BLACK+DECKER ASI500 12-Volt Cordless Air Station Inflator

I got this item and within three minutes had figured out how to use it without the manual. Im not sure why the other people had such a hard time using it. I did look through the book to see if I had missed anything. I found that the only thing I missed was how to change the inflator from psi to two other measurement types. I will never need this feature but I know how to do it now. I did not find the manual to be hard to understand when I was looking through it. It is pretty straight foward and so is the inflator. The inflator seems well made and all the hoses and air hose tips fit snug on the device and dont seem like they will fall off while riding around with me. The display is very clear and nice and bright. I did find that the death grip others decribed was an issue. The unit goes 1.5 psi over what you set it for but you loose about 2.5 psi when you pop the lock off. I found you can keep the air lose to a min if you pop the lock lever up and press it passed 90 degrees. This locks the air in and then you can give it a quick tug to pop it off. I was using this on bike tires so the tires were moving when I would tug on it. I am sure this will be easier on my truck tires since they will not slide around when Im trying to disconnect it. UPDATE: I bought this Jan 11' its now coming up to Jan 14' I keep this in a box in the bed of my truck and it still works great. It works well on my motorcycle, tailor tires, and oversized truck tires. I have 33x12.5 E rated ties on my truck that prefer to run at 42 psi. This pump can top all four off when cold weather hits or can bring one back to drivable from flat. It has inflated and deflated pool toys with ease and I would buy it again. Nov 2016 Well it finally died. I needed to put some air in my motorcycle tire and it hooked up and read the pressure, it let me set the desired pressure, but when you press the button to start the pump the screen flashes and the pump turns off. Overall I am have been very impressed with this unit and will probably be getting another. It was used many times and was my go to pump for all my vehicles and toys. I think I got good use out of it.

Before buying this, I bought the Ryobi 18-Volt One Plus Cordless Green Inflator that caught my attention. Stupid me I though every part would be in it right? well no! Compressor costs $40. Then, you need to get a battery for it which costs $60. then you need to get a charger for it which was around $30. Then if you want to charge it on the go you need to buy car charger for around $40. Then if you need more juice from the battery you need to get the bigger pack or dual pack for around $100. I immediately returned it! (40+30+40)=$110 without battery. Then, I thought enough with these battery stuff and bought B&D 500 Watt AC/DC Portable Power Station /Jump-Starter /Compressor, but it was way too big and heavy, and as others suggested and which I had ignored because it looked like an all in one device, but the short inflator hose and its crappy tip that could have snapped right off if I wasn't careful. Ow and charge at home, charge every 30 days, charge before this and that. So you cannot really keep it in the car and assume it is gonna work when you need it. It does not have 12V charger either.. I fully charged it and next day I wanted to use, the battery level showed low. No, I did not actually used it all the way, so I am not sure if it was really low on battery as the level suggested.. Well enough bashing their other products.. Why did I specifically purchased this item? Well after looking around in HomeDepot, looking at other disappointing brands and frankly, did not want to spend hours on the web thru billions of brand and reviews, I wanted a compressor that I could plug into the 12V outlet in the car and that I could also charge or hook up to a household plug. I don't particularly care for inflating a boat or a ball, and decided to give up on other functionalities of power station. This one ASI500 is pretty good. lightweight, very easy to use, nice led screen showing the psi in large fonts and the battery status. just the right length of hose. well, could have been slightly longer, but very well wrapped around. Nice auto-shut off feature, comes very handy. The only disappointment was that I thought it was able to deflate the car tire as well. It only deflates thru the other hose and other outlet (for boat, ball, etc). This was not very clear on the B&D user manual on their website. (I might have not read it properly..) So I don't know why this ASI500 is not available on HomeDepot, but it seems to be the perfect blend. I highly recommend it! Purpose of use: AutoCross, so I wanted to deflate as well, but had to buy a small pressure gauge with pressure release valve...

