your own. There are loads of videos showing different approaches, but my low-tech method was to use a hole saw to drill out the grill to access the hole. The intake hole is threaded to add an air filter, so I matched the size (Mine was 3/8"; not sure if that's standard) and added a 4" long brass nipple that I could then just put about vinyl tubing over. I ran that out about 18". The tubing deadened the sound considerably, especially the high-frequency clatter that's especially irritating. I experimented with a homemade muffler on the end of the tubing, but the tubing alone reduced the noise by quite a bit. (Note: I'm using a 6 gal Harbor Freight compressor, so it was pretty noisy to start with. Better now, though not "quiet." While I wouldn't use it indoors, I'm sure I'm not annoying as many neighbors since it is much quieter.)

The parallel surfaces allow more reflection in the baffles. It would be better to use shapes that break up the sound reflection such as cones or pyramids.

Anything to eliminate your neighbours complaining or even knowing you've got it on is priceless plus it's good to have a quiet workshop

Hello, props to your design & craftsmanship, I can tell you have much skill working with wood and tools. As you mentioned quiet compressors are not cheap, this is true. I worked at two companies that built industrial compressors, Sullair and Sullivan Palatek here in the U.S.A.. My job was to assemble and wire up these machines. These machines ranged from aporox 5 hp all the way up to 125 hp. However the big difference was these were screw compressors. Instead of using pistons, these compressors use two screws “male & female” that mate with each other like two worm gears side by side. These screws spin at high speed in a special synthetic oil bath, the oil is then separated out of the compressed air using an oil separator tank. This separator is basically like a big air filter that removes the leftover oil from the air. The advantage of screw compressors is they run much quieter, and produce continuous air flow rather than in puffs. Their frequency of sound is much higher, but generally still considerably quieter than then piston type machines. However these screw type machines start of at around approx $4000 for a 5 hp and a 100 hp approx 30-$40K depending on options. All refrigerators and for home and commercial cooling compressors are also of this screw design for compressing of the refrigerant. Thanks for your video sir, I found it interesting.😎👍

If you want a quiet compressor in your shop, get a big one, the bigger belt driven units are much quieter on account of a bigger, slower piston, the little ones knock their pan in high revving a small piston hence the noise.

I used panels for suspended or "drop ceiling" panels or the neighbors generator room. Another aspect you may consider is phase cancellation and not having your box side parallel, as the reflect back and forth to each other. Straight and flat becomes a sounding board.

Just wanted to say i truly enjoyed your video, creative idea, pretty nice editing skills, very quick straight on point and started showing actual content real quick and didn't feel waste of time...well done!

Nice video. However, one thing I would like to recommend is to reroute the on/off switch to somewhere more convenient. If you were to get a broken hose or connection somewhere when you are not in the garage the compressor will keep running until it destroys itself from overheating. It's a good idea to turn off the compressor when you are not using it to avoid this risk.

Thanks for your interesting experiment. The reduction in noise is huge. This is because the decibel scale is not linear but logarithmic! By the way, there is still some room for improvement in my opinion, namely: 1. Sound is reduced not only by diffusion, but also by mass. It does not matter what the density of the material is. So if you use heavy material, thinner material will suffice. Covering with lead is an obvious choice then. This can be done on the inside or the outside. 2. There is also much to be gained in the kind of insulation material you use on the inside. If you use specially manufactured foam rubber with a wave pattern for sound insulation, the sound is additionally dampened. 3. Then there is impact sound. Sound that travels through solid material. This can be improved by making the box double-walled. Most of the damping occurs at the transition between solid material and still air. 4. Another improvement would be to isolate the compressor from the ground by removing the wheels and instead putting it on thick and soft rubber pads (or on air tires). Or you turn a couple of sturdy eyes in the ceiling of the box and hang the compressor from them with thick ring-shaped rubbers (as is often used with tent pegs. Anyway, good luck. It was an informative video!

