How to Know When Your Industrial Air Compressor Needs Servicing
Even
the sturdiest of equipment requires servicing, whether it’s routinely by law and regulation, when outside forces cause damage, or when the
ravages of use slowly build up over time.
Knowing the telltale signs of wear and tear, understanding your product’s specifications and usability guidelines, and knowing when it’s
prudent to call in repairs are skills that could save you a lot of time, effort, and money in the long term.
Service early
Ultimately, it’s always going to be a better idea to call in a service than it is to call in for repairs, especially for often core pieces
of machinery such as air compressors that serve a multitude of applications.
By servicing early, you’re going to be gaining a lot of benefits over leaving a piece of machinery out until it breaks, or until it’s
necessitated servicing time occurs.
Firstly, by calling in service when you spot signs rather than when you need it immediately, you’ll be able to tailor the timeline of
repairs to suit you. Repair during times when you’ll need the equipment, rather than during times of high use, to maximise efficiency and
lower possible downtime.
Secondly, you prevent the risk of total plant shutdown while you wait for core machinery to be repaired. A critical machine going offline
can be a disastrous occurrence, especially during high workloads or in industries with strict, competitive deadlines to beat.
Thirdly, air compressors in particular work off efficiency. While a air compressor may be ‘working’ effectively, leaks and other routine
maintenance-fixable things can use up 20-30% of your air flow, with an average of 19% across all tested. Over the first ten years
of use, an air compressor’s initial capital cost and maintenance cost make up 18% and 7% of total expenditure, while energy accounts for a
gigantic 73%.
By servicing early, you’ll cut down leaks that can reach as high as 40-50% loss, and reduce your overall expenditure down significantly. The
better maintained, the larger reduction (for 7% average costs) you’ll get your leakage (0.2-0.3 of 72% energy costs).
Knowing the signs
First - Check your manuals
Firstly, it’s important to understand your air compressor. Check how long it recommends before servicing, as most petroleum-based
compressors need changing every 500 hours or so, and synthetics around 2,000.
Alongside this, check your console regularly to see if any errors or issues pop up. This might sound simple, but it’s amazing how often such
simple issues are overlooked.
It won’t matter how telltale the signs are if you don’t know the equipment you’re dealing with, or aren’t even checking your basic inbuilt
warning signs often.
Excess moisture
Whenever an air compressor is running, it accumulates moisture that must be in some way reduced. If your compressor is producing excess
condensation, it may be experiencing a fault in the automatic drain system.
Loud noises
Our compressors come with a sealed, in-built noise reduction chamber. If your compressor is
beginning to make either:
Too much noise for usability standards
Significantly more noise than usual
An extremely inconsistent noise level or
Any rattling or similar noises
Then you may either have a broken component rattling around, or a fault in the motor.
Frequent tripping breakers
Equipment tripping breakers can signify a multitude of things. Your first response should be to immediately check the electrical circuit
powering the compressor, but if there’s no fault there and the system continues to trip breakers or blow fuses, you should have a serviceman
or woman come immediately.
High loss of pressure, or low overall air pressure
If your compressor is reporting no air pressure, you more than likely have a reporting problem (unless you truly do have zero). Simply
having low air pressure is a mark of either reporting issues, wear and tear on internal or external parts, or sometimes a simple technical
issue.
Sometimes this can be easily fixed, but if there is no significant and easy to spot issue at hand, you’ll be racking up a huge amounts of
losses in energy costs to keep it running without one.
On/off unresponsive
If you can’t get the air compressor working in the first place, odds are you’re not going to be able to get a good read on what’s wrong with
it. The first thing to do is check the circuit and any obvious things, but again: if it’s not obvious, it might be time for a repair job.
Call
an expert
If you’re experiencing any of these signs with your industrial air compressor, or just want to make sure that you're able to get the most
efficient air compression possible, get in touch with us.
Who we are and how Ash Air can help your business!
Ash Air has been around in New Zealand since 1979, and we’ve grown into a nationwide company with international support and a
reputation for quality and reliability.We look after all things compressed air for your business!
Reciprocating, Screw, air compressors
Vacuum pumps
Nitrogen
An extensive line of air treatment components
Ash Air's range of Chicago Pneumatic, Alup, Pneumatech, and Quincy compressors are used extensively around the world in industries
ranging from oil and gas to food, automotive and farming, and we bring you these world class compressors here in the land of the long white
cloud.Our technicians are compressed air equipment experts and are dedicated to addressing customer needs. Supported by a 13 locations
nationwide, Ash Air offers one of the widest selections of compressed air equipment and parts available today in New Zealand.
Reliability and Efficiency
With Ash Air compressors, you can count on reliability and high performance for even the most demanding applications. We focus our
efforts on the following:
Air compressors come in many types, rotary screw, piston, scroll, reciprocating, some are oil-free and other air compressors require oil
lubrication. Like many businesses, an efficient air compressor is at the heart of their operations. So, which type of compressor should you
choose? What makes a compressor, like a rotary screw, unique? Here are some clear cut benefits of equipping your business with a rotary
screw compressor.
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In the world of compressors, there are often significant and unutilized energy-saving possibilities including energy recovery, pressure
reduction, leakage reduction and optimization of operations through correct choice of a control and regulation system as well as the choice
of compressor size.We are going to take a look at some of the opportunities for minimizing the compressor’s operating costs.
