A
piston compressor for compressing a gas, which can be separated from a drive unit by means of a
coupling (3), comprising an
inlet valve (21) arranged between an inlet line (22) for gas to be compressed and a compression chamber (17) of the
piston compressor (10), and an outlet valve (26) arranged between the compression chamber (17) of the
piston compressor (10) and an outlet line (27) for compressed gas, characterized in that the piston compressor (10) has a venting device (31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 39) through which compressed gas, which flows back into the compression chamber (17) from the outlet line (27) during the separation of the piston compressor (10) from the drive unit, can be discharged from the compression chamber (17), wherein the compressed gas is removed from the compression chamber (17) can be discharged into an area with
ambient pressure which is independent of the environment itself,a gas space (22, 24) connected to the inlet
system (23) or the interior of the
crankcase (16), wherein a permanently open vent channel (34, 35, 36, 39) forms the venting device, wherein at least one end of the vent channel (34, 35, 36, 39) is arranged in the valve plate (20), wherein the vent channel has such a small cross-section that pressure
equalization of the compression chamber 17 with the area at
ambient pressure takes place through the vent channel such that the gas volume flow that can be discharged from the compression chamber during a separation of the compressor from the drive device is at least as large as the gas volume flow of compressed gas from the outlet line that returned to the compression chamber during this period.However, the throttling effect of the small cross-section of the venting channel limits the volume flow of air discharged through the venting channel into the area of
ambient pressure during a compression
stroke.