More isolation inside and around the box will help, particularly from the floor. Use suitable sound deadening material, often dense material with less dense foam and an undulating suface. Also consider connecting the inlet and outlets to tubes going outside.

The sound level doubles for every 3 dB, so the new one is WAY more quiet than the old one. Also, the LwA=98 dB marked on the side of the compressor is decibels sound power level, not sound pressure level as you are measuring with your sound level meter. But the final conclusion in your video is spot on! I work with noise in industry and offshore. The first rule is: Buy silent! It'll always save money and give a better result.

Excellent video! Not only it appears to be a cleverly thought build, but also the writing/recording/editing is, I think, really well done. Thank you and congrats, new sub!

I've built several of these over the years before I bought an actual silent compressor, the type made from adapted refrigeration compressors, which are, well, no more noisy than your refrigerator. I would use actual carpet for the insulation and foam. They all worked pretty good, but yours is impressive.

Apart from honest this video has a great educational value to it because its unrestricted by ego and pride that's seen far to often in UKposts videos. He willingly saved his mistakes for others to see only it was up to us to figure it out. Your truly awesome thanx👍

I really appreciate all 4 side-by-side examples at the same volume at the end, and the honest assessment of the project!

It has probably been said elsewhere in the comments, but your "strange exhaust contraption" in my country is referred to as a "baffle". Fantastic job on the build. I like the design. It is really too bad it did not work as well as you wanted. :(

My Brother-In-Law put his large air compressor in an enclosed space outside his shop. He poured a concrete pad, ran electrical to it, and ran air lines from the compressor back to his shop. The enclosure has fiberglass in the walls to help deaden the noise. Works pretty well.

Well done! one way to make it even quieter, is to simply build a box around the box, with empty space between the outer and inner wall. Same principle as in sound studios, called room inside a room. Double walls, double doors, double glass window.

i really appreciate guys who do their sound test with a sound meter. Thank you!

The key is: HIGH PITCH NOISE! Lower high pitch noise and you will get a better quality work environment. That is what your video proves excellently. And if you want to decrease *lower pitched noise* (bass) just add foamy / ragged materials inside the walls of the enclosure box. That would have helped a lot. Thank you for this little but fantastic video. Greetings from Portugal.

I love the "should you build it? no there are better and cheaper options. But if you've done them, then you don't have a choice anymore!". I like the consideration of different use cases. Great project too!

Great video, absolutely hilarious watching the multiple attempts getting it up the stairs into your attic. Not sure why this is showing up in my feed after a year but a lot of people are commenting recently and you are replying which is awesome. I read a few of the comments and have the same ideas about some improvements, ie, removing the direct coupling to the box from the feet (I saw you had some padding inside, but removing the wheels and using something like a rubber engine mount, adding padding to the bottom of the box on the exterior, etc... Those are minor though compared to reducing the sound vs vibration. I think however though you have partially designed a slot loaded subwoofer or something similar with the zig zag chamber, I think using eggshell foam or any soundproofing foam would be better than the fabric unless that fabric was specifically made for sound. Also, if you used a breathable foam filter on the input and output of the box to do more noise attenuation but increased the airflow to make up for loss it should have made it even quieter. I don't know if I trust a manufacturer that builds both db meters and air compressors though.😆

I have had a similar experience. 5 years ago I had a 1200W old style compressor like your one, very loud and it does occupy quite some amount if real estate. I tried various things to make it quieter with little success. I then moved overseas and left it behind. The replacement compressor I chose is also similar to yours, 800W 2 stage diaphragm type with a 30L tank and super quiet and oil free design. A literal quantum leap from the old one and also way smaller and lighter, I can just take it where I need it and store it in a smaller space. I also use a much smaller diameter 10m hose that takes up 1/10 the space and weight of the old one and does not seem to affect performance. I can use the new one inside the house without noise problems. I could even use this to run an airbrush it's so quiet. Well worth the upgrade.

100% appreciate the brutal honesty of the result.

Outstanding video. One of the very best I've seen on YT. I'll definitely be watching more of your channel.