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Many installations that produce compressed air offer significant and frequently unutilized energy
saving possibilities in
the form of waste energy recovery. In large industries, energy costs can amount to 80% of the total cost of compressed
air production.
However, a lot of this energy can be recovered, which in turn will save you a lot of money.
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Liquid water in compressed-air systems can lead to rusted equipment and unresponsive controls. Anyone who uses compressed air will, at some
point, find liquid water in the air distribution system. This can be anything from a nuisance to a serious problem, depending on the
application. If water might corrode equipment or introduce bacteria, removing it is critical.
Read More…
Liquid water in compressed-air systems can lead to rusted equipment and unresponsive controls. Anyone who uses compressed air will, at some
point, find liquid water in the air distribution system. This can be anything from a nuisance to a serious problem, depending on the
application. If water might corrode equipment or introduce bacteria, removing it is critical.
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Whenever most people think about a compressor, they probably have a piston compressor in mind. You might already know there are two basic
principles of air compression. One of those is the principle of displacement compression. There are a lot of compressor types that classify
as a displacement compressor. The piston compressor is one of them, oil-lubricated or oil-free.
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Once you have the size and type of
compressor figured out, one last question remains, should I go with an oil lubricated or oil-free air compressor. To not overcomplicate the
answer, your choice should be based on the application and process that the compressed air will be utilized in.
Read More…
Like all compressor types, rotary screw models do require periodic maintenance. Thanks to the simplicity of the internal components,
maintenance is relatively easy on most rotary air compressors. As long as you stick to a rotary screw compressor maintenance schedule, you
will likely be rewarded with many, many years of optimal productivity from your machine.
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Did you know, the biggest part of the air we breathe is nitrogen? Everyone needs oxygen to survive, however air is made up of 78% nitrogen,
only 21% oxygen and tiny amounts of other gases. Although, the human body does not use this nitrogen, it is very helpful in various
industrial applications. There is an unlimited source of nitrogen readily available, allowing you to achieve needed purity at a fraction of
your current annual nitrogen cost.
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If you notice that your compressor is getting hot and bothered, there may be heating issues affecting your air compressors performance. Did
you know that an overheating compressor is top of the pops for being the most common cause of compressor failure.
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A rotary-screw compressor is an air compressor that uses a rotary-type positive-displacement mechanism, typically used replace piston
compressors where large volumes of high-pressure air are needed, either for large industrial applications or to operate high-power air
tools.
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Have a look around and what do you see? What are you thinking about? Your next holiday to Queenstown maybe? You might go snowboarding with
the kids or have some alone time at the Day Spa. Whatever holiday you choose, compressed air is involved in some way, without you even
realising it!
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There are crucial reasons why you should service and maintain your compressor regularly, with the most common issues being piston failure
caused by wear of components, increased friction, corrosion, reduced cooling, overheating bearings and components, clogging of air filters.
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Our passion for energy efficiency and cost saving derives from the concern for our children’s future. Analysing the efficiency of your
system is a brilliant way to start saving.
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Compressed air is all around us, from the air in a balloon to pumping up tires on your bicycle. In this article we will explain what
compressed air is and how it is created. Whether you know it or not, compressed air is involved in every aspect of our lives, from the
balloons at your birthday party to the air in the tires of our cars and bicycles. It was probably even used when making the phone, tablet or
computer you’re viewing this on.
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One of the biggest challenges is to correctly size your new air compressor. Similarly to everything else, new compressors available on the
market are more efficient and employ better technology, therefore you have to understand the application and usage to size the machine
correctly. Choosing the wrong air compressor for your facility can lead to problems with production and or increased costs due to wasted
energy.
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Once you have the size of the air compressor figured out, the
next thing to do is to decide on the type of compresor you will need for your application - piston, rotary screw compressor etc. Let us take
a look at two of the most popular options available. When choosing the right type of compressor, you should ask yourself the following
questions:
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Which vacuum pump do I need? - this is one of the most frequent questions we receive and this is understandable, because there are number
of technologies which can provide the same vacuum level and pumping speed. Here is quick advice on how to choose the best vacuum pump for
your needs.
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You may be asking, why does my air compressor start, then stop? Allow us to take the guessing out of it. We understand your pain. We know
that a compressor problem can quickly result in hours (if not days) of production downtime and loss of revenue. When your compressor
continuously shuts off from on, we refer that as a short cycle. There are a few reasons that a short cycle may be happening with your
compressor.
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Air compressor leaks are very common in all applications, but can be very costly and difficult to find. On average, 20-30% of the compressed
air used in a manufacturing plant is wasted as leaked air. Finding and fixing these leaks can save your business thousands of wasted dollars
a year.
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When installing a compressed air system into a business, people often look to PVC piping as an option to build a piping system because it is
cheap, versatile and easy to install. However, using PVC pipe in any compressed air application is extremely dangerous and NOT recommended
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Changing the oil and oil filters on your compressor is one of the most common routine maintenance tasks to perform to keep your compressor
running efficiently. After you remove your old oil and oil filter, you may find yourself wondering, “Where do I dispose of these?”, or “Can I
just throw them in the trash?”. Because oil is toxic and a pollutant, disposing of your old oil and filters is not as simple as just tossing
them in the trash.
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Even
the sturdiest of equipment requires servicing, whether it’s routinely by law and regulation, when outside forces cause damage, or when the
ravages of use slowly build up over time.
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Call
an expert
