I bought this item due to its convenience and to avoid the race of putting air in all of the tires before the time expires on my three minute gas station air pump purchase (this can be a marathon with four cars). It works well and being able to set the proper pressure for the tire is great and eliminates the additional step of putting air in and using a pressure gauge to check the psi. This can be valuable in less than desirable weather. The only drawback is removing the valve from the tire without losing too much air - I add an extra half pound to compensate. A chuck for auto and bike tires would be useful. Black & Decker ASI500 12-Volt Cordless Air Station Inflator
Got my product today, read the instructions, charged it up, unplugged it, and turned it on. LCD displayed ERR. Went to B&D website for support, it told me that division was sold to Baccus Global.. went to their website, only units with jumper cables are listed.. not this unit or anything close to this unit.
So, I called Black and Decker. They first asked if I turned it on when it was plugged in. I don't think I did, but it would be a rather simple mistake. She acted like I might have killed with such a simple action. I said 'no'. She said that it can't be fixed and I had to take to the local authorized service center for a replacement. That service center was 25 miles out of my way. I called the service center, they told me they would replace my hours old product with a refurb.. and by they way, they don't stock them so it may take 4-8 weeks.
I fiddled with the compressor and re-read both the paper instructions and the instructions at blackanddecker.com. Note: they were different (whatever that means). The on-line version indicates you can inflate a tire without setting a max pressure whereas the printed manual didn't.
Regardless, I actually managed to get a non 'ERR' screen, and actually managed to get it in PSI instead of KpA. I inflated exactly one motorcycle tire, and it worked flawlessly. However, the battery, which did charge for 4-5 hours, was flashing that it was nearly dead after only one motorcycle tire.
I plugged it in (making sure the unit was turned off first so I didn't destroy it) and walked away. Unplugged it, turned it on to see how it was, etc. I got the infamous 'ERR' on the screen. I turned it off and on several times until finally I did not get the 'ERR' display. Cool... that's not that bad. A little inconvenient, but hey, I can turn it off an on 10 times. I hooked it up to a tire to get a reading and it read something like 700 KpA I Don't deal with metric KpA, so I tried to switch to PSI. No luck. I followed the instructions to the letter and hit the + and - keys at the same time. I tried hitting them many times, holding them down for a while.... no luck. Seems stuck in KPA forever.
I disconnected from the tire. Turned the unit off, walked away for a while. Unit is charged up, not plugged in, and not connected to a tire at this point. Turn it back on, and it is taking a pressure reading of my garage of 770 KpA.
Bottom line: This unit seems flaky (at best), and I'm at my wits end. There is a 1 year warranty on the product from B&D, but I have decided to return the product and go with a simpler battery inflator with less bells and whistles. I'd hate to think that if I hit the off/on button (not the compressor run button) while plugged in that I might freak this unit out. I just get the feeling that if I got a new unit, and it worked perfectly, that it would flake out after 13 months.
Thanks to Amazon for treating customers better than the manufacturers do. I have purchased hundreds of items at Amazon, and I believe this is my first return. After dealing with B&D, I don't know if I'll ever buy a B&D product again.
One more thing: If the air hose was 6 inches longer (like my old inflator), it would be much more useable (if you get one that's not flaky). To get to a motorcycle tire over exhaust pipes, I had to hold the inflator in the air as the cord would not allow the unit to sit on the ground.
Sorry for such a long and 'sob story' review. This has got to be my longest review yet.
I purchased this air compressor for my horse trailer tires since it got such good reviews here. Since the outlet cords are never long enough to reach the trailer, I have to use cordless. I charged it for at least 5 hours per instructions - the charger light turned green. On that charge I could only get 2 psi into one tire. I recharged and tried again with the same results. Basically the battery did not hold the charge for longer than a few seconds. I didn't want to deal with exchanging it for another one so I'm on the hunt for another one.
UPDATE: I contacted Black and Decker, and they are sending me a new unit. I will update this review once it has arrived and I test it out. - Portable 12v Air Compressor - Air Pump - Air Compressor - Black And Decker'
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