Holy, jesus I just scrolled down to say how well presented this was and how well explained it was and saw the subscriber count; this channel easily has the production value of a channel a million times it's size. 10/10 stuff, seriously just, god.

What a wonderful video! It will save many people from doing the same, and if they want it extra quiet, then they now have a way to do it thanks to you. I know that I will for sure buy a Biltema quiet compressor - I did not know they had one this quiet! You have a great sense of humor and a talent for making videos! Thank you for this.

You got to love this totally overengineered approach, well done!😍👍👍

I had the same idea, of enclosing my compressor, but I thought you were going to say "don't do it because it'll overheat and blow up!" lol. I'm happy to learn that you just don't think it's worth it but it'll be fine :) My idea is to build an entire room for it (my compressor/tank is large) and use double stud walls with rockwool insulation. If what I've read is accurate about double stud walls and I get at least an STC 50 room then I will reduce the decibels/noise by ~50 as well.

Make sure you provide a way to open the drain on the bottom to let out the water! You don't want the tank to rust and burst, it can be pretty violent when that happens.

Awesome video and awesome build! Thanks for the final thoughts, I was planning on building an enclosure for my compressor as well, but will rethink it because of you. Subscribed!

I sincerely appreciate your honest and informative approach! Subscribed!

Must admit you are right. Been trying a few different ways to dampen the sound of an old oil compressor but my simple quick solutions didn't have much effect and I could see i was still going to have a problem even if i went whole hog. The new silent compressors is way lower in the 1st place and not sure its worth quieting as its acceptable for my garage.

11:22 that’s how ALL “unboxing” videos should be!

Interesting video. I like the video editing, and the explanations. For me, the entertainment value was worth the watch. The information was just a plus. His workmanship was outstanding also.

Great, informative video. And you have the BEST audience input I have ever read, wow, the ideas, thorough explanations and additional ways to reduce noise with all the reasons of how and why.

that really seems like an incredible result!! A 20 decibel reduction is insane

love it you made a technically a 6th order band pass speaker box for your compressor that box could be quieter with a few mods

It looked to me like the vibration of the compressor was being transmitted through the box, so your design probably did a pretty good job of blocking the noise being transmitted through the air, but those vibrations being transmitted into the box itself make the outside of the box vibrate and emit it's own noise into your garage. You need to decouple the air compressor from the structure of the box. I would suggest something like a compressed rubber mat. It's pretty cheap and is used in sound and vibration dampening applications. I bought some years ago from a place that specialized in sound and vibration control materials, but you may be able to find it elsewhere too. The other thought I had is if you're going to put it away up in your attic space, why not also look at separating the actual compressor from the tank. The actual compressor is pretty small. Most of the space is being taken up by the tank and the trolley to wheel it around. If it's going to be fixed in place, you could probably take the compressor off of the tank and frame and just enclose that in the sound proof box, then run lines to connect it to the tank and the rest of your system. That would allow you to either build a smaller box, or add more dampening material or baffles to the box.

Yo, props to the time sequence audio and visual edit. Best one I've seen to date in a DIY style video, very funky fresh.

"You need to drain the tank, it will rust and fail eventually!" I agree, but I never drained my work compressor and it works 1000 times harder than my house compressor. The things that failed on all the compressors that I ever owned wasn't tanks, was the compressor from lack of oil (changes or "sealed no oil" compressors). I had a tank last 3 compressors, the last 2 not same brand and used, over 15 years by the sea. So clearly ideal environment for rust and humidity...

I have an important question.......how do you paint without getting at least a little paint on your clothes? Also, if the sound isolation enclosure reduces the noise too much then you could play a recording of the compressor on your cell phone to emulate a busy industrious work shop. You could inform visitors that you actually shrunk the compressor to fit into the cell phone case. Thank you for taking the time to produce and share this really neat project.