UPDATE 8/26 The new unit arrived and was cross-shipped by Amazon so it was here in 2 days. The old unit had a defective digital readout. This readout worked as expected. When plugging it in, it gave an accurate readout within 2 psi. As it inflated, the readout kept accurate. I filled up 4 tires with the total of 55 psi, and the batter was blinking but still going. It recharged to full within 2 hours. Both units, though, drop 1 of the 3 battery bars as soon as you start using it on battery high volume. As long as it continues to air up 50 psi on one charge, that is fine for me. Also, the unit did not seem to strain or get too hot during the 55 psi inflation on the ATV. I changed the rating from 1 star to 5. It works as I expected and it is hard to find a rechargeable unit with these specs. 8/23 Review This unit had a lot of issues but I am giving it another shot because I like the rechargeable feature of it. I only used the air pump on my ATV, which was 36 PSI. The first issue is that the digital gauge did not register or stated a bogus number, altogether. I tried it on my van tires and it still did not read properly. When inflating the ATV, or the van tires, the digital number would either be inaccurate, stay at 0, or suddenly go to 0. Sometimes it would start going backwards like it was deflating, but I tested it and it was inflating. In all, the digital readout was totally useless, which means I could not use the automatic cutoff as well. A cheap digital air pressure gauge costs $10 or less and is pretty accurate.I expect this gauge to be as accurate. I did air up the ATV using the manual gauge. The battery died from a full charge before I could finish. One tire was real low, but the rest were at least 3/4 full. So, it died sooner than I would expect. If the replacement works well, I will revise this review.

I bought the ASI500 from Amazon in February of 2010. I liked the IDEA of the unit: battery powered and not needing to drag around a power cord. Seemed like a great idea. The unit works OK and is enough to pump up 8 (or more) tires that are just a little low (when topping off both of my cars). As others have pointed out, the method of entering the desired pressure into the LCD is quite cumbersome and I usually just press buttons until it finally works. Even the manual is not exactly clear on the process: sometimes the light comes on, sometimes it zeros, sometimes it counts up. In my opinion, Black & Decker is using the same 3 buttons for too many different functions. Add a couple of extra buttons B&D. Also note that the charging process is different from the running process. The battery has to be charged in order to run. Can't run off of the 120VAC transformer. But the unit actually works. So had I rated this a week ago, I would have given it 3.5 stars (I like the concept, but the implementation has a couple of minor issues; see my itemized summary below). However, the unit died this morning. I have the same "Err" problem that others have reported here in the reviews. I tried to use the ASI500 this morning, but "Err" is displayed on the LCD. So I plugged in the 120VAC wall transformer to charge it up. After awhile, the transformer said "Green". So I unplugged the transformer and tried to use the ASI500 again. But "Err" came up on the screen again. I power cycled, pushed buttons, pushed +/- together, etc., but to no avail. Also, in addition to displaying "Err" on the screen, it is also stuck in kPa mode (kilo Pascals). Pressing +/- simultaneously is supposed to change pressure units (psi, bar, kPa), but it doesn't in this case. I haven't used it that much and I certainly expected it to last more than 28 months. So I'm giving it 1 star. I'm going to look for an oil-less unit that has a tank. That has portability, and also avoids the battery issues, the complex button arrangement, and the LCD display. Black & Decker makes Dewalt, and I've always been happy with my Dewalt products. But perhaps this ASI500 is too complex for B&D to make reliably... ASI500 Positives: 1. battery powered unit makes it easy to use 2. for pressurized items (tires, soccer balls, etc.) and pumping (air mattresses) 3. 120VAC transformer charging 4. also has 12V DC car "cigarette style" plug ASI500 Negatives: 1. fails after 28 months 2. button layout/functionality is confusing 3. can't run off of the 120VAC transformer (for charging only) Scott

UPDATE/ REVISION: I felt compelled to add this update. I published my feedback after sending three emails to Black & Decker, which had remained unanswered. However; this morning, there was a brand new B&D tire inflator unit at my door step. No explanation, no letter. B&D just sent me a new version of this tire inflator. That's very nice of them to stand by their product like that. So, while I am still unhappy about the original unit for the reasons listed below, I have changed my rating to 3 stars, because of this gesture. ORIGINAL FEEDBACK: The unit looked and felt very good when I got it two years ago to have in my car just in case for a road trip in case of a flat tire. I used it maybe 5-6 times over two years to pump some air into an odd leaky tire. I really love the ergonomic design of the unit and its compactness. However; the battery has become weak - it doesn't keep charge for longer than a few minutes of work now. What's more, the unit doesn't work on through/inline power supply; in other words, if the battery is dead, it wouldn't work while plugged in into the wall power outlet or cigarette lighter of a car. This is a major design flaw and inconvenience! I have had to inflate four flat tires at once recently, and it took me almost two hours to do it - you charge the battery for a 20 min, inflate a tire, then wait 20 more minutes to re-charge and so on. The battery is inside the unit, so replacing it is not that easy or obvious. Online research suggested that these batteries cannot be purchased anywhere. Three emails to Black & Decker's Customer Support did not get any response other than "thank you for your inquiry, we will get back to you". Overall, very disappointed with this unit.