Great video and believe it or not you got better results than you thought, 85dB to 70 dB is achieving a 5.6x reduction ! The silent compressor is only half the capacity so is not at all comparable ? Buy a screw compressor that is quieter than a piston type but the cost is was more. Bang for your buck with a home build from surplus material will be great value for most guys. Remove the plastic wheels and rubber mount the compressor inside the box to minimise vibration transfer will help some more. Your car air cleaner's design is to cut intake noise, try the same on the compressor and get some auto sound deadening sheet stuck to the compressor tank as well.

I've seen this done with generators used at events, (yes, they have very quiet ones, but very expensive). They built a box with baffles and used fiberglass, which is not a good sound killer, then they used a squirrel cage fan, which was small, quiet and blew a lot of air into the box to keep it from overheating. It was not silent, but it drastically reduced the noise. I also watched a demonstration where they took a 55 gallon drum, lined it with fiberglass, then put a old school bell in it, put the lid on and it only slightly muffled the sound, then they used the blown-in insulation made with shredded paper, and it made a huge difference in the reduction of sound. This was to show the difference of how much quieter your house could be using a different insulation in the attic.

Excellent video, well thought out. Entertaining and informative.

Thank you very much for your project information. Very good solution.

Thank you for the effort and demonstration. My old air compressor is one of the high rpm oil free very loud ones. It's 30 years old and I'm becoming afraid that the tank is unsafe so it's time to get a replacement. When I had my workshop built I made provisions to put the compressor in a storeroom in the adjacent garage. Even though there is an insulated wall separating the shop and the garage you convinced me to buy a "silent" compressor.

Thank you very much Ki for sharing this information, it is very helpful to me now, since I'm soon to build for both a very noisy outdoor generator and a very noisy air compressor sound attenuating boxes. Hopefully, I'll get this done before my neighbors start taking drastic measures. I liked the baffle systems for both intake and exhaust ports that you designed. Again. thank you for all the work you put into this video.

You had mentioned that the new compressor, although significantly quieter, is also rated for much less capacity. Considering that the decibel scale is logarithmic, the sound reduction your enclosure had offered is very impressive. Yes, the old compressor may still have been loud inside the enclosure. If you have air tools that require that capacity then the enclosure can make it far more comfortable in the shop. In addition, an enclosure such as what you had constructed can be easily modified to use a readily available (and cheap) home heating air filter that would offer vastly greater particulate filtration and exponentially more surface area for filtration than the typical air filters used for shop compressors. If you are doing a lot of sanding and/ or grinding this particulate filtration will be appreciated by the compressor in the long run.

VERY GOOD, perfect project! I just lost an extremely silent Dental Compressor due to lifespan and in this update I bought a similar to the one in the video but it really is humanly impossible to use it in my home workshop, even if it is located outside my home. Thanks for sharing! PS: This tutorial was so splendid, that we even forgot -as viewers- how the film direction, the pre-production of the actual setting, the photography, the lighting, the angles and shots of the scenes, the speechs, as well as the entire post-production, refined and very didactic in the final product, not to mention the FX and the subliminal humor always present, with an EPIC ending, congratulations!

Fantastic work ! You've totally mastered the subject and saved me a ton of time trying to do the same. THANK YOU I'll go for the silent compressor, placed away in a corner with a few noise insulation panels on the walls and floor but no enclosure.

Excellent video. We’ve gone down the road in silencing a compressor. Here, we liked the style of the cinematography, the BEST of any such UKposts presentations… humorous and self-effacing. Great. Let’s face it, shop workers can’t avoid getting old, but we can avoid being old and deaf [due to occupational noise exposure]. We have built two compressor enclosure boxes outside our shops, and using many of the same principles used here. We didn’t want to annoy the neighbors when doing shop work on the weekends. Since we could build our boxes outside, we used simple masonry block [CMUs] walls [basically glued together] for the basic enclosure: the higher the mass, the lower the acoustic transmission through the structure. We also used baffles just like shown, on the input and output. Air goes around corners but sound wants to travel straight unless reflected. Though, we took advantage of using acoustic tile for baffles rather than solid material. We disagreed somewhat with the conclusion: we thought the author’s effort was worth it. Of course, one can always buy another quieter compressor, but there is the satisfaction of silencing one that is noisy! A final reduction to 35dB is really good from what we think was an initial 85dB: that’s like from listening to a lawn mower, to less than a library. Congratulations!

Haha, this is so well done Hestad 👏🏻 The details in the sfx when trying to pull it up the stairs. Amazing stuff, I love this kinda "good old neighbour" vibe (the old animated series on tv) So much to learn from this video. The angles, the storytelling with the camera, yes. really well done 🔥

Interesting video, thanks for posting. One question for you: Have you found the increase in ambient temperature around the compressor to be causing any issues?

Excellent and detailed work, very well explained.

A great video demonstrating the logarithmic way decibels work.

This guys episodes are some magic school bus shit. Love it.

I really enjoyed your video. But, note that air compressors in general have very poor efficiency and that means there is a lot of heat procuced inside the small volume of the enclosure. I would guess like 80% of the installed power is lost. So a lot of cooling air must be circulated around the compressor at all times. If the temperature inside the enclosure rises the efficiency of the compressor will be even worse.

my favourite part about home shops is the bespoke elements people add to them; your silent compressor box is awesome for that reason alone

I put mine in a plastic container on top of a stack of campaign signs. I needed to keep it from vibrating into the floor of my upstairs shop. Your solution is light-years more brilliant and sophisticated. I appreciate those who appreciate quietude, as I. All the best.

Very good ideas! One tip I would give you is to add a fan at the exhaust end of the box. Therefore it creates a low pressure inside the box which the intake fan blows in and the air will be sucked out much better. Edit: hopefully that makes sense. 🙂

My compressor isn't exactly silent, but I do have ear plugs. I run a small, old crapman oil-less with plans to upgrade to something substantially better. I used to have a 60 gallon Sanborn oil comp which was really quiet, but youth and alcohol made sure I sold it prematurely years ago.. I could build most any box i wanted being I own my own cabinet shop, but I also own several machines that are every bit if not noisier than the AC so enclosing the AC would be...how can I say,...redundant? Table saw, planer, joiner, etc.. You get the gist..Try using a planer! You better wear ear protection with one of those and to build an enclosure for it would mean an entirely new shop inside my shop after I made the original shop twice as big..LOL I'm too poor and at 62 I've survived all these years in a noisy environment with no appreciable hearing loss. Nice job though..

first video I have seen of yours and I just have to say how much I appreciate the funky jams brother

Your advice at the end sent me out for a new compressor. THANKS!

I'm hoping I can get my compressor down to a comfortable level. I live in a retirement community with strict anti noise regulations in Florida. I'm going to build the box and also install a better muffler..That should also help . Nice Honda motorcycle btw.. Those things are classic.

My compressor is quite old. There are several youtube videos available on rusty tanks exploding that have caused significant damage to the garage, including buckling the doors. Putting it in a box seems like it might add to the scrapnel effect if something goes wrong. My next move woiuld be to put it under a cover outside. Just a thought. Thanks for doing the research.