I really like this Air Station. The inflation gauge is very accurate on my unit, matching up with a digital tire gauge I also use. Very lightweight and recharging is easy. The battery doesn't seem to be huge based on its light weight, but fully charged it has enough power to take care of a dozen tires that are 3-5 pounds under inflated. Definitely need to be careful about overheating so wouldn't advise for heavy duty needs, but fine for typical home use. I use it monthly to make sure tires on 3 cars are kept at right pressure. Update 3/10/2013: I actually purchased my unit on 6/29/2011. Not sure where the Jan 2013 date came from. So far so good after 20 months of use. As I mentioned originally, I use on a light basis, once a month to add a few pounds of air to tires on 3 cars. I recharge only after the battery shows 1 bar or beeps and haven't had any of the problems people report with charging or error messages. Perhaps the build or battery quality has gone downhill, but I am still a happy customer. One additional comment - I'm not sure why people report how complicated this pump is to run. I seldom use the "automatic shut off" PSI setting and I've never had any problem figuring out how to run the thing. I hook it up, turn on the unit (click the round rocker button to the right side inflation option), and push the inflate button to start pumping. I watch the gauge and when it gets to 36 PSI, I turn the unit off. The few times I've used the auto shut-off option, it's worked fine. I don't know where the manual is but I read it once in June 2011 and STILL know how to set the max PSI if I need to use it!

This really has been a game changer for me, in terms of checking my tire pressures regularly and keeping them perfectly to spec. Being completely untethered, able to refill the tires any time and place, helps even more than I thought it would. This inflator turns out to be a great buy, with an accurate digital pressure gauge; yes, it is about 1 psi off, you will need to establish a fudge factor, but it is extremely consistent. Once you have that factor, you just aim about 1 psi above your target. The controls are very easy to use, including setting it to a pre-set pressure and allowing the inflator to bring the tire up to that set point, then shut off automatically. Furthermore, though the battery is low-tech lead acid, it seems to be even more capable than cited in other reviews -- I can inflate all 4 tires at least 4 or 5 times between charges -- and is not too heavy, either, the unit is easily carried by its handle with one hand, no strain. Cord and inflation tube storage (both high and low pressure inflation tubing) is very neatly done, and one very nice feature is that you can pre-set the pressure to higher values than other inflators; I'm not sure what the upper limit is, but it is over 40 psi. The ONLY con is that, strangely, it does not save the pre-set pressure; you can keep it going from one tire to another, but you will need to reset it each session. I wish they would have used a bit of flash memory to save that value, but it's a minor point. This unit also has a low pressure inflation option, with its own tubing, which I do not use, and it can operate off your vehicle's 12V lighter outlet, with its own built in adapter and cord, if you forget to keep it charged. It will not operate on AC directly, but it does almost everything else!

I bought this inflator mainly for inflating soccer balls. Our practice field is far from our school so I thought it would be good to have a portable one. The first time I tried to use it, the message "err" appeared on the digital display and it would not work. I thought I figured out the problem that it had to be on a very level surface to work even though the instruction book says nothing about it and doesn't even say anything about the error message being a possibility. Anyway, when I finally got it to work, I inflated 30 soccer balls in less than 30 minutes and another time inflated 30 more new soccer balls (both times, the balls were completely deflated). However, the next time I tried to inflate the balls that had lost air, the inflator would not work. I've tried for two days and NOTHING. This is very aggravating when you have a group of kids waiting to use the balls. If I can figure out the problem, it is a good pump!

Good product, but battery is dicy.It is gone weak almost dead in just a year of use. Do you have replacement battery. If so, kindly let me know.

I bought this inflator so I could keep my car tyres well inflated without having to go to fuel stations. It works great. Yes you should keep the manual but it is actually quite simple to use. You can first test the tyre pressure with this if you like, then disconnect and set the pressure you want. Then reconnect and it will inflate the tyre pressure to that amount. There are also different valve connections if you want to use it on other types of inflatables. It is not cheap but it works very well, especially useful if you are not nearby a plug when you want to do the inflation.

works very well thank you

Was tired of travelling to a gas station and feeding the machine change - works well for toys and bikes too

powerful enough to inflate a zodiac and also ford f150 aftermarket oversize mud tires. excellent little unit!