Nice job, if not a bit of overkill. Some of it was in the wrong direction, however. There are a few keys to sound deadening: 1. The first principle of sound deadening is mass. The greater the mass of the enclosure, the less it vibrates. Also, higher mass minimizes energy transfer between the noisy object and the enclosure. Higher mass has a lower resonant frequency, and is more likely to turn the sound energy into heat rather than conducting it. See #4 2. Second is vibration isolation. Dense foam or rubber pads under the compressor between it and the enclosure will help immensely. Also between the enclosure and the structure it sits on to prevent vibrating the whole building. Again, see #4 3. Absorption. You have done a pretty good job in that regard, with the baffles and so on, but you need a thicker and denser material than that rag cloth for better absorption. High density closed cell foam, carpet underlay, or automotive audio sound deadening mat would work way better. Higher density materials are better than light ones for the low frequency sounds of the compressor. Light materials work better for high frequency sounds, the lower the frequency the higher density needed. 4. Conduction: Decoupling of the panels used to make the box. Gluing a dense foam sheet material between two sheets of MDF makes a great sound deadening panel. Use this sandwich as your external box material, and as a "pad" to mount the compressor on inside the box. Also, a panel between the box and the floor. 5. Sealing: In order to prevent air leaving the enclosure from carrying sound waves with it, the enclosure should be basically airtight. This is not really possible in your situation, as you need to remove built up heat. Your baffle arrangement is the next best thing. See #3 As several other people mentioned, the compressor air intake is a major source of noise. It is a direct pipe to the piston and valves. Adding a coaxial tubular muffler in series with the intake pipe (very similar in construction to an automotive muffler ) will make a huge difference. Just a piece of PVC pipe stuffed with rolled up carpet underlay (dense) and some adapters will work wonders. Plumbing the air inlet outside the building will also plumb the noise outside as well. Cooler incoming air will result in less heat buildup too. Sucking hot air from inside the box is not really a good idea. Also mentioned by others, you definitely need a water drain accessible on the outside of the box. There are automatic drains which are a simple solenoid valve. When you power on the compressor, it closes the valve and allows pressure buildup, when you turn off the mains switch it opens and drains water through a hose to a suitable drain or receptacle. Finally, keep a close eye on the heat buildup in the enclosure. Your small fan may not provide enough airflow to keep the box cool under high duty cycle use. You risk early demise of the motor and bearings, not to mention the possibility of starting a fire.

Very interesting, there's actually a loudspeker internal design named "labyrinth" that very much resembles your contraption but there the idea is that it actually amplifies the sound instead of dampening it... curious to see if it works

in my mind the drop in volume of noise from the first compressor was the difference between it being outside in the open air compared to it being in a neighbours house the difference in the second one was not as dramatic, but since it started off so much quieter it is still very impressive

That was a great noise reduction box, i made one for a water pump and it makes a huge difference in the sound but it wasnt half as good as this box.

This guy built a 16th order tripple iso clamshell reverse anti bandpass air compressor enclosure. Im actually impressed with his box building skills

Tip. If you have to haul something heavy like that up or down, put a pulley on the box, anchor one end of your rope to the wall or the steel leg of the bench. Now when you pull on the rope you have 2:1 mechanical advantage -- you pull twice as much rope but only half the weight. Also if you can run the rope you are pulling on around the other steel leg, if you need to stop you just bend the rope against the leg and it stops - you won't have to hold all that weight. Those baffles shouldn't be made the chip board, that's a hard surface. They don't need to be structural, so just use foam, egg crate sound proofing foam is best. Now you just have to make sure if you use it a lot it doesn't overheat. One way to sound proof a compressor outdoors is to just build a surround and let the noise go straight up.

I did the same thing for a generator I have. It works great in the sense that the box I made significantly reduces noise. The problem is that the unit will overheat after about 10 minutes and shut down. I went through a bunch of ideas how to exhaust the heat from the motor that does not escape through the muffler but can’t quite figure it out. The engine heat trapped in the box is dangerous for your equipment be advised

Thank you for such a good video! Very good explanations and effort to make this video

This is definitely something I will look at making. I have an older and very reliable compressor that can keep up with the requirements of spray painting and contact adhesive spraying. I haven't found a smaller or quieter unit that can constantly put out the CFM I need. But my machine is noisy as hell. I have access to lots of board off cuts and carpet, so I am probably going to make mine almost double layered, instead of using the thicker foam insulation. and I may very well need more fans to get the air into the unit too. Thank you for the inspiration and ideas.

17°c is around low 60s in °f. That's a good temp, but a little chilly with a breeze. I like the baffles you did on the box same thing on a smaller size scale with more paths is in a car muffler. However it's looking a lot like a speaker box so far to me.

Great idea, another idea, the biggest part of your box is the tank, so if you separate the compressor from the tank, the compressor box could be in your attic and the tank in your workshop or somewhere else, all connected with hoses Thanks ! Leon

What a great video. I have a number of compressors around my shop, and they are all very noisy. So I decided to go to Aldi to buy a couple of silent units. What a difference! But, I have just bought a new and very large compressor for my sandblasting cabinet. I have no choice but to build a cabinet for it. I will build something similar to your design. 🖐️ Australia.

New to your channel and just subscribed. That compressor box is better built than most peoples homes! Nice job

I liked your build and thought process. I think a lot of the benefit you had was simply from distance. For my existing “pancake” style compressor, I would probably look at moving the moving parts further away, and leaving the tank in the shop. Ideally, I’d like a larger tank too.

They sell anti vibration pads for appliances which could take this the rest of the way and make it even quieter. Because most of the sound you're left with now is low frequency sound from the compressor shaking and transmitting through the floor and into the walls of the box by putting pads under the compressor it should make a noticeable difference. I think they sell these for washing machines and should be pretty cheap.

I used an old used shipping crate lined with recycled egg crate style foam. Worked like a charm. You can stand next to the crate and barely hear the compressor running.

Well done, thank you for sharing.

Something else that I don't think people necessarily realize, moving up to a larger oil bath belt drive compressor has big impact on the sound. It's incredible how much quieter my big 5hp unit is compared to my old small oil less direct drive.

Maybe with a simple foam pad between the box and the floor, it will keep the vibrations from transmitting the floor and make it more quiet :) Maybe a yoga mat will do~

KI, I love your design, very impressive. I did buy a quiet compress from California Air, but I also still have a small dual 'hot dog' style compress. It's portable, good for job site nail gun needs, etc. I didn't want to use the hot dog unit in my small shop because it's so loud. However I love your solution and now you have me thinking (which in my case can be trouble a brewing) but regardless, I may find building a sound enclosure with inlet and outlet baffles significantly reduces the loud screaming to a more tolerable level. Now I need to purchase a sound level meter. I being a guitar player didn't want one because it would only confirm what neighbors down the street and around the corner complained of that I'm too loud. I'll get one and of course, exclude it for use of impuning my guitar volume as the cause for the degeneration of today's youth. Thank you for your time creating this Ki, Blessings, Bill Bores SteelBender Innovations Cypress, TX.

This is a good case of going overboard. But a good blueprint for real problems like this. Thank you.

Great video, but one major factor you haven't account for is in the design. So first up is the fact it is single walled and the material is particleboard, which is not as dense. MDF would be a better option, especially getting thicker sheets and making sure the corners are well sealed. Doing this with a double walled box will be a big improvement. Of course this adds to the cost and time to build it - whether this is worth it is subjective. If you have no option to move the compressor or to get a different one then the price is not an issue. The airflow path is also very open. Many designs i've looked at use small channels and more of them, as well as lining the entirely inside of the channel with foam. It would be great to see you try some new designs in the future, putting the same compressor in each to see how they perform.

Notice how much quieter without end door on. You might want to put this INSIDE another box with rock wool insulation or air between NO CONTACT Also put each box on neoprene at least 1/4 inch thick. Thicker insulaton in baffles might well help too, like 1 inch rock wool / sound rated insualtion board with cleanable surface. These baffle surfaces will pack up with dust.

Very impressive. I fully expected that you were cautioning against building an enclosure because of the thermals, very glad that you added a thermometer so that you can make sure your compressor doesn't overheat.

I'm an audio engineer with a decent background in acoustics. It seemed like much of the sound was from vibrating the floor of the enclosure which transferred into the floor of the room and thus the air. I'd suggest reducing sympathetic resonance with a rubber or mastic flooring inside the enclosure. It won't make a huge difference, but it's an easy add and will attenuate a few more dB, and reduce vibration in your structure. Aloha!

Cool project. You might want to add a smart switch so you can turn it on with google home or Alexa